Charge per the hour. The more work they want, the more of your time it takes, the more money you make.
How about 600 dollars a month for all SEO? How about the terms "photo sharing" and "photo storage"? What will a person pay to see that on the front page of Google? I'm tempted to go after the 2500 a month but I'm newbie (but with 2 front page sites for my resume). What will people pay? Google adwords tool says 4354 people are searching for "photo storage" daily and 477 daily visitors are looking for for photo sharing. Wordtracker gives very different numbers. Basically my resume showcase site gets 250 visitors daily and ranks # 6 for "Guitar Chord Charts" (a term with around 700 searches daily) and my other site gets only 20 some visitors daily but ranks # 3 for "jobs in my area" which gets around 2,500 searches daily according the Google keyword tool and Wordtracker. But definately, link building should be charged by the month (as long as it's on the front page). Do you agree or should it be some kind of a contract?
I'm not seeing those numbers. Are you using a broad search? (By the way, I answered your PMs about the same subject.)
It depends on which market you target, if you target the small websites 200$ is ok, but if I would say 200$ to my target customers, they would probably laugh and tell me to get out! You get what you pay for, and bigger businesses knows that better. People that charge 200$ for an seo campaign makes my job harder because people don't get the results anticipated and lose confidence in SEO consultants. Exactly like when I sold websites, people told me that their website was no good, and ended up being a pain, but they spend 500$ on it! I think it's too easy to become a 'seo pro' these days. Everybody thinks they know about SEO because they read some articles on forums and websites. I've been doing this for 10 years and I still learn everyday My 2 cents
Iv'e risen my price to 2,500 a month for a package deal (link building). I assume that will include 2 or 3 keyphrases. But a SEO told me that the terms "photo storage" and "photo sharing" are worth 5,000 a month per keyword. So will people pay a person with a low I trader 2,500 a month? Only, if they are impressed by my two portfolio sites which are on the front page of Google. I don't have Dan Shulz's background though.
That's a ridiculous way to charge for seo, you don't determine competition based on the number of search results.
He was merely confused. I told him via private message that's what I charge per client site (not keyword) per month after he asked for clarification. (I also only take on two link building clients at a time too.)
No, we were just shooting PMs back and forth at a high rate of speed. You know, kind of like how people go through ammo at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot every year in Kentucky.
I don't think we're on the same page. I made a comment about how he determined competition for a keyword. I'm not sure what that has to do with the PM's you had with him.
IMO, no they won't. If you are just starting out then the best thing for you to do is start small and work your way up, by doing so you can build a nice client base and therefore be able to justify your pricing. If you are a good sales person then you can pitch anyone at any price and land the deal, but you still need a little back up. More importantly, don't try to go after the big fish right from the start, if your having trouble bringing in the 5 ponder what makes you think that you can bring in a 100 ponder. But hey, we all get lucky sometimes and find the one who knows nothing but has a big wallet, if your good at finding those kind of clients then by all means jack the price up. If not, just stick to what you know you can do.
That's actually one of the things we were discussing via PM - and that's what he got confused about. I merely told him to ignore "competition by keyword" as a metric or pricing guide and to instead charge by the time it'll take him to do the job multiplied by his hourly rate plus whatever added value he can provide to the client. In other words... (t*r)+v=p t = time it takes to do the job r = his (or your) hourly rate v = extra value provided to the client (this one's hard to determine) p = price quoted for services
All you need is one or two a month to make a living. Actually a one year contract with one client at 2,500 a month is about the same salary as I make now. The proof is in the work. Do I have sites at the top of Google?
Except for the fact that you have to pay your own taxes out of the value of the contract. (Which is why I suggested you go with a combination of link building, site optimization and consulting. You'll have multiple streams of related income which will allow you to pay those taxes plus your cost of living expenses while still having money left over in the bank.)