Hey Reader,

Here's a dirty little secret: You don't need a full-time SEO expert.

Unless you're a huge company with an enormous website, a full-time, in-house SEO expert is probably a waste of money. 💸

Especially if you have in-house content creators.

There's a better way for small and medium businesses to harness the power of search without spending a million zillion dollars.

Here's what I recommend:

1. Get an SEO expert in at the start

You need an SEO and content marketing expert if you're just starting out on your SEO journey, or you aren't happy with your current strategy, or you need to make a major adjustment.

When I first come in with a new client, I typically focus on three critical areas:

• ​Technical SEO audits: Identifying and fixing technical issues that could be holding your site back in search rankings. This includes page speed optimization, mobile-friendliness, schema markup, and crawlability issues.
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• ​Comprehensive content strategy: Developing keyword research, content gaps analysis, and a roadmap for what content needs to be created or optimized. This gives your team direction for months to come. (ICYMI here's my DIY content strategy guide.)
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• ​Essential & quick-win content creation: Creating cornerstone content pieces that target your most valuable keywords and establish your site's authority.

2. Keep that SEO expert nearby

If you've got an in-house team of content creators, then I usually won't recommend a long-term retainer past the first couple of months. I should have given you all the tools to keep things running in-house.

However, you might need an ad hoc SEO expert on hand for:

• Major website migrations or redesigns
• Algorithm update recovery
• Quarterly performance reviews and strategy adjustments
• Content audits when you're ready to refresh older material
• Troubleshooting unexpected traffic drops
• Training new team members who join after the initial training

👆 For these, I typically charge low monthly retainer fees or one-off fees, so clients can keep their margins slim.

3. Give your in-house team SEO and content training​

This is where the real magic happens. Whether I'm teaching your entire content team or working one-on-one with your content manager, the goal is to transfer knowledge that empowers your team to create search-optimized content independently.

My training programs typically include:

• Customized SEO workshops tailored to your industry and team's experience level
• Hands-on exercises with your actual content and keywords
• Templates and frameworks your team can use moving forward
• Access to my private resources library
• Follow-up support to answer questions as they implement what they've learned

This approach gives you the best of both worlds: expert strategy and implementation at critical moments, with the day-to-day execution handled by your in-house team who already knows your brand voice and audience.

Plus no long-term retainers that grow stale and drain your budget.

Do you have questions about making this system work for your team? Just hit reply – my inbox is always open.

That's all for now on the SEO front, but I have a quick announcement for anyone who cares about the freelance life...

Are you a freelancer?

Then you should know I'm speaking at the Growth Without Burnout Summit (May 6-9), which is set to be the best freelancing virtual summit ever conceived. I'm really not exaggerating.

It's completely free to attend, and jam-packed with some of the brightest minds in the freelancing world (including me, of course).

In my talk, I'll be giving all my hot takes on all the different pricing structures freelancers can use, and I'm also giving away a lot of free goodies that you can't get anywhere else. 👀

More details and free registration right here:

Talk soon,

Liam