Fewer than you think, as long as the roles are covered. Here is what an SEO program needs and the three ways to staff it.
A working SEO program needs five roles covered: strategy, technical, content, link outreach and reporting. A single small business usually needs one strong generalist plus a content writer, or an agency that bundles all five. Larger companies with many locations or product lines need a dedicated in-house lead, one or two writers, and outside help for technical and links.
The question "how many people should I hire for SEO" has a better version: "which roles need covering, and how many hours each takes per month." Every SEO program, from a one-truck plumber to a national brand, needs the same five things done.
Once you see the hours, staffing becomes a math problem rather than a guess. What those roles do in practice is laid out in what an SEO agency does.
For a single-location service business or a small professional practice, one capable SEO generalist can carry strategy, technical basics, local and reporting, with a writer (freelance or part-time) producing content. That is roughly a half-time to full-time SEO role plus a few pieces of content a month.
The catch is finding a true generalist. Technical SEO and content strategy are different skill sets, and people strong in one are often weak in the other. The usual fix is to hire the generalist and rent the gaps: a technical audit from a specialist once or twice a year, and link outreach from a vendor.
Also be honest about continuity. One person is one point of failure. If they leave, the program stops. Document everything, keep accounts in the company name, and have a backup plan, whether that is an agency on standby or a second person.
Some situations outgrow one person quickly.
A typical mid-sized in-house setup is an SEO lead, one or two writers, shared developer time and an outside vendor for links. Whether to build that or hire an agency comes down to budget and control, covered in SEO agency vs in-house.
An SEO agency is the same five roles, rented part-time. For most small and mid-sized businesses it is cheaper than hiring even one full-time specialist once salary, tools and training are counted, and it comes with continuity built in.
The trade-off is attention. An agency splits each person across clients, so you need to know who runs your account and how many others they handle. Ask that question directly before signing, along with the others in how to choose an SEO agency.
A sensible path many businesses follow: agency first, to build the foundation and learn what the work involves; then an in-house hire once the program is big enough to justify one, with the agency kept for specialties. The budget side of that decision is in is hiring an SEO company worth it.
REALTOP founder Nik Tsoukales on the same question, from the agency’s YouTube channel.
Strategy (targets and priorities), technical (site health and structure), content (pages and articles), links and local (outreach, citations, Google Business Profile) and reporting (rank, call and form tracking). Small teams combine roles; large ones give each a person.
Read the full answerYes, for a single-location business, if that person is a true generalist and has a writer for content. Rent technical audits and link outreach as needed, document everything, and keep all accounts in the company name so the program survives a departure.
Read the full answerOnly when technical issues are the bottleneck: a slow or broken site, a migration, a large site with crawl problems. For most small businesses a one-time technical audit plus fixes is enough; a full-time technical specialist is a large-site need.
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