How much should I charge for offsite SEO work?

I'm doing on offsite SEO job for someone. I'm placing ten of their sites in the top ten rankings on Google for for three different keywords. Each page requires roughly six hours of work for link building (270 hours total for a job like this) I'm doing this one for a professional reference and some referals. But I'm not sure what to charge for the whole operation. I'm thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,500 for a similar job. Anyone have ideas on pricing guidelines?

At the rate I would I would probably charge in the range of $40,000 for something that takes that many hours. So if you were to only charge $4,500 that would probably be a good deal in my opinion for them. If I were you and if you really put that much work into it, make it clear to the client how many hours you put into it and then charge them your normal hourly rate. If you do not have a normal hourly rate, I would suggest you start using one to make it easier in the future to determine if a job is worth your time or not. If you charge $4,500 for all the time you put into it, you are basically charging around $16.50 an hour.

So my suggestion to you is to determine how much your time is worth for all of your future products based on the hourly rate. Then when someone comes to you for work provide them an estimate of how many hours it will take and multiple that by your hourly rate to determine the cost of the project and if it is within their budget.

For me I have my hourly rate set at $150/hr. For some that ends up being above their budget so they end up not going with me, but for others it is still within their budget and I get something I can spend more quality time on for the client. I would rather concentrate on a smaller client base with a few worthwhile projects versus doing a ton of work that doesn't really pay that well. This works out great for me, and for the client because I provide a top notch service with great customer support and feedback. Clients I have realize this is hard to find so they keep coming back to because the $150/hr hourly rate is worth the service I provide. You just have to determine how much of a demand you have and what rate you can charge. Typically the higher in demand your services are, the more you can charge.