Today I am writing about why people search for SEO USA. On the surface, this may seem like a boring topic, or an obvious one. But I beg to differ. This is a very interesting thing to think about both in terms of what is happening in the search engine optimization industry as well as the Global economic landscape. Allow me to develop my thoughts.
First, there is the obvious push by some companies to paint any SEO done outside the USA as bad. This line of thinking is developed directly from the scare-tactic camp. As you know well, Semify is not in that camp. We don't deploy scare tactics and instead aim for transparency and accountability. It's not that we under-value the ability of fear in the sales process, no. Fear is a VERY VERY powerful force. It's just that we don't want to run that type of business. Chad and I firmly believe that to build a meaningful business you need to be able to sell on merit. Customers need to clearly see your value proposition and buy based on a logical business case. Yeah - This was pretty much the first week of any MBA course - nothing new here. But those guys selling on fear use the idea of outsourcing SEO to the wrong place to drive you toward their product. They want you to believe, somewhat blindly, that "SEO USA" is superior to non-USA SEO, just on the surface. They will throw words like "black hat" and "Google penalty" just to strengthen their case... Scary stuff. Stay away.
So is there any merit to the SEO USA case? There certainly is, but it is derived from sound business logic, not fear mongering. Let me clarify.
First off, the world has been in a push to outsource things to non-USA countries for about 15 years. This has resulted in many positive things for consumers (by-way of lower prices), shareholders (by-way of bigger profits) and developing countries (by-way of jobs). I have been to India and seen what the Information Technology complex has built. It is impressive. And there is no doubt that many people have an employment opportunity that did not exist before. Is it perfect? Let's not kid ourselves. There are problems. And regardless of where you stand on that issue, that's not really the issue here. The issue here is:
Why would an off-shore strategy for SEO be held to different standards than an off-shore strategy for any other business process?
There are a few reasons. First, marketing is about conveying a message. And it just might be that when a offshore resource writes ad copy it is not as effective for a US-based consumer than if written on-shore. We have run into this same situation in customer service, where many have complained that off-shore customer resources are harder to work with.
At Semify, we have decided that "SEO USA" means that all content creation (articles, blogs, web copy) should be completed in the United States because that is the target audience (at least for us). However, we also know that there are many tasks that are better accomplished by outsourcing to India, Argentina, Thailand and other places. For example, we have a very creative designer in Argentina that we intend to be working with for a long time.
In the final analysis, we actually agree that SEO USA style it probably better than offshore SEO when it comes to content creation (such as blogs, articles and web copy). However, we don't blindly profess that people should not outsource overseas. To the contrary, there are many business processes that make sense to go to India (or elsewhere) that allow for lower prices to our resellers and direct customers. In the end, we advise to avoid people who use fear in their marketing and instead think through the business case - both pros and cons - for sending any particular activity to a non-US resource. We have found that the answer is somewhere in the middle, where it usually is.