What do you charge for SEO Services?

I'm looking to open a thread where we can discuss our rates for different services and the way we calculate prices...

• Do you charge mainly by the project or hourly?
• When you quote a project, do you generally bill based on time or difficulty?
• What would be a typical project for you - 3 months $6000, 6 months $20,000, etc.?
• Do your quotes generally match well to what you end up billling, or do you go under/over a lot?
• Have you encountered any legal or billing disputes? How did you resolve them?

I think it would be great for the community to open a dialogue on these subjects, as many of us might benefit from others mistakes, successes & experiences. Thanks for sharing and don't feel obligated to be specific - general info is good enough.

I would also be interested in this. Actually, I have turned down several SEO job requests because I have no idea on what kind of agreement or contract I'd need to fill up to protect myself.
It was fun doing SEO to my sites, but now I would like to start working for other people and start earning some $$

I don't have an SEO biz but I have done a couple jobs for friends. I think that you can put your expenses into a couple of different categories - based upon what you are expending for the client....

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Time: I think that Sorjova has the right idea here. Charge by the hour for optimization, research, writing, page building.

Hosting: Charge the going rate.

Links: Pass on any fees that you must pay for linkage, directory inclusion, advertising. Don't mark the price up, just charge for the time you spent shopping and making the deal. If you give links from one of your own sites then charge them a rate and let them know where they can see comparable for sale.

PPC: Pass on any fees that you pay here. Again simply charge for your time.

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In my opinion, the average business owner will expect to pay for site construction and hosting but will be totally amazed at how much they must pay to have their site supported by links from advertising and directories, etc. At least if they want to be competetive.

I think you must educate them up front because there are way to many "Build you a website for $349" advertisers out there and they expect that money will get them topSERPs for the next five years.

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I SEO one site on a different method of compensation. This person has massive and impressive content that will earn lots of links. I am doing this site for a share of the advertising revenue plus a few links to a related topic site that belongs to me.

I'll tell the truth.... One reason that I don't go looking for SEO biz is that I don't want to spend a bunch of my time hand holding and reassuring and kissin butt. I get distressed when the algo changes and my own sites drop.... but imagine what it would be like on those days with a few dozen irate clients calling to cuss you out because their site fell from #1 to #5 or worse yet.

EGOL -

Excellent point. Hand-holding a client is very tough. We currently work with 2 clients directly and take a percentage of the profits in exchange for handling everything about the website - hosting, construction, maintenance, content-building, SEO, etc. Our contracts were not written as formally as they should have been, but we have excellent, trusting, close relationships with these clients (and the documents were reviewed by an attorney).

It's much better to search for a client that fits what you need and approach them, rather than the other way around. The best business relationships are built much the same way personal relationships are - on mutual respect, admiration and trust.

I actually just had someone email and say that he bought a one time seo package for 99.00 and guess what ..... it didn't work out.

There is a certain mentality that technical work should cost nothing, you can buy a website template for 30.00 dollars and web hosting for 5.00 a month, so seo should be around the same price. If you go on a freelance job board you will see offer to seo sites for < 1000 regardless of the market. I can't imagine much of that stuff is result driven.

I charge relatively low prices becasue I am relatively new.

What sort of business are they in, why don't you just make your own sites and keep 100% of the profit

If possible, I think that it is best to be your own client. That way you spend zero time hand holding, accounting, billing, explaining, proposing. Competition in most SERPs is increasing and you need to spend 100% of your attention on competing.

I agree. In my last life I lived or died by working with clients who, like was said earlier, never wanted to pay for the value created. I left that life for one online and self oriented. You couldn't pay me enough to take on that kind of stress and heartache again.

That said, sombody has to do it...it just aint gonna be me

I wish the scope of SEO work could be fixed. SEO involves doing SO many different things that some clients do not understand that all that work has LONG term value. But those clients who understand, reap the benefit. Sometimes, it's not possible to explain the client what all we can and we will do within the SEO process.

ferret - One client provides & ships the products - which we don't have the ability to store & ship, etc. Nor do we have the staff to do customers service, etc. The other is a financial institution that can provide financing for specific commercial projects.

EGOL - I actually prefer to handle the SEO side of things and let the clients deal with all of the "brick-and-mortar" components - there's something to be said for playing to your strengths - competitive advantage. But, I completely understand your point of view as well.

I still haven't seen anyone who has responded with any pricing structure - I think it would be very positive to see some actual figures so we can see how widely they vary and what base rates exist - I honestly have no idea!

Sorry,

I was just curious,

I have clients that pay anywhere from 150.00 to 1650 a month

At first I thought all I wanted to do was seo for people , now after awhile I have this board on my wall for problem clients

So I am kind of into working on my own sites,

I know it is an rather old thread - -but still.. reading this and having done so much research over the last days/weeks... I think I will bin the proposal I am just writing...

It is so hard to be specific about the whole matter.

One strategic question - Do you offer to review the keyword every month, every second, quaterly.... It seems an rather impossible thing to do... each page has specific keywords and I do not really want to use software for this ... but I guess I have to.
How do you do this?

Best,
momo

We have been doing SEO and Link building and in all our projects we have had a very clear contract signed so that there is no problem at the advanced stage of project.

We make the client very clear how we proceed with the project so that he/she doesn't point us later.

For link building we always charge by per link confirmed also depending on the PR of the website and whether the nature of the link (one way (expensive), reciprocal or three way).

For SEO we charge monthly and depending on the nature of work done.

Looking to learn new way ot charging y clients!

Clients only want top rankings for there newly made site... they ask to do SEO in 10 days ... hehehe dumb people want there new site on top withen 10 days... now how should we handle those people and when we ask them that it will take months and we will bill them per month then the main problem starts... "How much did you asked ??" or " am i right in listening that you just said that much amount? " bla bla bla..

but i normaly charge on a monthly basis depending upon the site condition..its PR, site structure etc then normaly quote the price.. its from $300 to $700 PM with a min period of 4 months with no gurantee at all...