Page 3 - Hiring: Full Time SEO Expert (60-80k/y)

I doubt it!

About generating 60K/year. It's possible, but you must invest some dough and effort to make money. Play with peanuts, and you get peanuts. Play with something more, and you can make yourself a nice income.

A lot also depends on your fees...I have few *eerie experiences* where a BIG name has asked a quote, and afterwards asked me to recheck it. Reason: mine was way too low compared to others and it was not taken seriously. Big names charge big money and thus make a big income.

hmmm.... it's hard to judge what you are saying because I don't know you or your business. There can be a variety of situations...

If your clients are making lots of money from your work then maybe you are not charging them enough money. If you are ranking them for terms with a lot of money at stake then you might be better off building your own sites if affiliate programs are available for those products or launching a retail business of your own.

If you are optimizing sites that are in low competion for low stakes then you could start some sites of your own that play for bigger stakes.

I think that the answer comes down to a combination of how much you charge, how good you are, and the amount of money in the SERPs that you compete for.

One thing for sure... the only way you can have a major improvement in your income is to try something different. Give it a shot. You might double your income.

No 1 today I see, congratulations!

Hi Mano

Wow, I guess you are right. I guess it gives my wife and I some extra bragging rights ;-) But seriously, this search term has no real value right now.

Very interesting thread. I do agree that you may be reaching when requesting 5 years of experience. I myself have only 3 years, doing just my wife's real estate site. My college degree is in business management which has helped in certain aspects. You will need a virtual ton of links, plus great on page seo if you want to be ranked.

Sorvoja, congrats on quitting smoking! It will be 8 years for my wife next month (after 20 +). Don't give up!

Visit the most comprehensive Las Vegas Real Estate and Henderson Real Estate website online. Or look at pictures of my Parrot

Hopefully Looking4SEO got a few replies - if not please let us know.

I'll tactic this question though.

The Internet started becoming mainstream by '96 and on retiring from submarines starting looking for an opportunity to support a "high cost of living"! ;)

SEO then was truly easy since there was few around but supply preceeding demand usually means "cheap".

I nickeled and dimed myself for a few years, but once after working 74 hours straight I realized that "cheap" is only better if:

1. mass marketed, and gained 20 - 50 projects daily, and

2. low overhead

Thus unless you have a large support staff and almost no monthly expenses - you have zero choice but to be expensive.

Being expensive on its own isn't easy either as you need to justify the costs to a client - but if you can find that justication and are good at what you do - clients will paid what you are worth.

Thus the true question... what am I worth?

I started looking at comparable prices from other marketing media and soon realized that not only was the average SEO service extremely under-priced it is ridiculously superior to gaining return on the investment - comparable to "all other marketing, promotion, and advertising mediums".

Looking at a regional newspaper - a one day spot, 1/8th of a page ad for a circulation of a quarter million - $900.00

What does this mean?

Circulation doesn't mean - 250 million people seeing your ad - on average 10% remain on store newspaper racks, another 10% sit on a table and never opened, and about 40% of the actual readership browse headlines... and you get "one day".

But every day - companies advertise there.

Now compare that to SEO (if you can actually achieve what you say you can)

24/7/365 availability and the advertiser sits in wait of the reader (when they are available) and not the other way around

Full page adverts, no limits to size -- as a matter of fact > as many pages as the advertiser wants, and

The readership "is" only the ones that factually want your advert and you are always front page.

Comparable pricing suggests based on newpaper rates this service would cost $4,380,000/year (per page) yet even at that price the advertiser isn't limited to a circulation of primarily "non readers" but actually near 100% interested readers.

Clearly SEO isn't as much of a mainstream advertising medium as newspapers thus the prices "seems" outragsous but dollar for dollar SEO is the lesser scam.

Anyway success in this game is a combinations of things but the first thing you need is superior thinking and the ability to convey that... to the potential client.

If you can sell yourself - price doesn't matter - unless you can't perform... and the word gets out.

a lot... otherwise it wouldn't be promoted as much. Common users are not educated with search engines and online marketing. I know business people who have seriously considered swapping their SEO company because the other company tells they can buy positions from Google. Outside SE world, people have no clue whatsoever considering how search engines work, and what is possible and what is not.

200 US$ sounds very reasonable for many small business owners (the biggest single target group possibly) - it's not cheap, but not off the limits. They are just fullfilling the need by offering such a service.

Most of these business owners are into cutting corner business. They have no plans to manage or run their business well in the future. I have a travel agent client, no marketing plan whatsoever and he argues with me - that SEM can be done for $200. Sure can be if only for one time, where as SEM is not one time process. Considering the fact that the client has no IT knowledge, he got burnt and now is asking me to do it for cheap cuz he got burnt. And there are tonnes of people like that out there.

On average 15% of any business's revenue should be turned back into marketing dollars.

If a business's revenue is primarily generated via the web most of that 15% should be turned into promoting via the web.

If 50% is accounted by the web 50% of 15% should be about right.

This doesn't mean that all of that budget should SEO be fees, as this would also include PPC, PPI and possibly wire services, copywriting services etc.

What an SEO really needs to do is find out "what precisely is their budget" -- realistically... and design a comprehensive strategy to that budget.

If you are worth the value - sales grow, and budget grows along with it.

Return is often proportional to what you put into it... and if a company can only "realistically" afford $200 their factual return should be about $1,000 and nothing more.

In these instances - you need to say "your investment into the project is not worth the effort".... and walk away.

I just to talk to a cosmetic surgeons office

they had about 15 terms they wanted to be ranked for

I told them a price and she seemed to think I was crazy

she went on to tell me that her site , was template and she paid 150 dollars for it (it looks like ****)

and that I shouldn't charge so much

because I am not a lawyer or a doctor , all I am is website promoter (almost exact words)

funny thing is she said that she had already tried 2 other seo people and the did not get the rankings that they were looking for

that was an interesting phone call

If you are still looking, send a PM.