A few years back businesses were throwing 20-30k a month on search engine optimization; at least the bigger businesses were. The small business was hard pressed to find search engine optimization for much less that actually worked.
As of today the landscape of search engine optimization has changed. Many of the once coveted secrets of seo are now common knowledge. More and more people know how to do search engine optimization and since supply increased the prices have dropped.
Another factor is that alot of the grunt work of seo that would have increased costs has been diminished via outsourcing to India and other countries who can now do this mind numbing work for much less thereby allowing seo firms to lower their costs even more.
As an seo with around 7 years of experience I find that most of my time these days is spent in research. Google is pretty good at keeping us all on our toes with each update they make to their search engine algorithm. Scouring forums, chatting with colleagues and investing time in experimentation seems to fill many of my days lately.
Having relegated much of my own firms grunt work to freelancers I am able to provide more...