Quick question about hiring SEO firm

We're an IT firm but do not specialize in SEO. We recently contacted an SEO firm to see how much they charge to optimize a website and they gave us a rough estimate of $15,000.

Does that price seem a little high?

We've already gone through our site and optimized it quite a bit, including HTML pages for each product we offer and propper keyword placement(or so we think ;) ...)

So we really don't believe that the amount of work needed to be done to optimize our site would warrant a $15,000 price tag. Actually, we were expecting to pay only around $1-2,000. Is that too low of an expectation?

Also, if any of you reading this represent a professional SEO firm, feel free to drop me an email at rmatthews1@gmail.com as we are looking to have someone optimize our site (just not for $15,000).

Oh, and if you want to check out the site I'm referring to, it's www.magazinesusa.com.

Thanks in advance.

-Goalie35

for terms like 'magazine subscriptions" I think that is very reasonable price.

some who can seo for terms like that can make a site that makes them 1000 a MONTH without you.

So they would be pretty stupid to optimize your site for 2000

SEO is just one expense. Where are you getting the links to power the site?

That sounds about right for the terms targeted.

$15.000 should buy you 120-160 hours of SEO help. If you go for the deal you will be cooparating very closely with the SEO firm for months, it is a good idea to start out with a smaller project to evaluate your relationship before you get that serious.

For keywords like those, yes the price sounds right. Unfortunatly, SEO price expectancies
is undervaluated mainly thanks to some so called SEO's found on the freelance sites - You know which I mean - Those who charge you $ 200 to get a term like Hotel number 1 on google !!

Yeah, then they never get the client there (or do the keyword only in quotes optimization) which ultimately leads to people being skeptical of the industry.

You get what you pay for in many instances.

Darn, wish I coulda replied first...lol

That is a very reasonable fee. Consider anyone that can take a site to the top in a high traffic term can easily make 2-3K plus per month per site without selling anything. Add in some actual products and why would anyone that can actually rank your site do it for less?

The function of taking a site to the top of the serps involves a wide range of techniques, resources and actual skill on the part of the one doing the SEO.

Given all this, the price is very reasonable. I myself focus on the Real Estate and Lending industry and have no interest (there are many much more skilled individuals than I who are here and would help you on this ), but it is comparable to what I would charge and have quoted to third parties who have asked for regional and localized search placement help.

Otherwise, for my time, I would just assume build my own sites without concern for customer service and continue to do the above in the first paragraph..lol ;)