In this article, you’ll discover:
The one SEO sales strategy that will survive and thrive in the AI revolution.
And much more.
Why SEOs Must Shift From Selling Services to Selling Insight
If I am to be truly honest, SEO, as an industry, has serious issues.
This isn’t one of those SEO is dead posts; I don’t think SEO will ever be dead.
But in a recent article, I gave a few of the reasons that SEO is in a seriously fragile state:
Reliant on sector demand.
Reliance on Google and their updates.
Lower marketing spend.
Issues with scaling service delivery.
AI impacting service delivery.
AI search.
AI overviews.
SEO SaaS platforms.
There’s a lot to consider, but the sector is heading for more job losses.
Why?
Because a lot of SEO work leads to no increase in what clients care about.
And in case I wasn’t being clear enough.
Clients care about money.
Now, that’s not to say I don’t see the value in work that many in SEO do and are good at.
But clients don’t care that you’ve fixed some meta descriptions or implemented site-wide schema.
No, they care that the £3k they spent last month was spent on something that will soon yield money.
The key parts being the words money and soon.
SEO often has a lag effect, and it also depends on the exitsing positions, domain/ brand strength of the website.
But then we run into another issue, egency or practioneer rhetoric.
This is a core issue with SEO: the approach required to get results is too biased.
A tech SEO will list an abundance of tech SEO tasks.
A content SEO will list all the traffic you can gain with blog content.
A link-focused SEO will sell you link building.
Some agencies will sell you all of the above, sprinkled over 12 months.
Agency clients can spend £30k on improving their core web vitals, content, guest posts, and schema.
All it takes is for the competition (who were already 2 years ahead in SEO) to spend a small amount, and all that work does nothing as they strengthen their rankings.
Or the SEO agency did the wrong thing at the wrong time, and the client did not get results.
Or Google alters the SERPs into a 500 shopping tile display with 499 paid search listings.
You get the idea.
SEO is a tough sell in good times.
Today? Harder than ever.
As a service we compete with others on exverytthing such as advice, rhetoric and indeed tactics.
The result. Porpsoects see an industry of risk.
Due to this, we’ll naturally see the ‘post-COVID’ boom agencies hit hard and start to shrink.
In addition, AI tools and SEO SaaS platforms are rolling out ‘SEO fixes done by AI’.
This leads me to think that tech SEO will be hit much the same way as content SEO.
So, what’s the answer?
Search Insights Not Search Optimisation
I recently finished an SEO strategy for a client.
I’ve been providing this service since 2016 and have worked with some of the world’s biggest names and brands.
But lately, I’ve been seeing how this service can be expanded.
Not only because it leads to SEO success.
But it also leads to search data around customers.
And this is an area that is a natural growth market for our sector.
Telling clients what their prospects customers are searching for, where they’re searching and how this data can be used to maximise revenue.
We are deeply involved in this data daily, yet it is often ignored and not viewed, even though it is incredibly useful.
For example, when auditing a client’s share of search, we found a massive increase in negative brand searches.
We reached out to the client and asked what had gone on.
We learned that the sales team had sent a cold SMS campaign to thousands who had ‘once displayed an interest’ in the business.
The result was a massive increase in search around ‘is brand x legit’ and similar searches.
We were able to feed this data to the marketing team so they could adjust the copy on future messages.
This insight is going to become even more helpful.
AI will search for people and use AI agents to research on behalf of users.
Knowing those searches and informing clients and PR teams to build content around them to capture demand or ensure positive brand communications will be key.
But in this respect, what will clients actually be paying for?
If we shift from doers to thinkers and observers, what will they gain?
SEO of the Future: Objectivity, Knowledge, Perception
SEO consultancy is the one sales area that will grow, regardless of the future.
Because search is going to become more challenging to optimise for and more complicated to build services around.
Take the recent shifts.
We have SEOs who suddenly are trying to be brand strategists.
We have SEOs who are now software developers.
We have SEOs who are now Facebook ads specialists.
We have SEOs tyring to sell AI SEO.
We have SEOs selling ‘social search’.
And let’s not forget the SEO gurus selling their ‘AI content scaling tools’.
It’s not because SEO is dead, but pricing and delivering SEO as a service will increase in complexity, and this is before you even talk about the business impact you can demonstrate from that work.
At a certain point, SEO as a service delivery becomes too fractured to deliver as a retainer.
AI has become the only realistic way of delivering AI, and we’re seeing this shift now.
In contrast, with consultancy, you go from delivering SEO services to delivering search insights.
Let’s break down what SEO consultants deliver for a business.
Objectivity
People hire SEO consultants or bring in agencies because you aren’t in their business.
The fact that you aren’t an employee and are on a fixed-term arrangement allows you to advise them, regardless of whom it upsets.
And this type of objectivity is what SEO consultancy offers.
Is brand search dropping? Your consultant can tell you if it’s happening across the board or because the marketing isn’t impacting people.
Is your website set up incorrectly for organic visibility? The SEO consultant can throw the web developers under the bus.
Being outside of their business is what matters.
Knowledge
You gain knowledge because you focus on one thing.
Unless you focus, you won’t acquire the knowledge you need to be able to consult.
Clients hiring SEO consultants do so because they want to access this highly specialised knowledge without hiring internally.
This knowledge can shape business strategy and save money in the long run.
This is where agencies and consultants split.
In an agency, you can have a few people with excellent knowledge who support those with less.
But the daily work is split between those with lesser knowledge because that’s how agencies make money.
Those on lower pay do the physical work.
In consultancy, you are rewarded not for doing but for thinking.
You work with fewer clients to allow more time for thinking per client. As a result, you are paid a higher fee that reflects the potential impact of your thoughts and your years of focus in your field.
Clients are buying your knowledge, not your skills.
Perception
As stated earlier, bias is embedded in SEO agencies depending on what they believe or focus on.
But this perception is what clients will buy from you.
If you feel you have a tech SEO issue due to a failed migration, a tech SEO consultant will be what you buy into.
If you spend a fortune on paid search and need to reduce this, an organic search revenue-focused strategist is likely your go-to.
Your perception is your positioning, and it will allow you to ‘own a hook’ that prospects’ brains can attach to.
Now, here’s the thing.
Just because the industry shifts to a consultancy-focused world, agencies will still be required to deliver SEO.
While that need will be reduced due to the complexity of AI search and the growth of AI-powered SEO tools, it will still be required.
SEO agencies are always going to have jobs to do.
However, the demand for SEO jobs will be met with the rise of AI in SEO.
But…
SEO consultancy will and can thrive.
Does that mean that you should abandon your SEO career?
Not yet.
But as I’ve stated in the past.
It is indeed time to think hard about your role, where you are in your career, and whether you need to pivot.
We used to say mediocre content writers were out of business due to AI.
The same can be said for mediocre SEOs.
However, good SEO consultants can thrive in this new future.
Thanks for reading.
Andrew Holland
Originally published on LinkedIn on 16 February 2025.