When Dan Walton, co-owner of the Portland, OR based Pilates studio Studio Blue launched his Website in 2007, he faced a frustrating problem. “I Googled “Portland Pilates” and my site didn’t come up,” said Walton. “Other studios were showing up in the top ten results.” Walton – who isn’t a computer geek and didn’t know anything about search engines – decided to take matters into his own hands. The Pilates instructor learned about search engine optimization (SEO), took a SEO copywriting training course, and learned how to write copy that gets better search engine rankings. Now, Walton’s site appears in the top 10 of Google for keyword searches like “Portland OR Pilates” and “Pilates mat classes” – and he estimates getting at least five new clients a week from his Website.

As someone who just released an online SEO copywriting training series, you may think that I'm all about DIY SEO copywriting, all the time. But that's not quite true. Recently, Mike Moran wrote a great blog post titled, "Why shouldn't I do my search work in house?" In it, he listed some very specific reasons why outsourcing makes good sense for some companies. I would argue that it's the same for SEO copywriting. Yes, it is very possible to keep your SEO copywriting in house. Yes, good copywriters can be transformed into excellent SEO copywriters. But sometimes, it makes more sense to outsource. Here are six of those times.