The issue was when Small Business Owners didn’t have $10k as an initial spend to grow their business online.
Anyway, in some of my meetings, I encountered these amazing, product-focused and service-oriented Small Business Owners who wanted to change the world. (I think thats what I love most about servicing clients — the daily inspiration of helping them change the world through their product / service) But most of them were just starting out and couldn’t afford both services so they would just get web design and leave it at that. Even today, that is the norm — Web design is a separate service from SEO.
Here is a primer if you don’t understand why SEO is an integral part of Web design.