Hi all...I've bitten the bullet and spoken to an SEO co...They talk the talk nicely, but their pricing structure is performance based...Which is nice, as I suppose the proof is in the pudding...ie: They don't charge until results are achieved, and then there's a maintenance pack after that. Here's their pricing structure, please tell me what you think:..Oh by the way if you're from the US, the rate is approximately 2-1 (100p - 50c)..I'm sure you knew that, but not everyone knows what a 'p' is 25p per 1000 returned results for a page one listing 50p per 1000 returned results for a top 5 listing 75p per 1000 returned reults for a top 3 listing 25% bonus for position 1 This is Google only pleas add a 25% service charge for the same results in other major search engines, individually. Maintenance strategy: Gradual link building and articles plus RSS strategy: £150 per month ($300) ....... It doesn't seem overly expensive...Those prices are for 2 out of my chosen 4keyphrases...What do you think? Regards Mark
At that rate. I would have paid £515,000 for my Page 1 ranking for my competitive keyword. Haha. 20,600,000 results for my keyword.
If they were serious SEOers caring for their clients to get traffic they would have factored the actual traffic that you would get from these results .... totally ridiculous pricing in general, but it might make sense if your niche and what you sell on your site has high returns which will eventually depend on the actual traffic .... but I don't suppose they gave you any traffic estimates for you niche !!!!!!! Did they ??
What's the definition of a "returned result"? I think you need to factor in what "1000 returned results" means to you/your site. How much more money does you site bring in with that traffic? Personally, I don't mind spending $1,000 if I know I will make $10,000 (or even $2,000). A bigger concern that I see is the quality of the traffic. It's easy to bring in 1000 extra visitors...for non-competitive keywords...but you run the risk of those non-targeted visitors not converting. I d rather have 10 well-targeted visitors...than 1000 random visitors. Just my 2 cents...
Mark, I've noticed you've been posting a lot of threads like this lately, and to be honest, I think each "consultant" you've talked to so far is trying to fleece you and treat you like a fool. Have you thought about trying to learn how to do this yourself? It's not that hard. In fact, it's pretty easy actually once you've got the fundamentals down (and if you come from a structural HTML background and/or a writing background you'll find yourself taking to it like a duck to water).
A pricing structure based on "number of results returned" is a very bad model, this number is quite meaningless. It in no way reflects how competative the terms are, or their search volume and how much traffic you will recieve. I've got the #1 spot in some 1/4 Billion result terms, big whoop it doesn't bring as much traffic as some 10 Million result terms. Also the number of results returned can swing wildly, for instance "Speed Up Office 2007" i'm in #1 and some days it shows 130 Million results and other days 13 Million Results. That's a difference of 10 times, so if i get a quote of these guys one day it may be $1,000 and the next it would cost me $10,000 under this type of pricing model. Seem like a good way of doing it to you?
isn't it that it should be about the total performance of an SEO?! most specially if the person masters the work already, money should be really talking from there...
As far as im concerned there are no "secrets" to SEO. You build links, and optimize your content for your targeted keywords. I got my keyword to page 1 in 2 months. A keyword thats searched over 1 million times a month as well. Don't pay other people to do it for you.