One of my clients has come up to me today and asked me if I would SEO their website for them. I've never done this for anyone else apart from my own sites, and whilst I've learnt a lot I'm not sure if I can put this into practise on someone else site. What advice would you give me when undertaking such SEO work, and how would you quote them for work to be undertaken... would you charge them on performance? Darren
I've recently started taking on a few clients (I don't do a significant amount of commercial work) and have been using a flat monthly fee billing plan. I quote them a flat monthly fee based on how competitive I feel the market is and they can cancel at anytime. I've been able to produce for every client and no one has cancelled as of yet. I make it very clear that I cannot guarantee anything and don't ever specify specific timelines. I meet all my clients in person - having that face to face relationship and the trust that goes along with it is why I can charge the way I do. Will you be able to meet your client?
If you only do the on-page stuff with very minimal link building charge them just once. If you do much link building or anything else that will require maintenance, charge them monthly. It will work out for better that way because if the keywords are competitive the on-page factors won't do much for their rankings and they will need you to do link building. If you get under 20 links for them via one-time link exchange requests you may not want to charge them monthly. If you buy links obviously or engage in any major link building campaign, that stuff takes a lot of work and maintenance and I would charge monthly. How much you should charge them would be based on the quality of the results and thus the quality of links to get them.
I definatly agree about no guarantee's and overly specifying timescales. Obviously I can work on the website pages for on page optimisation, but the timely bit is going to be getting them links and then trying to explain the 'sandbox' if it affects the site. Unfortunately, the client is in Italy, and even though I'd love to fly over there and meet them, it's not realistically possible. I suppose if your charging them a monthly plan, and they see changes, and improvements they will continue, but how do you deal with people who arent' patient and expect to be ranked #1 in a few weeks? Do you explain beforehand the process and the potential timescales and workload ahead? Cheers for your input Darren
You nicely explain that it will take a minimum of 3 months to see any major results and if they still expect to see immediate results challenge them to find someone else that can deliver immediate results. If the keywords are competitive they won't find anyone that can deliver immediately, unless they spend hundreds or thousands of dollars a month on links, which they probably wouldn't do.
I can see how their location would be a bit a stretch for you In regards to dealing with people who expect to be #1 in weeks - I don't. The shortest timetable I ever quote is 12 weeks and that would be if they wanted to place well for some oddball term with next to no competition...and of course I would advise them against that anyway I just won't take on jobs where people have unrealistic expectations. Those are the ones that will always come back to bite you in the ass. Without drawing the client a blueprint, yes, I explain things ahead of time. I explain that the fee they are paying me will be partially compensating me for my time and part of it will be used for buying advertising on their behelf - ie that's why I don't offer refunds anymore (which I also make very, very, very clear upfront). Overall I think the key to being able to charge this way is what you mentioned earlier: I suppose if your charging them a monthly plan, and they see changes, and improvements they will continue If you're working with a reasonable client it's all about communication & trust....and of course those rankings
Make the clients do some of the work and help with their ranking, teach them some basics like keyword tracking, stats, link pop (show competitors), basic link building. If the clients understand from the beginning then they know what they are letting themselves in for. They may adjust their aims and be far more flexible on actual results.