When you are combining the resources of an external team with those of your in-house SEO team, there is a need to determine who does what, who decides what is to be done, and so on. It is best to have this all clearly defined up front, or else there will be conflicts and confusion, which will slow down the process of increasing your organic traffic.

If we look first at the process of defining who does what, there are a few considerations, such as the following:

All of these considerations factor into the overall division of labor between your contracted team and your internal team.

You also need to be clear about who is making the decisions and who is communicating those decisions to the outside SEO consultant. He will need guidance and direction on what you are looking to accomplish. Although you hopefully defined this in detail up front, it does change over time, so updating that guidance on a regular basis is important. The outside consultant may not sit in your offices all day long, so more effort is required to communicate changes in plans to them than to your internal team.

In addition, the outsourced SEO consultant will have questions and will make recommendations, and he needs to know who to pass these on to and who will give him any relevant decisions that are made or any related updates. A clear communication channel is critical to success.