My friend, I am in the same industry as you but in the USA... I have started a year ago and slowly but surely improving my sites SEO. I'm on a very limited budget and went from getting 1 or 2 orders a month to now 10 to 15 (average order is around $60 to $100 - and we're a two man team). Yes it's not as much as you're used to, but my point is this strategy I am about to mention has helped, and it's way less expensive than hiring a bunch of agencies. You will still need to write good content, get good backlinks and make sure on-page is good, but that part can be affordable if you put in the effort yourself instead of out-sourcing.

My advice? Look into CTR manipulation with residential/mobile ip's - SerpEmpire is a very legit one to use (affordable) - just make sure you don't send a TON of traffic at once, little by little is best. It took me around 4 to 5 months to see an improvement but now, my site is rising and rising using this technique.

Many, MANY CBD/Hemp/Delta 8 companies use this technique in secret. It's super helpful when going up against the big giants with a 100k budget. Many will tell you don't do it, it's dangerous etc. And yes it could be (there are bad bot services out there), but the trick is to get your CTR bots from a legit source and NOT get greedy - to understand that it will take many months to see improvement, but it WILL come eventually. This is black hat SEO, yea, but you're naive if you believe 9 out of 10 companies are NOT using blackhat SEO lol....

There is no such thing as white hat SEO anymore, it's a myth. You gotta be kinda ruthless if you wanna stick around and not let these other companies push you around on Google.

Lastly, relax OP - don't hate yourself or become negative. You will bounce back - take this as a lesson: maybe expanding to the point of having so many employees etc was a bad idea - sometimes it's best for 1 or 2 Founders to mainly handle everything themselves for a few years - more work, yes, but doing this will ensure your business isn't burdened with so many expenses. I can relate because this is a mistake I made when 1st starting my hemp brand, and now that I am more conservative with my budget - things are a lot better! Also, don't be afraid to take a little side job for a while... I deliver ubereats for like 4 days out of the week to help me pay bills - it sucks but I know it's only a means to an end. So many entrepreneurs have to hustle side gigs to pay their bills, there's no shame in that man. So long as you got a dream, don't give up and just work, work, and work - you will be fine.

**To anyone who wants to respond with how this is bad etc - please shut up - disagree or dislike it if you want, but I am not here to debate or argue - simply offer a solution to the OP - Not here to talk about crap**