Wow really . Try reading through the OP carefully. The guy wants ranking for the term "pay per click". And wants to pay $500 for it. The keyword is like super tough and $500 is peanuts for the effort it is going to take, he will be up against real hard competitors who have tonnes of backlinks they got overtime, almost all of them one way and many voluntarily given one way links. $500 is way too less for a work of this maginitude.
The age of the url will certainly come into play. You would need a lot of highly relevant links to move up to the first page for that term. $500 a month doesn't seem realistic to me.
Hey guys, thanks for all your feedback. Note that I never said I'd like to pay $500/month for it. That is the price some of you set as minimum for this. I actually have no idea of what would be a realistic budget for this, but start to get an idea after all your answers. I understand some of the top SEO experts will charge $500 only for a 1 hour phone call, but then again, I'm not sure that is worth it. What I also see is that it seems better to work on 10 to 30 "smaller" search terms before to attack the real tough one. Massive articles posting to get as much relevant backlinks as possible looks like a good way to start.
If you are serious on ranking for that KW - i am ready to take up the challenge. Details : 1) Budget : $ 600 pm 2) Duration : 15-18 months (if your site is new with no PR) Reference : Ranking at 35 for "search engine optimization" - which is an equally comeptitive phrase. PM me if you want more details.