SEO, What do you charge ?

[RiverWire]

One of my friends (offline) has taken a sudden interest in what i do and while ive given him the low down its still hard to get him started, Ive basicly told him to go out and buy his first first site, not as an established site, more like Buy your domain (but think about long term sites not something for a year or two) Buy vBulletin, VBseo , get someone to make a cracking Template etc.

If you've guessed he wants a forum, infact a gaming forum.

Now all in all he could get all that and get going for less than £250.

He's asked me to do the seo on it but ive told him i can help give him advise but i havent got the time to do anything else as my current clients and my sites are as much as i can do at the moment. (with having a job aswell)

SOOOOO ive said id ask around to see what you'd charge a month to SEO this forum ? with how many keywords this would be for etc

Dont worry this isnt a job interview it just so he can see what he can expect, and of course at the end of it i may recommend someone

Please post in the forum so we can make a decent thread

 

[KingPin36]

That a pretty board question to ask how much because I operate 4 different types of packages for my clients.

The lowest package is £1,000 per month and the highest is £5,500 per month, these are just "out of the box" packages but it can be more if they want something more custom to fit their needs.

All of my clients are on a 12 month rolling contract.

I know and have heard of media companies charging on the hour for like 8 hours SEO, I don't know how that works but hey.

KP

 

[arora]

Good heavens! that's some quote!

Where do the small businesses go - if they want a "Seo Expert"?

I never thought - it will be so much! Thank God - i do my own!

Is it only me - or that's the general quote for SEO's!

I guess, i am in the wrong field & shd. learn to be a professional SEO!

:drool::drool::drool: :thumbsup:

That a pretty board question to ask how much because I operate 4 different types of packages for my clients.

The lowest package is £1,000 per month and the highest is £5,500 per month, these are just "out of the box" packages but it can be more if they want something more custom to fit their needs.

All of my clients are on a 12 month rolling contract.

I know and have heard of media companies charging on the hour for like 8 hours SEO, I don't know how that works but hey.

KP

 

[KingPin36]

According to my clients I'm cheap!! maybe I should put my prices up?

I'm just lucky enough to work with FTSE and Fortune 500 companies.

If I had a small business come to me I would probably do it at half the cost. For me SEO is not about the money, it's in my blood and I love it.

I work for charities for free and I donate 25,000 per year to Cancer Research.

KP

 

[arora]

KP,

I must say you are RICH - if you can afford to donate 25,000 POUNDS!!!! per year to CR.

Most guys, i know don't earn more than that!

 

[KingPin36]

I'm in a lucky position to be able to do that. If I never had the money I would still do charity work for them because my Mum died of Cancer.

Anyways, this is going of topic.

How much would you charge Arora?

KP

 

[arora]

KP,

I am NOT a professional SEO - i do it cuz i cannot afford good seo's like you!

I didn't know about seo - till i joined the seo contest! Foolish - you might say - but hey i always wanted to learn seo - i have to learn html soon - as soon as i can get some time to do it!

I actually believe, you have to charge appropriately! What u can do in 10 hrs has been learnt over a period of time with lots of effort gone into it - so it has to be paid in appropriate terms ( read money). If you are good & u r able to command good price & companies are happy to pay for it & satisfied with your work - then sky is the limit!

See Aaron Wall - he states on his blog - he takes work only if the budget is more than 20,000 USD/ month.

So, i would charge appropriate to my reputation and result delivery statistics!

 

[RiverWire]

If I had a small business come to me I would probably do it at half the cost. For me SEO is not about the money, it's in my blood and I love it.

You are a lucky man i deal with the smaller companys and go only just under half, after all most of my client are from my area of the country and norfolk isnt flooded with money like london etc. It gets me a good income even though i only do it part time.

 

[smeagain]

I charge £15 per hour for SEO work. Seems fair to me in this part of the world. My county has the lowest average wage in the country. I work mainly for small businesses, mainly Startups. I live OK and they can afford the service. I also think in that price range, I work with far nicer people. Lets face it, SEO is not brain surgery.

 

[arora]

I don't think, even Brain surgeons, charge £5,500/- on a per month basis. It is usually a one off cost!

Most of the folks go to NHS anyway - with the waiting list so low nowadays - pvt. practise is v low except in London, Manchester & other big cities or if you have health insurance & want to go down the PVt. treatment route only!

I charge £15 per hour for SEO work. Seems fair to me in this part of the world. My county has the lowest average wage in the country. I work mainly for small businesses, mainly Startups. I live OK and they can afford the service. I also think in that price range, I work with far nicer people. Lets face it, SEO is not brain surgery.

 

[KingPin36]

I think my pricing seems to have been misconstrued.

The highest package is not "Just" SEO, that encompasses many other elements of internet marketing. That could be brand noise, usability, e-commerce solutions, creating affiliate merchant accounts, anything.

To be honest when it's all broken down, my prices are pretty good. Admittedly there not the cheap but I am a firm believe you get what you pay for.

The SEO/SEM industry has become so saturated because you get these people that rank their own sites for these obscure keywords and think there automatically Professional SEO's.

As I said you get what you pay for, I firmly believe that SEO is NOT about ranking for a single keyword like "Design" for example.

Yes it will bring you a lot of traffic but how many will convert? how many different styles of design are out there?

Internet Marketing/SEO/SEM is about increasing one thing and thats conversion and that is how you measure success. If that companies profits are increasing month by month and having repeat, regular customers then I have done my job.

I would rather have 500 target users where 480 will convert rather than 5000 visitors and zero convert because it's simply not what there after.

KP

 

[arora]

Well said KP,

I would rather have 10 people come to my site & 6 convert to sales - than to have 500 come & Zero conversion to sales. It is sales that matter to me!
And I will definitely come to you- if i am in the market for a "Big Bang project".

 

[smeagain]

The original question was

SEO, What do you charge ?

Note:
SEO not SEM PPC E-Comerce Solutions or anything else. Optimising for search engines as an exercise in itself does not include all the very expensive activities that Kingpin will charge 5 figure sums for. "Search Engine Optimisation" (SEO) is purely what it says on the tin, Optimising pages to improve organic search results. Many businesses are either happy to leave it at that or in many cases that is as far as their budget will stretch.

I have clients that generate more business than they have capacity for with just straight SEO. Pure SEO if researched and then implimented properly, can in many cases be all that is required.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

We are going to have this HEAVY debate now about what is and isn't SEO.

Those of us who have been around a long time since the birth of the web will remember that ORIGINALLY it was search engine spamming, just getting a page to the top by fair means or fowl (known by everyone as search engine positioning) that eventually became known as SEO. The Quality web marketers that were around then simply took it a hell of a lot further forward, and to quote my good friend Jill Whalen, SEO became 'making a website the best it can be'.

Smea, it is all well and fine saying 'he asked for SEO', but it doesn't work like that, as the person asking the question might have a different belief as to what SEO is than you , me , and lots of others ;0

 

[smeagain]

I didn't say he asked for SEO, I said the topic starter asked:
"SEO, What do you charge ?"
Now as we are in a Web Masters Forum not talking to a client, it is a fair assumption that we don't need to get into the mode of debating what basic functions like SEO actually are.
In no way should that include providing e-commerce solutions, creating affiliate merchant accounts and all the other services that result in KPs 5 figures per month Fee. Optimising a page/s to improve their position in Search engines is SEO pure and simple. Other marketing services which can and do improve the effectiveness of a site, valuable though they may be, are just not SEO.

 

[scoobby]

i have to agree that seo is different that sem,in fact i have a good domain about sem and i didnt keep it because allthought i believe i know a lot about seo i have no clue how i can provide sem services to a customer...