> I'm not nearly the caliber of firm the NYT would stake their future livelihood on by engaging for this kind of work
Aside from working on your own, are there any other real differences? I mean, I know that while being a decent C programmer, I wouldn't hesitate to point at people that are way better than I am, because they can produce more, better code, quicker. How's that work in the honest portion of the "SEO" world?
In SEO you can be good at programming, design, writing, marketing, statistics, "consensus building", arcane knowledge, connections etc. Best to hire a company that has all of that. If you can. Plus, orgs with that much money and prestige like to pay for someone with a top tier portfolio, probably one of the "thought leaders" in the industry.
Aside from working on your own, are there any other real differences? I mean, I know that while being a decent C programmer, I wouldn't hesitate to point at people that are way better than I am, because they can produce more, better code, quicker. How's that work in the honest portion of the "SEO" world?