Do you really trust yourself, or someone with little to no experience, to handle all of your company's search engine marketing efforts? If you do... should you?

Forget that for a second... let me ask you this instead: Would you do your own taxes or let someone who is inexperienced with tax laws and regulations do them for you in order to save a few bucks? Ok... some of you might, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a large majority of you don't. Why do you suppose that is? My guess is because you, like I, understand that an error in our taxes can be very costly in more ways than just one.

Sure there are tools and resources available just about everywhere, both online and offline, that can help guide us through our tax forms, but knowing that there is a lot at stake, especially in a monetary sense, we tend to let those with a little more experience take care of us. The same can and should be said for your search engine marketing efforts.

There are tons of great articles, blogs, tools, and online resources available that can make optimizing a website or managing a paid-placement campaign seem easy. In fact, I am the author of several "how to" and "do it yourself" type articles, blog posts, and resources. However, I, in no way shape or form, would ever suggest to anyone that they begin making search engine marketing related changes or advances to their website, or at least without first reviewing the project with a Search Engine Marketing Consultant.

My reasoning: The negatives, such as having your website banned from the search engines or being charged several thousand dollars more than expected for a PPC buy, out-weigh any and all positives.

Wouldn't you agree?