SEO's Unrealistic Expectations: Why You (and Clients) Can't Have It All
I was scrolling a few freelancer's posts the other day, and I spat my drink out at 2 in particular.
The SEOs listed everything they were doing for their clients, and short of solving global poverty, they were fulfilling the role of an entire marketing department.
Scope creep is one thing...delivering everything from CRO, PR to web development is another.
Of course, there is the element that they could be talking nonsense...
There's a lot of that going around with people saying they generate 'Millions' in revenue for clients. (Once they hit publish on their posts, I'm certain they adopt a Dr Evil hand gesture).
But for those working their backsides off, here lies a problem that I also ran into many years ago (when I had my own agency).
If you do everything at a low cost, you can't grow.
When I first launched my own SEO services in 2015, I charged between £270 and £470.
Those clients got the earth- SEO, social posts, web dev, blog articles, and newsletters.
All I cared about was that I wasn't in the police anymore and that I was earning a living.
I learned the hard way that if you offer everything, then you cease to be a specialist.
Instead, you become a 'jack of all trades'.
Which is fine. You can earn a fantastic living doing just that.
It's just that 2 things happen.
1) Your marketing position becomes a race to the bottom.
2) You can't maintain that level of output for long.
Today, I'm aware that large agencies are doing the same.
Price things low, offer the farm, stack clients high, make money through volume.
This leads to the inevitable churn of staff and clients, along with mistakes.
While you're trying to be a digital PR...you aren't optimising enough pages. While you're offering CRO advice...you aren't building internal links.
While you're...you get the idea.
Everything you do that is not in the SEO remit comes at the opportunity cost of your SEO performance.
Don't get me wrong, every now and again, you have to go above and beyond.
But you can't make this a long-term thing.
It's this that leads to agency and freelancer 'feast and famine'.
My advice: be an SEO, be a PR, be a web dev, be a CRO specialist, be a tech SEO, be a writer.
But above all else...choose.
Trying to be and do everything doesn't make you a superhero.
In my experience, it rarely leads to a happy life, business model, or client success.