Who are the real heroes in our hyper competitive industry? Are they those who you see at Search Engine Strategies giving lectures about the latest development in our industry? There are a lot of these people who I have the most respect for. Most of these lecturers have paid their dues and have been good at one time. But today, most of these guys barely do any SEO work. Their focus is more on “big picture” ideas. The dirty work is done by SEO professionals who have been in the industry for 2-5 years.

I don’t have any problem with people getting paid or promoting themselves in these events. What I do have a problem is when these people ask $400-$1000 an hour and deliver the same work that a SEO professional with 2 - 5 years experience can deliver. Sometimes their work is even worse than that. I have personally read a few proposals for the companies that I have worked for from some of these so called “big guys.” To share a story here, one day the SVP of the company that I used to work for asked me to review a proposal from one of the top guys in the industry. The proposal was probably the worst I had seen at the time. But the guy was asking for $500 an hour to do consulting (not doing any work). That’s not what being a SEO professional is all about. Being a SEO professional is all about providing value to clients/customers. So my hates off to the true heroes of our industry.