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Except that you're a drop-in replacement for an existing middleman -- the broadcast/print media ad-agency. Companies weren't really doing the low-level management of their ad campaigns before.

SEO is a bit more of a novelty, especially since the 'SEO professionals' aren't middlemen between you and Google.

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Point taken. Perhaps a more appropriate analogy is the PR industry. I know the PR industry gets almost as much criticism as SEO. But the argument that we shouldn't use specialists in whatever field because we could do it ourselves is very damaging. Here's another example. If I run a coffee shop and 50% of my customers are walk-ins from the street, it makes sense for me to hire a sign-writer to attract more people. Even though my coffee might be the same as always I get more customers because people can find my shop. I could paint the sign myself but hiring an expert to do it will likely pay for itself. If I run a website and 50% of my customers come from search engines then it makes sense to invest an appropriate amount in making sure those customers can find me. If I have a small site, that investment might be of my time or I could outsource it. So the important thing is that we need to invest in what brings new customers. If you think that an SEO professional doesn't deliver enough value that's a perfectly valid decision but I think it's a big mistake to extend this to not investing in SEO itself.

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