How much should a SEO project cost on a Sale Basis?

Hello everyone,

I have a potential customer who has a website in the
travel sector. The keywords to optimize are highly
competitive.
However, he only wants to seo his site on a partnership
basis. So, if someone who comes from the SEs
buys from his site I will be paid.

There is a lot of work to do as the keywords are difficult
ones. He has offered me to pay 8% of what he earns from
one sale. 8% is far away from what I expected to negotiate.
I would say ok to a 50/50 partnership.

He has to keep in mind that he will have no risk in any way.
The only thing he has to dispense with is the lower commission
he will get from the sales.

Now I want to hear from you what is a normal and fair percentage based
partnership model? Keep in mind that I don't know anything about
conversion rates.

Thanks

 

is this too difficult to answer or too difficult to understand?

 

Don't do it, if you can't get the rank high enough you could do allot of work for nothing.

 

It all depends what the site is. You are not giving enough info to be able to say what is a good deal and what is not. I've no idea why he would want to give you a cut of the money, its far cheaper to pay someone up front. Unless of course you simply plan to not pay them what they would have been due.

 

There is a risk that you get paid a few months and then get dumped. The site owner stays with the rankings, links and seo work and you end up with pennies on the dollar.

 

I would very rarely work on sales basis. Only for a close friends / relatives and if I knew the product was a worthwhile one.

Can you trust this guy to pay out? Further to that, can you trust he would pay you exactly 8%? Although it does appear low, if the guy is making $1000 on every sale, and selling 10 items a day, then 8% isn't a bad figure.

You may want to ask him to consider a basic hourly rate / monthly figure, plus a sales based percentage.

But again, it depends on how much you need the work and how valuable the work is.

Your call in the end.

 

the site owner is in the lastminute ticket branch. but he is not making
1000$ per sale/day.
I have the possibility to check his sites statistics
together with the conversions as google analytics is installed. This would
at least put the trust problem aside.

Thats right, but this also involves the risk that the SEO project
will not succeed. Sharing a portion of the profit is the no-risk-strategy
but you have to cut your profit on the longterm.
And additionally, I don't think paying for such highly competitive
keywords will be so cheap even if you just pay a one time fee.

 

you have to study all different aspects of how the site earns before dealing with the 50/50.

 

I would not touch his Website with a ten foot pole...

 

Yeah this sounds like a terrible deal.

 

8% is too low here. If you do convince him to go with the partnership route, make sure you get the deal signed in writing with YOUR contract that YOUR attorney drafted for YOU. If you don't have one, GET one.

However understand that you'll be entering into a business partnership and that you will be legally liable for any mistakes he makes (unless you set up a limited liability partnership - then you're only out what you've put into it).

 

it's pretty good if it's on a revenue basis which it probably is...(and should be) because it is much harder to define profit..i.e he could say he has loads of costs and you wouldn't know

 

Dan makes some really good points. Personally, I wouldn't touch such a proposition...unless it was for my mother

 

Excellent information here. In this situation you NEED a deal signed in writing. As someone else said earlier in the thread...This guy could take your hard work and dump you 3 months from now when that hard work actually starts to kick in. Then you're left in the dust. Remember to remind him this type of process for such difficult keywords will NOT happen overnight. You also put yourself legally liable for any mistakes he makes. I would come up with a reasonable number with him (much higher than 8%)..Then consult a lawyer.

 

sounds like a rip-off. i wouldn't even consider dealing with that guy

 

I never suggest to involve in these kind of projects,
We do seo, we are able to achieve visitors,
it's upto visitor that he buys products or not.
We can force each and every visitor to buy products on website.

 

Hi,
it's depend on quality of work if you got only visitor then price are different if you want promotion (like top ten in any SE) then it's also different.......

 

I think 8% is ridiculous! What's stopping you from becoming a travel affiliate with any one of the companies out there, doing the seo work, and then keeping 100% of the profits? This person doesn't have a good understanding of how the internet works.

However, I can understand feeling pressure and taking money from this person upfront, not being sure if you can deliver on traffic. I would only consider doing a split like this if you were just starting out and needed to get a gig to show others that you can generate traffic.

Matt

 

Why not just do it for yourself? Doesnt this guy care about how much work seo really takes and how much of your time you are putting into it? This is rediculous and a spit in the face of all seo's out there.

 

the times that I have worked on a CPA basis, I always make sure that I know the conversion rate and work out where my break even is and then add appropriate margin on that