Learn how to navigate the uncertain future of SEO, keep your career stable and prepare for the next growth phase.

#opentowork – it’s the hashtag I keep seeing on LinkedIn from SEO professionals.

Attached to this hashtag is a long post about the SEO being shocked and asking for help finding work.

Why? SEOs are being made redundant by agencies.

It’s been happening all year and is about to fuel the biggest career crisis in SEO.

You need to be ready.

You need to think about how you’ll handle things.

You need to make some decisions about your future.

This article will help.

The COVID boom is over: Welcome to the dark times of SEO

When COVID-19 happened, and we were all locked away in our homes, an SEO boom occurred.

People suddenly remembered the importance of digital marketing, and we saw a huge increase in demand for services.

Agencies emerged from nowhere, and others grew at speed.

I recall trying to find SEOs to hire, and it was a nightmare. Many were in a bidding war for staff as wages increased and demand outstripped the supply of SEO staff.

Big agencies were now happy with fully remote or hybrid work. It was a glorious boom time of high salaries and demand for services.

But things change.

Throw in a few wars, an energy crisis, politics, inflation, higher interest rates, a cost-of-living crisis and sprinkle on a few elections.

As a result, people are spending less, and marketing budgets have tightened.

Money shifted to immediate customer acquisition (paid search), so SEO has been hit.

The kneejerk response would be that SEO is dead or dying. It’s not. By all accounts, SEO is a growing industry.

However, we experienced a period of rapid growth that would never have been sustainable during normal times, followed by a downturn.

The simple truth.

We have too many SEOs right now.

Redundancies fuel a race to the bottom

The freelance market is booming.

We all know it. But this is being fuelled by agencies collapsing or making staff redundant.

When an SEO faces redundancy, they end up having four options.

• Start their own agency.
• Find another role, either at an agency or on the client side.
• Go freelance.
• Walk away from SEO.

The latter tends to happen with execs. They can start a new role or career and even freelance on the side.

However, many freelance or start their own agency (in a decreasing SEO role marke)t.

This means that you often add to the competition field for every redundancy you make.

We then end up with a position where the price has to drop because supply outstrips demand for SEO services.

And that’s the current market. It’s been a messy 18 or so months.

But it’s about to change.

Dig deeper: What to do if you lose your SEO job: The emergency handbook

The next boom is coming

Companies have overspent on paid search and will turn to organic next year. We know that growth, no matter how minor, will likely be heading to economies.

And here’s the issue.

Agencies have let go some of their best staff… and getting them back is complicated.

First, there are huge benefits to being self-employed.

From tax efficiency to general work-life balance.

Second, you’re asking people to give up their relative freedom for 1 to 3 months’ notice and a probation period of less.

And then we have earnings.

Once you place tax into a mix, being a freelancer means you can take a six-figure salary home without earning six figures on paper.

Freelancers only need a few clients to earn more than their old salaries.

This causes a big issue for agencies.

So, what’s the solution?

Agencies of the future are brand experiences

There are two ways this is going to go.

The first is that agencies that have survived will promote inexperienced staff to ensure they have enough people to do the work and fill the bottom with graduates.

A core issue with this is results.

A good executive does not always make a good account manager, and a good account manager does not always equal a good head of SEO, and so on.

People tend to be promoted to their position of “incompetence” and don’t go further.

This can result in many “bad agencies” that churn clients at scale.

That’s not to say they can’t thrive – in boom periods, they do. It’s just a tad on the depressing side, and generally, agencies like that reach their saturation point.

This is where they achieve a natural balance of client gain and churn. They don’t grow; they just stay the same size.

But there is another future.

The birth of the SEO agency brand.

Right now, I’d say that agency marketing is pretty awful generally.

We are in bad times right now, but we weren’t always in bad times, and we won’t be in bad times in the future.

Therefore, it’s how we market agency brands that matters.

But I want you to answer a question (in your mind).

If BrewDog had started an SEO agency, I think we could imagine how their agency would look.

We could guess the decor, style, approach and what it would feel like in the office.

As a client, I’m sure you’d like to visit the office. You’d have a nice beer poured in the meeting room while you chatted.

But what about if L’Oreal or any major beauty brand started an agency?

I think we’d say most of the staff would have nice hair, but aside from that, we’d know that the office would be glamorous, and their advertising and marketing content would be luxurious.

The point I’m making is that most agencies lack a brand or make no serious attempt at brand marketing.

I get why many (if not most) are in survival mode.

But this is not that.

Small agencies, even one-person ones, can start to think about how their agency feels and looks.

They can consider their websites, branding, documents and every touchpoint a client or staff member has with their brand.

I used to ship my SEO strategy reports in an ammo tin with a logo on the front, making the digital world tangible.

And it’s these things that are going to entice staff back from freelance land.

It’s not about putting your reports in tins – that’s not what I’m saying.

It’s about becoming an agency brand that people want on their CVs.

Being an office that people want to work in.

Being an agency that people want to work for.

Being an agency that clients want to work with – if for the “experience and results.”

This is also not a money thing; we’ll talk about that next.

This is a brand thing.

Having a distinctive brand that draws people in matters.

This is where future growth will be.

This is how you’ll attract the key talent.

However, agencies will need far bigger salaries if they are to compete.

And I’ll cover this next.

Dig deeper: In-house vs. agency SEO work: The pros and cons

If you want results, hire superstars

It’s a simple statement:

“If you want results, hire superstars.”

And it’s true, but you’ll need to get used to a few things.

• First, anyone who doesn’t deliver value to clients must justify their salaries.
• Second, you’ll have to be focused on marketing and delivery.

Agencies of the future will need to pay huge salaries to win back talent from their comfortable freelance worlds.

So, you’ll have to minimize everything else – which is fine.

Run lean in every non-essential area, and you can hire superstars to grow your brand through marketing and results.

But what about those wanting to stay freelance?

Freelance is OK, until…

Look, I’ve been freelance. I’ve also built my own agency and now work for a leading one.

Freelance is great until you:

• Need a new mortgage.
• Get sick.
• Have a few awful clients.
• Need a holiday from work.
• Have clients not pay.

Need I go on?

Freelance work can be brilliant, but it does have downsides.

From pensions to other benefits that come with having stable employment, these are what you give up.

I’m not saying you overcome them, but freelance work often swings between periods of feast and famine.

This is why I’m so bullish on agency branding. To win employees back, you have to be vastly better than a freelancer life.

But what about retention?

Dig deeper: How to train entry-level SEO hires so they can contribute right away

Why keeping your staff matters

When growth emerges again, your staff will look elsewhere for roles unless you’ve treated them correctly.

And I assure you, hiring can be both expensive and complex work. So, retaining staff matters.

I speak with many SEOs who are attracted to the freelance world, and there are always other agencies they can go to. And let’s not forget the client side.

This places agencies in a weak spot.

As growth emerges, the “talent” pool will be smaller, and staff demand will be higher.

Which again fuels wage rises and impacts your profitability.

The solution is to retain your SEO talent by offering a combination of great salary and working conditions and being an agency brand that people want to work for.

But am I dreaming here?

Is this all too much for SEO agencies to do?

Build better agencies or get out

I’ve long always said that once people go freelance, it’s virtually impossible to get them to be employees again.

There will be a great talent battle between agencies in the coming years.

We have already seen the rise of SEO influencers on platforms like Linkedin.

SEOs that generate their own work and leads.

If you’re going to either attract these people or stop your talent from wanting to leave you and join that game, there is simply no excuse.

You’ve got to build better agencies, or don’t bother.

And this is the SEO career crisis that’s coming.

When the growth happens, the agencies with the best brands will win big.

The agencies with the best talent will thrive.

And you’ll find that accessing talent is going to become harder.

Unless agencies become places where the talent wants to flow, you just might find that the freelancer market becomes the “go-to” place for SEO services.

Make no mistake: agencies will be in for a battle for staff in the coming months and years.

It’s on them to build agencies worth working for.