Key Takeaways:
- SEO can improve a designer’s discoverability and presence online, leading to long-term business growth and a larger client base.
- Graphic designers should work with SEO partners that demonstrate relevant experience working with similar clients.
- Avoid the allure of vanity metrics and partnering with providers that overpromise.
With many skilled designers now offering their services online, the market is so saturated that connecting with a specific audience can prove challenging.
Even with the best design skills, you still need your work to be found by the right clients. Outsourcing your search engine optimization (SEO) tasks could be just the digital marketing solution you’re looking for.
To give your content a well-deserved boost, we’ll show you how to select the right outsourcing partner, what to avoid when outsourcing SEO, and what SEO outsourcing for graphic designers really entails.
How SEO Can Benefit Graphic Designers
Putting in the work to optimize your website with SEO can make it easier to discover your graphic design services and expand your clientele. It’s a must-have marketing strategy in the digital age that will benefit you in more ways than one.
Improved website visibility
When businesses look for a graphic designer, they typically know exactly the style they want and the work they need done. They’re already searching for keywords like “logo design” or “typography” and long-tail keywords like “affordable graphic design” or “freelance graphic designer portfolio.”
In fact, these more specific but less searched keywords (long-tail keywords) actually make up the majority of searches.
SEO services can help your website rank for these specific searches, attracting leads looking for exactly what you have to offer. This helps the right clients find you among the many other graphic designers marketing their services online.
Optimized design portfolios
The strategic goal of SEO is to propel your website or web pages higher up the search engine results pages. Plenty of statistics reference the dreaded second page of Google, but between first-ranked click-through rates (28.5%) and fourth place (8%), there’s already a 20.5% drop.
When you use SEO best practices, you can optimize your portfolio for potential clients and Google. This lets clients more easily discover your work thanks to device-friendly layouts, image alt text, and more.
Local SEO for freelancers
Local SEO can be a powerful tool if you want to attract clients in your area, with 28% of all searches for nearby services resulting in a purchase. After all, there might be plenty of companies looking for graphic design work nearby that could be interested in hiring you for a project.
Creating a Google My Business profile and using location-based keywords can attract local clients looking for local designers specifically.
Long-term organic growth
Organic growth and paid advertising both have their merits, but successful SEO strategies can extend and maintain that growth by helping you build a sustainable digital presence.
Unless you have the budget to keep them up, paid ads will eventually stop generating traffic. Meanwhile, SEO efforts can continuously improve your search rankings and adapt to changing search engine algorithms.
What SEO Services Should Graphic Designers Outsource?
Regardless of your expertise, SEO efforts can be taxing and time-consuming and require expert knowledge to get right. For graphic designers, there are a couple of key services that you should consider outsourcing.
Keyword research and content strategy development
Outsourced SEO experts can develop a valuable content strategy that accounts for the most relevant search terms for your work. This includes the type of content you’d produce to complement your portfolio and the business goals it can help achieve.
Image SEO
As your work is visually driven, an SEO specialist can optimize your content through alt text, proper descriptions, correct sizing, the right image file names, and other tactics to improve your visibility in image search results.
On-page optimization
It’s not just the work you present on your portfolio that needs to be optimized—it’s also your website’s overall performance. Without the right title tags, content structure, and other web page best practices involved, your other SEO efforts won’t be as effective as they should be.
Link building
Link building is one of the most overlooked SEO strategies, perhaps due to its complexity. It involves getting backlinks (links linking to your website) from reputable sites that act as signals to Google that your content is trustworthy and valuable.
SEO professionals can develop a link-building strategy to drive plenty of referral traffic to your business.
Content creation
Content creation is the “doing” part of a content strategy. SEO experts don’t always just curate the strategies but can also produce content for you, like videos or blog posts. This content can then be repurposed for different channels, including your social media.
How To Select the Right SEO Outsourcing Partner
Ready to hire an SEO outsourcing partner? Considering the number of SEO outsourcing providers out there, not all will be compatible with your business. Here are some guidelines to follow when shortlisting your options.
Evaluate experience working with graphic designers
Choose a partner that specializes in working with graphic designers and other visual freelancers. That way, they’ll be able to utilize their expertise to optimize your portfolio and use strategies that are applicable to design-focused clients.
Assess skills and services
Do they offer the digital marketing services that you’re looking for? What sorts of skills do they have to back their services up? Your partner should be most proficient in the areas that are most important to your business.
Learn about communication and reporting methods
Constant communication will help keep you and your outsourcing partner on the same page. Make sure your chosen provider is fully transparent with their methods, reporting formats, and how often they’ll update you on their work.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Outsourcing SEO
Aside from the best practices and vetting strategies mentioned above, you also don’t want to fall prey to the following pitfalls, which can waste your time, money, and effort.
Focusing on vanity metrics
Vanity metrics include statistics that might look impressive up front but don’t translate into meaningful results. Past client results featuring multiple-digit page views or lots of social media likes can initially be attractive, but it’s the true key performance indicators like conversion rates and return on investment that carry real value.
Partnering with providers that overpromise
When something sounds too good to be true, it’s usually best to believe it is. Plenty of SEO service providers may overpromise and make outlandish claims about what they can do for you, but the right ones will demonstrate transparency and set realistic goals and timelines.
Choosing a partner that lacks industry knowledge
Your SEO partner needs to be familiar with the unique needs of graphic designers and their clients and the SEO strategies that are relevant to this industry.
Steps To Start Outsourcing SEO as a Graphic Designer
To help you successfully start the outsourcing process, we’ve put together a few key steps that’ll help you expand your visibility on search engines and attract new graphic design clients.
1. Identify your SEO needs
Defining your main SEO needs can give you a starting point when you communicate with potential partners. If you know your main priority is to improve website visibility through content optimization, then you’ll be able to find an ideal partner for these requirements more easily.
2. Find a reliable SEO provider
The SEO provider should have a solid reputation backed up by client testimonials and reviews. Even better, case studies that outline a before-and-after scenario can show you tangible results.
3. Set clear SEO goals and metrics
Work with your chosen partner to establish SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals to guide the task at hand.
4. Monitor SEO performance
While the results at the end of an SEO campaign are important, you should also track progress at different stages of the process. This proactive approach will help you stay engaged with your SEO strategy and make adjustments in real time.
Top 3 SEO Outsourcing Partners for Graphic Designers
To start your search, we’ve rounded up three SEO outsourcing partners, which include recruitment firms and specialized SEO agencies—in no specific order.
1. Near
Near is a full-service recruitment and staffing agency that helps US companies hire remote talent across various specialties, including SEO.
When you partner with Near, you’ll enjoy guidance and support from the hiring stage all the way through to post-hire support. With us, you can hire the ideal SEO partner for you, accessing pre-vetted, top talent from Latin America (LatAm).
Near doesn’t just help you hire candidates with proven expertise but also enables you to save 30–70% on salaries and hire far faster than if you were to handle the process yourself. Whether you want to hire a junior SEO specialist, a director of SEO, or someone in between, you can find a trusted partner to work with in the long term.
(And yes, we’re putting ourselves at the top of the list because we’re confident we can find you top-notch SEO talent.)
2. Ignite Visibility
Ignite Visibility has a team of over 70 full-time experts in SEO, specializing in full-service digital marketing to help brands grow locally and internationally.
Its comprehensive SEO services include local SEO, digital PR, link building, international SEO, and SEO consulting, which are all useful for graphic designers catering to a cross-border client base.
3. WebFX
WebFX is a digital marketing agency that leverages its own technology solution for data-driven marketing efforts. While it does offer ad campaign services and marketing data collection, the company aims to drive website traffic for its clients through its SEO services and local SEO services.
Its custom plans based on your industry include AI-powered strategy recommendations, on-page, off-page, and technical SEO, and more.
Final Thoughts
Outsourcing your SEO can be one of the most powerful and effective ways to market your graphic design services. While you’re focusing on your creative work, you can offload the responsibility of boosting your discoverability to SEO professionals.
Remember to choose a provider with experience working with graphic designers and a track record of success.
By working with Near, you can get immediate access to a large pool of talented LatAm candidates with expertise in the field of SEO. Book a free consultation call to find the perfect SEO partner in under 21 days.