The age of the phone book is at an end. And there are no two ways about it. According to a Harris Interactive poll, 60% of people from the U.S. use the internet to find contact information.

The internet is a big part of people’s lives nowadays, with almost 236.5 million users accessing search services from search engines. What’s staggering is that a vast majority of these searches, about 89% of the total searches on the internet, are made for informing purchase decisions. In comparison, 71% of business purchase decisions result from it.

Just like marketing teams in the U.S. spending over $80 billion dollars on SEO services this year, you should also contemplate investing in it for successful digital marketing strategies. But how does one succeed at it? For any business, two conventional routes exist – either they outsource the SEO project to an external agency, or hire a dedicated SEO consultant offshore and keep the control.

A recent trend that has gained traction is that of businesses outsourcing their SEO capabilities to agencies, with as many as 67% of organisations having been reported to do so. However, this practice is usually ill-informed, and they don’t take into account their market, particular situation, and target audiences.