Need to hire a SEO specialist: how much should I pay?

Greetings:
I have been looking for a good SEO for a couple of weeks now. I have been asked all kinds of fees: I have been asked $400 for a three month campaign; I have been asked $850 for a two month campaign and I have been asked $120 for a four month campaign.
Erm , I am confused....what are the regular prices for this service??

 

Personally I'd use someone who charges based on results.

Let them make a commission on your business...

Much more chance of not falling into a cowboy developer that way.

 

I would say SE is right. However, most seos tend to not want to do that or easily get distracted because it takes a while to get ranked + generate any decent return for the initial hard work. A hybrid usually works well. Pay someone less to build the site + a commission. That way you get a quality site + someone willing to help promote at the same time.

 

Be really careful when deciding who to use. I paid $800 up front and $100 a month afterward to a company. They couldn't even get me ranked for non competitive terms that they suggested. One month after I fired them and have been doing my own SEO, I have 16 top ten terms that I chose.

Make sure they tell you and show you what they are doing with your money.

The price will depend on your site, what you need done and how hard they have to work to get you ranked. Often it depends on how much competition you have.

 

Based on results...I do not think that would be easy to find but it is definitely the wisest choice. Thank you! I will look and see what I can find. I would try to do it myself, but I just do not have the time and the skills. I want this to be done in a very professional way.
Thank you all

 

Totally depends on your target terms. I charge MUCH more than than all three of those companies, but that said my services typically pays for itself many times over. If you are selling ball point pens for 50 cents each than you're going to have to move alot of product to justify your dollars. If you are a tax attorney and can make $5,000 + per client than it might only take a couple of sales to cover costs, if that. Both are competitive markets... What is your product/service? How much competition is there? How much do you stand to gain?

If you are currently selling $10,000 / mo with X visitors, assume your constant conversion rate and if your SEO can triple your traffic than you are now selling $30,000 / mo. Now, of that additional $20,000 - what is your profit? What can you budget for adverstising cost? Let's say a 20% ad cost - that's $4,000 you are willing to pay for that increase in sales. Thus, anything less than $4,000 a month and you are better than you started. Anything more and it doesn't make sense for you...

Obviously its not that easy to predict exactly what will happen with traffic, but you can come up with rough approximations given your current position, the market opportunity, competition, etc....

 

Greetings:
How much do you charge to do me that kind of analysis? I mean a rough approximation of what I could expect from your services and if it would pay off for me to hire you. I would also need an analysis on my competition.

 

Anyone who claims to be a SEO expert ask them to provide you with keywords which their site itself is ranked high on the SERPs...that should be part of your research when deciding. I find it strange when a SEO cannot rank well for their own site. The keyword should not be obscure keyword or their site/company name....but a well known name which defines their company...such as: "search engine optimization" and produces at least over 500,000 results. They should be able to accomplish this on their site for at least 3 keywords. Try before you buy. It will save you alot of headache in the future.

Question? Do you not have the time to dedicate yourself? Truthfully, what a SEO does for you can usually be accomplished with added effort and dedication on your part. There are some skilled SEO's who can provide you with beneficial results, but there is a handful...and usually the pricing is far in the thousands! Majority, will do what you can do yourself, like submit you to search engines, directories, link exchange, keyword optimization, meta-tags, ....all the stuff you learn in the forums (like this one). Some also, may get you penalized in the SE's depending on their method. If you don't have to time to dedicate to doing it yourself then I understand, but if you have the time then I would suggest researching, participating and gaining vast amounts of knowledge in forums (like this one) and doing the task yourself. Their are some skilled professionals on this forum and the alike which graciously share their everlasting knowledge. You'll save money and will be more aware of your site performance and traffic in the time to come.

I think ephircon is on to something! SEO should probably be considered when you already have a good amount of traffic, when you are looking to increase your visitors and willing to spend money (in the thousands) to grab these results. If you concentrate on your visitors and get the word out about your site as much as you can then with time, patience, persistence, and consistence your site will gain momentum. It will take some time.....possibly over a year worth of time.....but if you make at least 2 manual link exchanges a day and 1 improvement a day on your site...you will begin to see a growing trend. That's all it takes.

I will spend that $400.00, $850.00, or $120.00 on Pay-Per-Click...you'll probably come out better.

 

Dude, honestly the amounts you are quoting are extremely low unless you are targeting extremely un-competitive terms. Especially if there are no ongoing fees. If you terms are easy enought where a hundred reciprical links will do it. Then maybe you will get the job done for that price.

If you find someone who has no idea, how much seo is worth you might get a deal. But more then likely they will just take you money and do nothing.

If you terms are really uncompetitive, unless you are totally computer/html illiterate, it would be much better to just read and do it your self.

 

Unfortunatly, there really isn't any standard rates... pretty much based on word of mouth, knowledge and expertise....

I'd say hiring on character/recommendation is the best bet, and somehow put cost asside....

If the work isn't done right, whether you loose $500 or $5000, you still loose.

 

Ok, I am glad I could hear all your wise opinions. I am going to give it a try myself, to begin with. I am already learning a big deal just by hanging here and reading your posts.
I need to be honest, I first came to this site to find costumers for my business but now I just can’t get myself to leave! LOl
I will be haunting this forum forever!
Thank you all, once again.

 

The power of forums is under-rated. The true treasure is to participate in forum discussions when you have something valuable to add. In the interim you will gain knowledge....you may gain customers or better you may gain partners and/or long-lasting friends. I'm new to this forum as well, but I can tell you that it is one of the most powerful in the web industry and I'm here for the long haul. Welcome to you.

 

I see people paying for or offering services for $100 one time, and I've seen the same for $50,000 - $100,000 per year

I choked when I saw what some big companies are paying for Natural search optimization. Blew me away - until I realized the $$$ that was involved.

A company that generates 2 million dollars in online sales every year, might raise the bar to 3 million by appearing high in relevant searches, and converting well - so a $100,000 dollars is nothing. Companies are bleeding away from print advertising and scurrying to SEO firms by the droves. Now with the increased popularity of TiVo-like TV recording devises $27 Billion dollars (over the next 5yrs) in TV advertising revenue is estimated to go unwatched or be rebudgeted to other targeted audiances.

Who is that...? Search users.

The other side of it is Market Mind share
It 'chaps' some corporate guys hide when a loathed competitor shows up in #1, and they are in #2. THOUSANDS of dollars exchange hands to dance with their competitor for the #1 spot. This is nothing new - companies have been warring for market presence long before Gore thought up the WWW. This is just one more marketing venue.

So whether you're after a share of the market mind, the market wallet or both you pay what its worth to you.

Cost V.S. Benefit
If you make $30,000 a year on a website, you probably shouldn't spend $15k to get great serp placement. If investing $5000 would get your site ranked, but only generate and additional $1000 in revenue - then whats the point - except the personal pride of appearing ahead of your competition in the serps.

I like the idea that you should pay a start up feefee, then pay for performance. I mean my time is worth something to me, but I'd hate to take $500 to cover my time to set-up titles, etc and the poor customer have no measurable differences to show for it.

What to pay for:
-Reputation: proven performance
-True measurable increases from baseline(start) to stage points (monthly, yearly etc) on metrics that are clear, relevant and represent real value.

 

Dude,

just put your key phrases in your title tags

then get as many links as possible pointing at your site with your key phrases in their text

Thats pretty much it

 

My turn now!

If you have the time, start doing it yourself, at least the basic work is going to be done with no costs.
SEOing is time consuming and even very basic work means a lot of time, and if it's done by a pro you'll have to pay him as such for a basic work.

Of course not all can be done by anyone, as you also need a powerful network of websites behind you which might already be available to a SEO.
So if you are not satisfied of your own work, you might want to look at SEO agencies, but I would never accept fixed costs, I would only go by results.
Check their past work, see if they are capable of doing the job, and then you can hire them but you'll have to allow time, as SEOing is not only time consuming but it's also about waiting...
If you can, ask former or present clients about them.

The prices differ a lot depending on how hard the challenge is.

And please note that many good SEOs are not necessarily well placed with their websites because only one can be #1, only 10 can be in the first page, but there are many many SEOs out there that may accept the task for reasonable prices.

So, what are you going to do?

Good luck!

 

For now, after listening to what everyone has to say, I decided I will start doing it myself. I will build a good link exchange , submit my site to as many search engines and directories as possible and update my website´s content often. I am also considering starting a blog :O

 

OK, your plan is correct.

The only thing is that you can save some time not submitting to search engines.

And let me also remind you that quality is much better than quantity when it comes to incoming links.

These forums our here to help us all

 

It takes a little more than just keywords in title tags. If your targeting big search terms you will need keywords in various places in your content. Header tags, alt tags, and other tags will add emphisis to those keywords when used properly.

 

I think this is a very good yardstick to chect the level of the service SEO companies provide.

If they can't get themself ranked high, how would they do for their client who has paid $$$ for their unproved services..

Secondly try to get their projection as to how much traffic/sales they expect to generate let say 2-3 months down the line. This would give pretty much good idea of their expertise.

 

I don't think anyone can really predict that sort of thing because you are relying on what a third party is going to do. IE: Google. I can't force Google to push my site to #1. I can only encourage them to by using SEO techniques.