My opinion is that SEO doesn't add that much to the value of a website when the website is designed with good standards. Ex: robots.txt, sitemap.xml, meta tags,

My opinion is that SEO doesn't add that much to the value of a website when the website is designed with good standards. Ex: robots.txt, sitemap.xml, meta tags, no frames, etc. The fact is however, most companies wouldn't know if there website is build according to these standards. This makes it that SEO people can easily sell there product because which company wouldn't want to be higher on Google? I give you money, you make me first on Google, I get more money. That's the simple and sellable equation SEO companies give. (It also relates to the common problem in web development. Most of the buyers don't know what quality they are getting because they will never look at the source code. They only see a pretty website.)