Charging for SEO

Hey guys I just got a call from my coz who is a housing contractor. I told him I could get his site listed but now I am at a loss as to know what to charge for this type of service. He did mention not wanting to spend much. I also told him that there were two ways to get site listed. Pay per click for instant results and also manually which would take longer. I really could use some experienced and professional advice on this.

P.s I really dont have any experience in this but I do know the very basics of how things work in accomplishing the above.

Doc

I am recalling a couple posts regarding the charges in SEO services, run a search within the Search Engine Forum and I'm sure you'll come across them, heres a couple I came across:

http://www.ozzu.com/other-search-engines/cost-good-seo-t39860.html

http://www.ozzu.com/other-search-engines/reasonable-fees-for-seo-t38618.html

I appreciate those links. Thanks. Based on those and some estimations below is a list I would appreciate some feedback on.

Pay per click

Monthly
$100 ppc
My fees
$200
Total
$300 monthly

Manual submissions to directories and other quality links

Monthly
$200
My fees
$800
Total
$1,000

Both Packages
$300
$1,000
Sub Total
$1,300

Docquesting

Looks good to me... charge what you think people we pay you. I had one of my web design clients pay £300 (about $600) to a guy to add Metta Keywords and a promise to get him number one...right?!*

Personally I wouldn't charge at all based on this and viewing your posts in this (and other) forums. Docquesting, what sites have you got into the top ten of Google, yahoo and msn and for what keyterms?

How many pay per click campaigns have you ran and what has been your best ROI ??

Absolutely - as Jess states, you need to have some kind of credibility before you can even set any price. Something that shows the quality of work you'll bring to the table when a client asks for your services.

Just to get started it may not be a bad idea to add SEO to a website design for free for a few clients just to get some kind of a "seo portfolio" if you will.

You need to offer your service for a low price to build a strong portfolio first before asking for a higher fee. besides $1,300 per month are lots of money already..

It's also going to depend on how competitive the keywords your competing for are.....you could get a page in the top ten with a few good links...or you might need a few hundred links? The age of the domain will also have an effect on you initial progress in google....don't expect to see good results for a few months or longer. Also don't overlook the on page aspects of optimization.

that is a good guage. follow that.
more competitive usually means more efforts needed.

1) Have a feel of prices by charging cheap for first time.

2) then once you have achieve attaining top rankings for keywords, calculate the time/hours/days involved .

there - you have your prices and your number of hours spent.

3) (total price divided by number of hours) = hourly rate your getting
<- compare it with average hour a worker gets in your country.

Another thing you will want to consider is picking a niche....this is important due to links from related sites possibly being/becoming more relevant...if you pick a particular theme ie housing contractors you will build up relationships with other site owners in this area....then when you go to optimize a site for a new customer you will already know where to start getting lnks...those people will respond quickly to you since they will recognize you from earlier trades as a person who builds good sites and trades links honestly.

Another factor to consider is how much $$$ will the site generate...if you put a shopping site in the top 5 for some high traffic terms the site could stand to make millions. So sometimes it's better to negotiate based on a % of revenue. Customers are usually like this because they are paying you from the cash generated from the site....if you don't do a good job you don't eat ...do a really good job and you'll be getting paid for years!

"SEO firms charge an up-front fee and then a monthly fee to maintain the site and its status in the search-engine listings. For instance, Ms. Whalen says she charges a minimum of $7,500 to revamp a site. She'll charge $100 a month to monitor a client's Web site afterward. Some SEO companies charge a flat fee to rework a site and monitor it for one year.Ms. Whalen advises clients to pay for a Web site report, sometimes called a site analysis, if they're considering hiring an SEO firm. She charges $2,000 for a site report. It tells Web site owners what they can do to make the site more likely to be found by search engines such as Google. That gives customers the option of doing the work themselves or hiring some help."

you can easily check out the wesite redalkemi.com for all the charges for their different plans