When I first contacted a few vendors for some global SEO work, one of them would not have the conversation until I explained whether or not they would be able to directly implement all the changes they wanted. At first I thought it was odd -- they'd get paid either way -- but as I adjusted to my new company culture, I realized that an SEO program that seems suggestive only is quite the uphill trek.
We're still able to get a lot of the changes through because our SEO and editorial teams are combined, which I think gives us a huge advantage. But even in editorial, the idea is that realization of best practices is a natural byproduct of education. What if the goals are different? What if a stakeholder truly loves their messaging down to the choice of dangling modifier? What if a traditional marketer wants their SEO results, but doesn't really want any of the content changes required to achieve those results.
On the flip side, I've seen vendors implement their content changes in horrific ways that, in my mind, are far worse than marketing fluff. You've seen it. It reads just like a Google Translation of English to Robot. At the end of the day, I prefer working with a subject matter expert who will accept the logic and goals my rewrite, but will absolutely slap my edits down around when terminology truly doesn't fit.
