Hello. Thanks for the information. I state first off that the state of internetwide SEO is very fraudulent, full of people who read all the basics, and there are a lot, and think they can guarantee anyone anything. They cannot, except maybe for more obscure wording, but for high competition, and other situations and goals that arise, they cannot.
And neither can I. My fee structure guarantees that I will put the up front research required, to know who, what, where, why and how we will out compete the competition. The reality is, much of the competition in high volume areas are investing heavily, and the best directed investment would take time. So, if I cannot get the results for the 50% up front, the rest on delivery, then the delivery is void, and due to my own ethic, I would not take it anyways.
In the interim of that, the required intelligence itself is what I do give, as to how the competitors are doing it, market saturation, competitive overlaod for other reasons, etc. I don't abandon it if it turns out beyond budget, I show some clients, as some already knwo, the enormous volume in "key-syntax", and innovative REALTIME experimenting can produce great results, across a different way of viewing accessibility to the market