Well, this post is sure to invite the wrath of the SEO industry. Well, being straightforward, how many of you think that SEOs actually do something special to your site? Lets see, you want link backs, you've got 1000s of directories out there. Besides, with several SEOs using doorway pages, hidden links and text, different pages for bots their services are more likely to get you into trouble than the green in your pocket.

Another argument supporting the statement is that several people who have bought advertisements from reputed companies like AdWords, Overture etc. get their site listed within no time. Plus, of course, you get targetted traffic as well in return. Now, if you are paying say $ 300 to the company doing your SEO. Now instead, buy advertisements from AdWords, Overture for PPC worth $ 75 each and invest another $75 with two affiliate networks, say CJ and ClixGalore. You get traffic, indeed and loads of link backs courtsey your affiliates. Besides, you don't even have to go thorough the hustles of changing a lot of code, which a SEO company has to do.

Any views?
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valid argument.

but there are corporate organisations who simply dont know abt these..

and what they do.

go to a design firm who just charge them to do something similar.

with several SEOs using doorway pages, hidden links and text, different pages for bots their services are more likely to get you into trouble than the green in your pocket

Personally I wouldn't class anyone using these methods as an SEO. Scam artist, spammer, yes, but not SEO. A real SEO is not out just to get traffic, the aim is to improve the conversions, sales, qualified leads etc, So you only need real SEO/SEM services if you want to improve your ROI from the website. Yep it's not rocket science 95% of it is common sense and could be done yourself.
If you are happy with the results from PPC then fine, but as an example, some minor optimising and small design changes to a clients site saw them dropping their £1500 monthly average PPC spend ( that's GBP btw, approx $2500 USD) to around £600 ($1000 USD) with a 20% increase in sales. That was for a one off cost and the returns have continued for 18 months with no more changes apart from adding/deleting products.
Now that's what the right kind of SEO work can do. and the cost of the work was recouped simply on the PPC savings in the first couple of months.

Not all SEO's use the "cloak and dagger" you discussed. There are some of us that work to get good back links and work with webmasters to get the site search engine friendly while still being user friendly. We provide the knowledge and background to get the backlinks to our client's websites while they can run their business.
As for the PPC ads, while some people do click on them, most prefer to go after the natural results, which SEO's provide. Also with the PPC ads, the more competitive the phrase, the more it will cost you per click when someone clicks through to your site. And then when the money runs out, you are no longer at the top of the search engines.
We have had great success driving traffic to our client's web doorstep.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion though. Not everyone has to use and SEO. Every now and then though you must hire a professional to do a specific job that you are not willing to do. That is why we have CPA's, doctors, painters, builders, etc.

I think yes SEO is a must for the website but the way we interpret is a bit different. First of all I would say according to me SEO does not mean change lots of code but its just clean up of code which I used to do when I use to program in C-C++ and so I dont see anything big related to code changing.

Regarding getting lots of backlinks

I submit to directories not for high SERP's but just for the sake that someone in forum requested a submission and the link will be on PR 0 page also the main in my mind is traffic and not PR.

I am also against paying someone for SEO as its a very simple continous process and if you do that yourself it has more benefit that losses.