The ground has shifted under SEO professionals in ways that feel less like a correction and more like a structural reset. AI-generated answers are compressing organic click-through rates, Google's core updates are hitting harder and faster, and traffic that took years to build is eroding in months. For many agencies and freelancers, the income model that worked in 2021 is simply no longer viable in 2025.
To cut through the noise, we asked a straightforward question: if you were a financial advisor, what would you tell SEO professionals struggling right now? Nine thought leaders across finance, marketing, and digital business weighed in. Their answers converge around a consistent theme â the professionals who survive this period will be the ones who stop treating SEO as a standalone income source and start managing it like a diversified investment portfolio.
Here is what 10 thought leaders had to say.
Exploit Downturns With Bold, Calculated Expansion
You can utilize a downturn (distress) in your industry to purchase digital distressed properties. The aggressive reinvestment of that asset into your own proprietary data tools will allow you to take advantage of competition while they are taking a more conservative approach. Strategically borrowing money for this time allows you to expand rapidly into new areas that other businesses may be unable to enter due to funding constraints. In many cases bold decisions about capital allocation during times of a downturn can lead to tremendous growth potential over the long term. It is not possible to grow without taking some level of risk. Therefore it is critical to develop a strategy based on calculated risks as opposed to solely relying on defensive financial practices.
Jonathan Carcone, Principal, 4 Brothers Buy Houses
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Broaden Your Portfolio; Grow Revenue Streams
Immediately diversify your professional portfolio. The algorithmic shift in markets mirrors the volatility of the marketplace so it is imperative that you have a diversified hedge. Use some or all of the profit from your last trade(s) to invest in other types of liquid asset(s). These will provide you with a financial runway should your current investment fail.
Focus on building out and growing your high-value human capital (brand strategy), etc. Building resilience in business comes from having many different revenue streams. Think about your skills as multiple high-yielding investments. If one does well financially, another may be struggling. This is how you build a long-term plan for securing your financial future.
Evan Tunis, President, Florida Healthcare Insurance
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Hedge SEO Risk; Create Alternate Channels
Financing and SEO have a lot in common. When I began to write this post, our largest page on Opus Virtual Offices dropped 35% in organic traffic found via search results two years ago. So, when we stopped generating leads via all of our other lead generation sources (emails or referrals), Google made a change to its algorithm and we had nowhere to go.
It made me realize that SEO experts who are looking to be successful in the downturns are the ones that do not put all of their money into one place (instead they create multiple opportunities for success by either building an email list or producing quality content). So, if I were giving you a financial planner's type of advice, it would be. Don't put all of your eggs in 1 basket.
Elliot Sterling, Web Content Writer, Opus Virtual Offices
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Convert Sites Into Machine-Readable Data Platforms
You should be working towards developing the technological basis of an "agenty" web. Because AI summarization has become increasingly satisfactory to many users, you can stop focusing on obtaining as many simple organic clicks as possible. Your goal is to convert your entire website to a machine-readable database. As such, your priority will be with creating and implementing structured data and proprietary technologies that are impossible for other robots to replicate. Doing so will ensure your brand is able to remain the primary source of information for all future automated systems.
Adam New, Principal Owner, The Cash Offer Company
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Productize Expertise; Sell Assets, Not Hours
When Google shifts, the first thing that takes a hit is client trust and right behind it, your income. The SEO people still standing after every core update aren't the most talented ones in the room. They packaged what they knew before the industry moved.
Look at your actual week. Site audits, keyword frameworks and content gap analysis. There's someone 6 months into learning SEO who's willing to pay. I've seen people charge $100 to get that as a structured checklist. You can charge higher for a template bundle with a recorded walkthrough. Productize the process. Stop selling hours.
Xhensila Lala, Marketing Manager | Economist | Brand Strategy | Healthcare Finance, William Morris Wallpaper
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Cap Link Costs; Manage SEO Like Finance
These days, purchasing digital authority requires strict accounting. Frankly speaking teams waste money buying random placements on websites without keeping accurate records of the spending. They buy new back links totally blindly. Setting a hard limit of the maximum cost of acquisition at $50 per link will stop draining cash on absolutely useless placements on websites that cause no measurable traffic. This is a stern limit, which prevents desperate purchasing behavior at the first step.
In many ways, the need to measure the monetary payoff of each and every off page initiative compels a discipline of operation that the majority of failing marketers entirely lack. A limited expenditure model retains the monthly budget. It secures the business against algorithm penalties which ruin main sources of revenue. With that said, the consideration of search traffic as a highly managed financial portfolio minimizes the overall operational risk by a significant margin. Proper distribution of capital ensures that the operation has constant sales in case of sudden ranking drops.
Manny Soto, Director of Operations, Burning Daily
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Own Digital Assets; Escape The Agency Treadmill
When you write meta descriptions all day on behalf of clients, you are merely building someone else's property. I believed the same thing way back in 2008. Thus, I purchased a small VoIP lead generation business, expanded it, and later on sold it to Slashdot media. I had a feeling that that was something bigger since agency work puts you into a loop of selling time at a limited monthly fee. That is the reason why purchasing a fifteen thousand dollar content site will make you a true owner rather than a disposable vendor. The math is simple. Keeping that in mind, you will be able to use whatever you already have in terms of ranking and apply it directly to a digital asset that you actually own. To top it all, our holding company has purchased more than two hundred online businesses through this very way. When they are the owners of the asset, solo operators win over bloated agencies every time.
Mushfiq Sarker, Founder & Lead M&A Advisor, WebAcquisition
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Leverage Reputation For Resilience Beyond Search
A professional's reputation acts as an intangible "asset" that has to be continuously invested in (to stay competitive) so it doesn't get lost on the ever-changing search algorithm.
Experts with a long-term view will have their authority diversified across all of their earned media outlets, rather than just relying on search traffic.
That way they are building a safety net from which they can earn revenue during the times when no one is searching.
By pivoting and becoming a well-recognized Thought Leader in your field you establish yourself with pricing power to weather those difficult periods.
A strong rep is a moat for professionals allowing them to charge higher fees (premium rates).
Whether or not you appear at the top of search results does not impact this.
Matt Baharav, Founder and CEO, MKB Media Solutions
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Trim Costs, Expand Offers, Act Like Owners
Right-size your SEO business to match current performance. Negotiate better payment terms where possible to increase your cashflow runway and reduce the amount of work that's far out on the billing cycle. Approach SEO like an investment with a clear payback period.
SEO is a risky business if your sole source of revenue is purely "ranking work". Diversify your offerings beyond search. Stay lean by offering services like conversion rate optimisation, paid search crack scaling, and partnering with lead generation vendors (often called lead generation consultants or LVCs). If you have valuable data or insights you can create products out of. SEO professionals in Claims have unique access to search volume data that can be packaged monthly/annually and resold to clients or third parties. SEOs in Automotive have become experts at identifying demand cycles and can exchange this knowledge for recurring revenue.
Chris Roy, Product and Marketing Director, Claimsline
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Diversify Now or Risk Losing Everything You Built
Right now, SEO people are dealing with one of the most disruptive periods the industry has seen. AI-generated answers are eating into organic click-through rates, Google's algorithm updates are hitting sites harder and faster than before and traffic that took years to build is dropping in months.
The honest financial advice is straightforward. Don't treat SEO income as stable base income right now. If a significant portion of revenue depends on organic traffic, that revenue stream needs a hedge. That means diversifying into channels that don't depend on Google, whether that's email lists, paid search, direct partnerships or owned communities.
On the expense side, this is not the time to scale overhead based on current traffic numbers. SEO agencies and freelancers who expanded headcount during the 2020 to 2022 traffic boom are the ones feeling the most pain right now because their cost structure was built on conditions that no longer exist.
The businesses that survive disruption like this are the ones that cut exposure to the thing that's changing and build equity in things that don't, direct relationships with customers, owned audiences and diversified revenue streams that aren't one algorithm update away from disappearing.
Rami Sneineh, Vice President & Licensed Insurance Producer at Insurance Navy
