No, not if you define it in measurable criteria. Like I said, traffic increase, ranking increase, sales increase, ad conversion increase, ctr increase, time spent on landing page, leads, sign ups. All quantities you can measure.
I'd venture to say that these are simply a means to an end. Pay per Performace should (IMO) be based on increased conversions, and those alone.
Disagree, some people want brand recognition. Certain markets targetted, Market share. How do you determine how many people discovered the nano online then went into a dixons and bought one? SEO is one of those areas where it is difficult to determine real measurements of success for a client. There are so many different factors involved that objectives will vary for everyone.
Pay for performance for an SEO would be a bad idea. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot. We have to look at full time SEO work from the point of view of the SEO, not just the client. SEO is a technical skill. Just like an electrician, a plumber, a programmer, a mechanic, etc. They should bill by the hour and be paid by the hour. And no plumber ever GUARANTEED me he'd fix the leaky pipes. And he certainly didn't commit to only being paid if the pipes performed at a certain level Pay for performance would guarantee that an SEO would never get paid by the client.
I've done it and not been paid, paying an hourly rate is a standard way of doing it, if someone spends and invoices for 20 hours and you see little or no change then I would be asking them exactly what they did for that money. Any SEO worth his salt will make the changes quickly and therefore for a lower cost making the spend worth their while. Perhaps a bonus could be paid for certain high results but results are relative and so in my opinion pay for performance is a waste of time as if the sites doesnt do well for whatever reason your out of pocket for doing the same work that could of amde another site rank well...
I even pay some of my freelance coders based on performance. I don't see why you can't do the same with SEO work. Any SEO who dares to put his money where his mouth is will do it. And they are the ones that probably outperform the others. It would indeed probably be easier on the nerves to to a basic hourly rate and the rest incentivised but I wouldn't ever pay $95 an hour.
Like Fryman, I spend most of my time on my own sites but occasionally I'll do some contract SEO work. I usually charge a combination of a fixed fee to cover the hard costs and "pay for performance" for the rest. I've got several customers that send me nice quarterly checks that are a lot more than I would have made if it was time & material. I agree with TOPS and Oliver. If you identify up front what the goals and objectives are and can track the results (ROI, branding, ranking, conversion, etc.) it usually works out better.
I used to guarantee rankings, clients didn't pay unless their site was top 10, and if it was number 1 or 2 they would pay extra. Acutally I still do it that way, but now I get a little bit for top 10 in yaoo and msn, to make the wait better. I pretty much work entrirely pay per performance now, on my own affiliate sites. For the most part I think clients are stupid greedy assholes, who don't convert traffic well, and complain about it. Once in awhile someone I already worked with wants help on new site, that pretty much the only clients I would work with.
Exactly Immorta. Pay for performance assumes that we're dealing with good, honest clients that want to pay us. Most of them don't want to pay one cent more than they have to. I don't blame them! But I don't haggle after the work is done. I'll haggle about pricing BEFORE I start work, but not after. Pay for performance leads to a whole lot of disagreement about the definition of "performance". The key is to do good honest work, let the client see the results in the SE's and then when they want even more work done they come back to us again. And we bill'em again $ And hopefully that cycle continues for quite awhile. Especially through referrals to other clients that recommend our work.
No decent SEO would agree to work based on "performance" That is like going to a restaurant and telling the waiter "hey, I will pay depending on how good the food is"
I agree with fryman on this one. I do believe there is a place for performance based SEO, where it is appealing, but hourly or a set amount for work is the best way to go. Every marketing/advertising action you go after has the potential to bomb. You wouldn't tell USA Today, "Ya, I'll pay you for an AD after you run it and I convert XX amount". They'd laugh. They'd find someone else to fill the hole. And just like any GOOD SEO, if they don't want to pay up-front, after the hundreds of sites I've ranked or browsing thru my vast list of clients (with phone numbers to call them), then they can go somewhere else for SEO services, because more then likely...i don't WANT to work with them anyway.
Adam, If I was a full-time SEO consultant then I would probably have a similar opinion - but I'm not so I don't. Implying that SEOs who don't charge by hour are not good at what they do is silly. Let me give you a much smaller but real world example where I helped a Real Estate Broker increase his online leads by x% over the previous 6 months. I charged him a small upfront fee and I get $y per lead over the benchmark and $y*z for anything over a 100% increase. There's also a quarterly kicker if the close rate (signed contract) for the Internet leads exceed 25% of the previous benchmark. This is easy to track. It’s lucrative for me and he makes a train load of money in the process.
Do you tip a bad waiter the same as a good one? Do you accept the burnt stake even though you asked for rare? Also, the plumber one doesn't work - If I had a plumber come out to fix the leak and he didn't - I don't pay. If I pay the plumber to find the problem, and he searches to no avail, I may have to pay, but what kind of plumber won't find the problem. BTW, I am not totally disagreeing with anyone points here, just these analogies didn't work out right in my mind. I think someone can work either way on this one and do it right. If I pay someone to do SEO I would expect results in an increase of visitors not sales. If I paid them to help convert then I would pay on results of sales, and most SEO's don't specialize in converting visitors to sales, but getting the traffic.
dave487 : The problem with hiring a really good seo is that they can make loads of cash working on their own sites. hahahah this is soooo true.... I make more money working on my sites then working on client's site... Client's site work = 1 time paid Working on my own site = Getting paid 24/7 all year around.
That wasn't what I was implying. I was implying that if you have a track record of gaining rankings, almost to the point that its a "gaurantee", then the "ball is in your court", so to speak. Charging before/after or performance based has nothing to do with your own personal SEO knowledge and degree of success. I too have similar situations with real estate clients of mine. And like I said, there is a place for performance SEO, where it's beneficial for both businesses and the variables can be tracked. Even still with the real estate clients and getting paid per lead, you can't track phone calls. There are still variables that are outside of your control that you should be paid on/for.
Do you tip SEOs? Can't really apply the analogy, since a SEO works in an evironment where there are many variables that can't be controlled by him. Yeah, he can get backlinks, work on your site, optimize it, but he sure can't control the search engines. In your example, it would be like if the cook couldn't control the intensity of the flames at the stove. He will prepare your stake as good as he can, but it might end up getting burnt.
SEO and Generating Leads are totally different things, almost the same as SEO and SEM. I would class them as 2 different things.. SEO: On site optimisation. SEM: Off site optimisation. Depends what a client is looking for, if they want someone to generate sales and do SEO they should hire someone full time.