Most businesses eventually figure out they need SEO. So they hire an agency, pay a monthly retainer, and wait. Six months later, nothing much has changed. Rankings are flat. Traffic is the same. The agency sends reports full of charts that don't mean anything.
Here's the problem: generic SEO strategies don't work in competitive spaces.
If you're in fintech, crypto, or any regulated industry, you're not competing against local plumbers for keywords. You're up against companies with massive budgets and teams dedicated to search.
The Case for Specialized Agencies
This is why specialized SEO agencies exist. Take iGaming SEO agency Laid Back Llama as an example. They focus entirely on one vertical. They know the regulations, understand what content works, and have already figured out which link building tactics actually move the needle in that specific market.
That specialization matters more than most people realize.
A generalist agency needs to learn your industry from scratch. They'll spend months understanding what makes your market different. Meanwhile, a specialist already knows. They've tested strategies on similar sites. They've seen what Google rewards and penalizes in your space.
What Actually Makes SEO Work
Forget the jargon for a second. SEO comes down to three things:
Technical foundation. Your site needs to load fast, work on mobile, and be easy for Google to crawl. This isn't optional anymore.
Content that answers questions. Not content stuffed with keywords. Actual useful information that people search for. Google has gotten very good at telling the difference.
Backlinks from relevant sites. Not random links from article directories. Links from sites that actually matter in your industry. This is where specialized agencies have a huge advantage, they already have relationships in your space.
The Problem With Most SEO Reports
Here's something agencies won't tell you: most SEO metrics are vanity metrics.
Domain authority? Made up by third-party tools. Number of backlinks? Means nothing if they're from junk sites. Keyword rankings for terms nobody searches? Useless.
What matters is organic traffic that converts. That's it. If your SEO isn't bringing in visitors who actually become customers, something is wrong with the strategy.
Good agencies, specialized ones especially, focus on this. They track what matters and adjust based on real performance data, not arbitrary scores.
When to Consider a Specialist
Not every business needs a specialized SEO agency. If you're a local service business or a straightforward e-commerce store, a competent generalist can probably help.
But if you're in a space where:
- Regulations affect what content you can publish
- Competition for keywords is intense
- Your industry has specific trust signals that matter
- Generic content strategies haven't worked
Then finding an agency that actually knows your vertical is worth the search.
The difference between ranking on page one and page three in competitive industries often comes down to whether your SEO partner understands the nuances. And in some markets, that difference means everything for your business.
SOO?
SEO isn't magic. It's a combination of technical work, content strategy, and link building executed consistently over time. But the specifics of how you do each of those things varies dramatically by industry.
If your current SEO efforts aren't working, the problem might not be SEO itself. It might be that you're using strategies designed for a different market entirely.
