What do clients ask for, and other agencies sell, that I talk them out of? A lot of backlinks, guest posts and blogs.
The blogs are the main thing, just because 68% of Google searches end without a click. That's a lot of informational searches going to AI Overviews.
Why not blogs first
Blogs are still important. But the reason I talk clients out of them is that other pages, or other specific focuses, need to come first.
Blogs can be good as long as they're evergreen. But a lot of times, don't expect clicks to come from them. Yes, you could get a citation, and you can get mentions, but you can't get clicks from it, especially if you're in AI Overviews or getting cited for specific mentions. I think there are other things to focus on first.
Here's what that looks like in real life: a blog post that went from 14,040 to 234,809 impressions and almost no customers.
When I do recommend blogs
When product pages or service pages are set up properly. Then blogs that actually answer questions your customers are asking, have actual impact, or say something unique to you, and help with internal linking.
What SEO actually is
Instead of SEO being "hey, 4 blogs a week" and that being a standard SEO service: no, that's not what's actually going on.
That's why technical SEO is always so big to start with. That's why a roadmap is vital to follow. Not just an "SEO partner" that sells blogs, guest articles and backlinks.
Source: SparkToro, In 2026, Less Than One Third of Google Searches Still Send a Click (US searches, January to April 2026).
