Fred, first of all, there are SEOs, consultants and SEOs that can also either find or refer you to a good SEO they know in your price range (or maybe offer their services).

It all comes down to a referral, really.

As I already said, SEOs need to improve the industry. I understand that the newcomers have other things to do, but established ones could spare 1-3% of their time to basically write a post or two about their processes, how their job helps clients (with as much detailed examples as possible) and so on. We, as SEOs, should take the responsibility on how other people view us.

Apparently, there are thousands of pages about "SEO services" "submit to * search engines". Frankly, I am horrified at the statistics and hope it'll get washed out by better SEO services providers.

I also like your approach of analyzing the SEO services description. It is pretty solid and error-proof (mostly). However, not many people can be that smart or have enough time to analyze every SEO offer they get. Some execs often act on emotions or hire their friends' nephews and such.

Also, for example, there can be examples of lame SEO services offers that were crafted by marketers, but which don't do much. Or that are offered by (in)famous companies or domain registrars. Even looking at some of the offers, unless you know SEO, won't help.

It really seems that the best way is to use someone's expert knowledge of the SEO industry to find the right services, really. Otherwise, seek for signs of transparency, fair pricing and case studies.

Thanks for coming around, Fred and Alex.