Hello all, I am surprised that this is not a topic that I could easily find an answer to, but I feel it one of the most relevant questions on the topic of SEO services. I am somewhat of a moderately experienced search engine professional and feel that I maybe undercharging for my services and do not want to devalue the industry either. I would greatly appreciate any insight you could provide on this matter. After reading a few posts let me say I am not attempting to promote my business. I am too busy to take on more work, that is part of why I think I am undercharging. My initial research usually runs $500 USD to $1,000 USD. This includes back-end site survey, market research (traffic counts for specific keywords etc), and competitor research (relevant link structures from top 10, SEM budgets, traffic counts, site architecture etc) and also survey for other niche markets client might be missing out on. I have an hourly rate of $55 for link building and analysis of analitics or a flat retainer of $300 per month with bi-weekly reports for SERPs and analitics. Any advise or input is greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Corey
I would say that put you at the bottom end of what an SEO with a portfolio of results charges. I think you should be charging upwards of $2000 for initial audits (I'm assuming they're not just run through a software). The $300 a month is low - if you're doing linkbuilding, reporting - maybe content? press releases? - at least twice that, if not 3 times. I work for an agency in Europe, so I'm not pulling figures out of the air - we generally start from $5000 for initial audits, and a minimum of $1,500 for ongoing monthly maintenance.
Thank you for sharing, Magda. I really appreciate the input. I run all my audits by hand. I use several web based services that scrape data obviously, but I still visit the competitors sites to see why they are there, look to see if we can learn from them etc. and take basic marketing mindset and see where we can gain a competitive edge. Thank you again, Cheers Corey
Many SEO companies don't offer 'packages' and when they offer custom service they charge much higher than what you have put here. The way I will put a value to SEO service is to define your 'per hour rate'. Once per hour rate is decided, you can estimate the effort required on a particular client's site and you should be able to calculate the amount you should be charging. Most cheap SEOs services start at $10 to $15 per hour.
Well it sounds like from this discussion so far, I rank in the middle or so. I generally require $100/wk or $200/mo absolute minimum, with a roughly hourly rate of around $20-$40 per hour. I prefer to work on a more fixed basis than hourly so that I know what I have to work with for the project. I'm also hoping to increase my portfolio and work my confidence and web page up to the point of charging a lot more. I've been learning and doing SEO and SEM since the Internet became public, but have only been offering my services through my company for a couple months now. Thanks for the info, I look forward to discussing this further, as I would like to get a better idea of how to price things, as that seems to be my #1 block to making more money right now, which I really need to do!
I would think this question would be highly regional, meaning that SEO in different parts of the U.S. could vary greatly depending on simple supply and demand as well as your competitors. I don't know about you guys but I get calls every week from companies wanting to outsource my SEO projects to India for what I consider cut-rate fees. That being said, I'm in the mid-west region of the U.S. and my rates match up with yours 500 - 1,000 for analysis/on-site implementation, 200 for local, 250 for PPC management, and then 200 a month for off-site. I think it an interesting and fair question though. If you've got more work than you can handle I would start adjusting the price until you find a happy balance. What was the optimum production level in economics? I think it was where marginal cost equaled marginal revenue, something like that .
You are right, I do need to start to adjust my rates. But with most things perfect balance is like finding Zen. I guess that there is still a large part of me that is fearful to increase my rates and loose the job. I also don't have people knocking my door down yet. I pick up one here one there and have the mindset that one day when they are knocking my door down to really get aggressive on increasing my rate. Thanks for the input, it is appreciated. Corey
It's difficult to estimate the price for a SEO service because SEO is not math. The price varies a lot from project to project. If your hard work is going to make someone earn thousands of dollars for years to come, are you going to charge $55 / hours? I don't think so.
This is a very pressing question for me also. However, I think the emphasis should be on which services to offer, and then what to charge for them. Your prices will ultimately be determined by the supply and demand and who is willing to pay what for your time, expertise, and results. I would rephrase it as, What is a good pricing model for SEO services? Exactly what deliverables would you, or do you, include as part of promoting your SEO service?
I've been paying $250/month for three months to some indian company who guarantees top10 placement for 3 out of 10 keywords. I was not clear what they were doing, but it seemed to be working for a while. Of course, when I changed to more competitive keywords, they couldn't do much, so I quit paying them. But its interesting that my standard effort of 3-way link exchange, buying links, page optimization took me only half way there compared to what they did. I made a PR4 poker site, but that just wasn't enough.
I found this article very much worth reading http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/small-business-seo-costs-expectations-realities/2081/