While I'm fairly sympathetic to your overall perspective, your last point is simply not persuasive at all. As a former SEO, I'd have had no problem comfortably answering that question, and any squirming would be entirely in your own smug imagination.
First, 'SEO services' isn't self-evidently the most important keyword phrase in the industry. Why pick that one? That's just a gotcha.
Second, SEO is extremely competitive. The agencies on the first page for high profile SEO-related keyword phrases charge at least several hundreds of dollars per hour in consulting fees. Most businesses can't afford that.
Third, incumbency is a huge advantage for placement in competitive SERPs, both by itself and because it implies the accumulation of important ranking factors you can't just gin up at a moment's notice. (Don't read too much into that though. There are plenty of opportunities for less competitive phrases and a long campaign can build up to more competitive terms.)
Because it is the set of keywords that any SEO would like to be found under.
> Second, SEO is extremely competitive.
ANY business is extremely competitive, not just SEO, why do you think SEO is some kind of magical special case ?
> Third, incumbency is a huge advantage for placement in competitive SERPs, both by itself and because it implies the accumulation of important ranking factors you can't just gin up at a moment's notice.
That we agree on for the most part. I've seen relative newcomers do some amazing stuff, without SEO simply by getting their users energized. There isn't any SEO strategy that will work as well for you as a couple of hundred thousand uses creating buzz for you.
> There are plenty of opportunities for less competitive phrases
That's the low hanging fruit though.
> a long campaign can build up to more competitive terms.
And that is where we agree again, but most SEOs are people making very large promises that they find hard to fulfill. The whole industry has an extremely bad reputation because of this, and it's not just a 'few bad apples' either.
I'm sure there are 'good' SEOs, just like there are 'good' lawyers, but for the most part I wouldn't want to be associated with any of that stuff.
Search engines are for the most part doing everything they can to look at the web through an SEO neutral lens.
Fixing stuff that is obviously broken is fine with me, but don't get me started on 'link building'.
Gaming the system is where I draw the line and there isn't an SEO out there that wouldn't game the system given half a chance.
First, 'SEO services' isn't self-evidently the most important keyword phrase in the industry. Why pick that one? That's just a gotcha.
Second, SEO is extremely competitive. The agencies on the first page for high profile SEO-related keyword phrases charge at least several hundreds of dollars per hour in consulting fees. Most businesses can't afford that.
Third, incumbency is a huge advantage for placement in competitive SERPs, both by itself and because it implies the accumulation of important ranking factors you can't just gin up at a moment's notice. (Don't read too much into that though. There are plenty of opportunities for less competitive phrases and a long campaign can build up to more competitive terms.)