￡2,000 Budgets, ￡200,000 Expectations: The SEO Stress Epidemic

In this week's Growth Through Content, I address the issues of stress and mental health impacting the SEO industry.

I'll look at:

• What's causing the stress?
• Why we are being asked to work miracles.
• How to reduce the stress we face.

I'll also share some things I'm learning this week and things to think about.

Let's dive in.

SEOs are under a fair bit of stress right now.

Stress about the industry.

Stress about your career.

Stress about jobs.

Stress about the constant updates that Google is sending out.

My friend Nick LeRoy wrote this excellent post that sums up the state of SEO:

And he's right.

One of the core issues right now is that demand for SEO is lower than supply.

And this has happened on the back of the post covid boom, which saw SEO grow artificially fast.

If you're reading this, I'm sure you all feel the above is accurate.

Except there is one gigantic, jaw-dropping problem.

SEO should not be having any of these issues.

SEO should be growing faster than any other channel.

It's not, and this is where we need to start.

Client Budget vs Client Expectations: The Start of the SEO Stress Epidemic

One of the least talked about issues in SEO is budget.

Largely, SEO budgets haven't changed for the best part of 10 years.

Excluding links (and sometimes content), SEO budgets are anything between ￡250 and ￡3000 (in the UK).

There will always be outliers on either side of this, but these generally fall into slower/ skilled SEO tasks such as specific tech SEO/ code issues. On the opposite side of this, SEO upsells by web designers are more akin to plugin updates and automated reports.

One core reason SEO tends to stay in this 'low' price bracket is that it is often deemed an untrustworthy sector.

Agencies are distrusted because, generally, many fail to deliver results.

And here lies the crux of the issue.

SEOs are being asked to perform miracles on shoestring budgets.

This stress, which is embedded in the SEO industry, needs to change.

The 4 P's of Marketing That People Keep Ignoring

Thanks to the data collected by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute of Marketing Science, we know that brands grow through sales, and the likelihood of these sales increases when we grow two assets.

• Mental availability: the likelihood of a brand being thought of in a buying situation.
• Physical availability: the ease and convenience that a brand can be purchased from.

When considering the four Ps of marketing, SEO is the place of product, price, place, and promotion.

We're a distribution channel for brands.

As I said in a LinkedIn post this week:

Paid search is paying the supermarket to be on the top shelf.Organic search is paying an agency or staff to be at the eyeline level.There is one difference, though.Organic Search is the largest supermarket ever, with hundreds of aisles (labelled by keywords).And being on the shelves in the Google supermarket increases the likelihood you'll be purchased from.

Yes, we're the architects behind brands ranking organically in search and paying zero cost per click to acquire customers.

So, this is a good thing.

Except, brands don't like to pay a lot for SEO, and for good reason.

The money you pay in paid search tends to either go straight to Google or a percentage to an agency and then to Google. But it gives you instant traffic from those in the market to buy what you sell.

The money you pay to SEO agencies goes into their back pockets.

You pay for work, that dependent on the agency, may or may not do much.

And so, brands tend to pay the minimum viable amount for SEO.

Which, if we're brutally honest, is not enough.

As the years pass, brands start and stop SEO work, causing some to leap forward while others decline.

Add to this the fact that SEO often gains success from outside work (such as a large brand marketing push), and you end up with a situation in which minimum viable SEO can eventually pay off.

The chances of you being the last agency standing are, however, quite slim.

You are more likely to be one of three or more agencies that have worked with the client over five or more years.

Now, of course we all know of agencies that waste client money on useless links or overpriced content.

But in reality, most of us are doing good work in difficult situations.

But just how difficult?

Solving a ￡120,000 Client Acquisition Problem With ￡24,000

A few years ago I worked with a client on a ￡2000 a month budget.

They spent ￡10,000 a month on paid search and had been for the best part of 3 years.

That's a whopping ￡360,000 over 3 years to Google.

My math skills aren't great, but if I'm correct, the budget difference is 133%.

Over 3 years, you'd still only spend ￡72,000 on SEO whereas you'd spend ￡288,000 more over 3 years in paid search.

And this is what many brands are expecting SEO to deliver.

Paid search results for 133% less budget.

No wonder the entire industry is one big trauma story.

People reading this who sit as marketing managers will rightly say things like, "Yes, but SEO doesn't come with guarantees".

And I do hear this a lot.

You're right. It doesn't.

And just because you're spending money on SEO doesn't mean the brands ranking on page 1 for all the terms you'd like aren't either.

Many of them are.

This causes another issue: Brands ranking on page 1 can spend less or the same and have greater results.

This is a result of their marketing, brands and, indeed, the effort they placed into SEO years ago.

So, what are we all to do?

The only thing we can do is carry on as normal.

Don't Stress: This is Normal

I started this newsletter with the idea that we are in an SEO stress epidemic.

And we are. I'm not trying to say otherwise.

But in reality, when you look at the investment into the industry, the retainers that are paid and the expectations.

We've always been in a stress epidemic.

The difference now is that stress is caused by a lack of client abundance and a reduction in marketing budgets.

SEO was always a growth play and brands are in survival mode.

In truth, they aren't.

What's happening is they haven't built brands and instead rely on paid search. Which as business costs and competitors drive up the price and reduce the profits. Most brands are just burning the house down on channels backed with incorrect attribution.

And here's the good news.

There will be a bounce back this year.

As CFOs review marketing budgets and tell CMOs and marketing managers that acquisition costs are too high. SEO agencies will once again be sought after. And back we go on the roller coaster.

Which brings me to my final point for this week.

Where is Your Moral Compass Pointing?

I know of SEOs who act like the Wolf of Wall Street during the scene where they sold penny stocks.

I know of SEOs who deeply care about their clients, get upset over rankings dropping and suffer from imposter syndrome.

I know SEOs who are great at selling.

I know SEOs who are terrible at selling but are great at doing.

Make no mistake: when clients come knocking, they are buying SEO from someone at the price they are prepared to pay and the budget they have.

And this is what you should take away from this week's post.

If SEO budgets have largely remained unchanged for 10 years, there is little to suggest they will increase over the next 10.

There are always going to be hustlers in the industry.

There are always going to be 'A players'.

You can only be yourself.

My advice is this.

To reduce your stress, do work that matters for those you seek to serve.

Sometimes, this will produce miracles.

But most of the time, you'll move a brand forward toward results. Whether you manage to stay until you reach the final destination will probably depend on things well outside your control.

Google is a major one of those things.

But don't stress.

As Brian Dean of Backlinko fame said to me once:

"You aren't responsible for the success or failure of your clients business".

In this section of the newsletter, I like to share something I'm learning.

Toda,y this is Infranodus.

Full disclaimer here: I saw this tool a few months ago and thought it was too complex and there was little to consider using it for.

However this week, I stumbled upon a YouTube video that blew me away:

https://youtu.be/itsGX3UioLk?si=wfjhAsCFO6q0AxWS

As always, in this 'things to learn' section, I provide as few details as possible, so please check it out.

I haven't used the tool myself yet, not because I don't want to, but because I just don't have the time. However, the video is well worth watching.

Finally, here's something worth checking out.

My friend Bart Platteeuw has created SEO Conferences.

It's a site that lists all the SEO conferences in the world.

https://seo-conferences.com/

This is staggeringly useful for marketing managers, speakers and, of course, agencies to find conferences to speak at or advertise at.

I've already shared this twice in the last week with people who needed to know what conferences there were.

So, the use case is clear enough.

Final Thoughts

The SEO industry is under a lot of pressure at the moment.

But it has always been. Today's pressure is a bit more on our shoulders.

However, we need to realise that, for the most part, SEO agencies and freelancers are expected to work marketing miracles.

We aren't miracle workers.

We are skilled and hard workers.

When we take a step back and examine the industry and what we are expected to achieve, I think most of us deserve a pat on the back.

Just don't expect it to happen any time soon.

Stay strong. Better times are ahead.

Andrew Holland