I was looking through the service offerings of the UK top 100 digital agencies (http://top100.nma.co.uk/section.php?section_id=1) and musing on the state of the industry. One observation that can be made is how the number of technical, creative and increasingly digital media agencies are offering SEO services, something that a few years ago certainly wasn’t the case.

It would appear that Specialist SEO agencies face an assault on their market space from all sides and, unfortunately for them, from major players in the digital arena. Personally, I have my own opinion on this which I have held from the day we started in 1999, but I wonder what the wider SEOmoz community felt and if you’d like to share your thoughts? I’ll follow up this post with my own conclusions and comments on the debate that (hopefully) will start here.

As I see it, SEO services are being provided from 3 main market positions...where do you think it sits best?

• Option 1: Specialist SEO agencies are best. The innovation and expertise required can only flourish in a dedicated agency.
• Option 2: Development agencies: SEO should be built in from day one and needs to be seen in the context of the customer journey.
• Option 3: SEO sits best with media agencies; organic search is so intertwined with media planning and buying that it needs to be part of the media strategy.