Is general seo worth a premium ?

I write a few websites for small business in my area. My question is - Should I charge a premium for basis SEO like appropriate titles, h1, alt tags, google sitemaps, keywords etc. Or should all that come with the standard price for any site ?

In my opinion not knowing anything about your clients or their market etc:

For small business who generally penny pinch wherever possible I would probably include it as standard as the alternative is a case of "i'll do it sloppily for £x or properly for £y"

What you should do is use your SEO knowledge as part of your unique selling point, so you can say "we can do you a site at the same price as Joe Bloggs Web Design, but ours will come with on-page SEO optimisation built in".

yep.. i agree. It is not much more (if any) to do it properly in the first place.

The problem comes with people who want to use flash or really heavy graphics that look good but no/little text.

I think the advantage of listing it seperatley is to convince the client that a site design must include an eye to seo.

This way when they go to a flash designer etc you can explain why that is not necessarily a great idea.

You can always say the design will be as SEO friendly as possible.

SEO itslef should be a seperate service if they are serious as it is so much more time consuming..IMO..

Very well said channel5! Putting in an extra service for your client is a big plus. Web developers should also be able to offer additional post services that would benefit the client.

It is infact a good idea....what use would be a website if no one visits it.

you first have to educate the client about the pro's of seo.If you do it properly i am sure they will go for it....

I disagree. SEO is always a premium you should charge for. That is like going to the grocery store, buying some groceries, and making the grocery store clerk come home and cook dinner for you. If the SEO was not part of your deal than it should be charged for. By just "throwing it in" you are devaluing this service in your client's eyes and when they tell their friends you threw it in you will end up throwing it in every time. Don't start a precedent you can't continue.

Are you offering seo or just a service? Whats the difference? One will benefit the webmaster the other may or may not... optimizing the site should be included in the service of seo, it should not be a solo service but should be done along side your link building for the client..

Alt tags and google sitemaps however have never been a part of my process however... the latter is worthless and can cause artificial indexing which is useless...

Hi,

No I am not offering an seo service. I build websites for small business in my local area. I was just wondering if I should optimise all the sites in with the price or should I charge a premium for that. I will not be link building and taking part in the more time consuming side of seo etc for my clients. Once the site is finished and uploaded it is theirs.

Well if you can monetize the extra effort, it would be great. But if you really want to help out and get possible referrals from this client and you feel a little generous, offer it free of charge ;) Otherwise, just refer them to other SEO providers or give them a link on a step by step tutorial on SEO so they can do it themselves.

The Most Important Question in my opinion is, Is your business established or is it still trying to climb up??

If its established, you can charge extra..smooth n simple..coz you will never run short of clients..

BUT, if its still small, this extra thingie free of cost will build your credibility and service..including reputation..People will refer your services, most importantly with such words.. "that guy did a nice web design.. and guess what?? he did some SEO stuff for my site too and that without any additional cost.." Does'nt that sounds like satisfying you??

You can identify your business model/type and can execute this thing accordingly..