Picing for SEO ....ripped off????

[Tom McClelland]

If an employee is earning £20 an hour the company should be charging at
least £50 an hour for him.

Bingo! People-based businesses selling services that don't understand this are likely to struggle.

 

[UKSBD]

Haven't read any of this thread, but this post caught my eye;

Ha ha ha!!!

Get in the real world son!!!

Are you saying that is too high or too low?
Not talking about employing subbies here.

There was a post about how much it costs to employ people here last year,
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=47679

 

[Matt1959]

so on the above basis, if your business can't work to that sort of margin, it's not a viable business - I'm not saying this isn't true but theres plenty out there that can't work this way. Re. The SEO charges pf £50 an hour or whatever, its supply and demand surely. If people want to pay it fair play for people charging it - maybe a case of sour grapes btw am I the only one to think that posting comment about a company thats done work for you on an open forum with a URL link to said company is a bit iffy I'm not saying the OP did it on purpose but if he has an issue with charges it needs to be explored with the company itself or in private. If I was the design company in question, I'd be well pi$$ed off as to how this has all turned out.....

 

[estwig]

Are you saying that is too high or too low?
Not talking about employing subbies here.

There was a post about how much it costs to employ people here last year,
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=47679

Right finished me cheese on on toast and very nice it was too, fresh bread, mature Cathedral cheddar and a little tomato and pickle chutney with pepper on top, very good, big respect to Mrs estwig.

Anyway, it's on UKBF so it must be gospel!!!

 

How are people managing to charge £50+ an hour for SEO? If they work 9-5, mon-fri, thats over £2000 a week. It's ****ing ludicrous.

I agree 100% its nowhere near enough,even low life lawyers charge £125 and hour and what do they contribute to society at least we make people rich.



Having taken companies from a couple of hundred thousand turnover to several million.I kinda think I am worth a few sheckles.Don't you.?:|

Earl

 

[JustOneUK]

Thats the thing though.

A sole trader of SEO charges £50, and gets paid £50 an hour.

A SEO company charges £50 an hour, and pays their designating SEO guys £15 an hour.

The pricing just isn't in synch/competitive yet.

There are so many SEO people out there thesedays that the sole traders charging £50 an hour are going to have to lower there charges to compete, and vice versa

I'd pay £50/hour if I was Tesco.com/MoneySupermarket.com etc
The budgets these companies have is phenominal. Employ an SEO for 100 hours and it only costs £5000 which is cheap to them. I doubt whether they'd be scouring the forums looking for a decent SEO, their web developers take care of it for them and generally do a lousy job (when did you ever see Tesco come up in a search?).

I don't know many SEOs who get away with charging £50/hour but in terms of wages it's not a lot. If I wanted I could easily get £15 for 15 minutes work (£60/hour) because I happen to know that my neighbours pay £20 to have their grass cut...and it only takes 15 minutes - they'd happily pay me £5 less to do it

The comparison between an SEO being employed and one working for himself is the one who is employed (£15/hour) probably gets 40 hours/week whereas the self employed guy (£50/hour) probably gets about 5

I'd rather have lower prices and more work, but that's just me.

James.

 

SEO it not some kind of magic, it is common sence !!!!

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I doubt whether they'd be scouring the forums looking for a decent SEO, their web developers take care of it for them and generally do a lousy job (when did you ever see Tesco come up in a search?).
James.

I have provided SEO advice to Norwich Union ... You are right, they did a lousy job and wanted outside reporting on their methodology etc.

 

[freeflyer]

SEO it not some kind of magic, it is common sence !!!!

a small percentage yes. The rest of it is learned.. removing and blocking potential duplicate pages on a huge Ecommerce site isnt common sense, for example.

either way, its outsourcing a job you cant or wont do yourself.

Anyway, i'm glad this discussion is coming up, as i've recently been having another similar one on an SE forum. Ie am i charging too low? I charge a fair bit under £50 per hour, but i want regular work and good referrals. I am hoever going to put up my prices (Still to lesss than £50 per hour). I'm sure i'll lose one or two clients, but the offset will make up for it.

On a side note, i worked for a relatively well known SEO company last year. They charged two or three times the amount i'm currently charging per month, yet as it was a 'quarterly service', they only did work once every three months !! and less than what i do now !! and with poorer results !! I realised what a joke the company was and left within a month, started up on my own instead.

 

[tlewis]

I don't get Tom's comments. I charge £30 an hour, but I am not doing chargable jobs all day, in fact on a 10 hour work day only two hours on average would be paid. The rest is research/accounts/leaflets/buying parts/phone calls/bank trips etc so of course my hourly charge has to cover that.

So on average your takings are £60 for a 10 hour day? Or are you charging multiple clients in those 2 hours?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I hear a lot of people say "much of SEO is basic stuff and not rocket science" but when someone posts

"SEO it not some kind of magic, it is common sence !!!!"

then I have to disagree. MUCH of SEO is common sense, but where would you begin to diagnose the reason for a potential google ban? How would you diagnose why a site is not being spidered properly?

I take on a client and i often look at their business and advise afiliate marketing for their products, I advise on novel ways they can get back links, how to market themselves via press releases for example is THAT common sense?

sometimes sites get brought down because a competitor has sabotaged a site, and they have come to me for help. Is diagnosing the use of black hat methodology using stuff like IP cloaking 'common sense'?

I will say again, the BASICS of SEO are common sense things like having the correct page title and descriptions, structuring a site into small groups of pages in folders each with its own index page. Having a good hierichal internal navigation structure, linking within the text to relevant pages, having clean clear copy, ensuring usability is present, using decent pictures, having calls to action to name a few. But as someone once said to me "common sense is NOT as common as you might think "

Forensic SEO, where you have to diagnose major and minor issues and investigate technical matters is a world away from common sense

 

[OldWelshGuy]

So on average your takings are £60 for a 10 hour day? Or are you charging multiple clients in those 2 hours?

Back on to charging what is perceived as 'silly money'. You really can't equate a pro SEO's time down to hours spent.

E.G. Say I charge someone £350 a month. and you wanted o know how many hours I worked for that, then i simply couldn't tell you, in fact i wouldn't tell you because you wouldn't believe me. How do I total up the copywriter I use for writing copy? or the guy I use to actually script the code to do what I want, or the person I use to load up products, or the person I use who submits to the directory list I have provided, using the software I have commissioned that makes those submissions faster and of a FAR higher value than normal?

people have the perception of the SEO consultant as someone who is somehow ripping people off by charging what might in the long term result in their OWN work equating to £50 an hour.

THAT is like complaining about the cost of a seat to watch the world cup final @ £300 is ridiculously overpriced as similar plastic seats are available for about a fiver

 

Lets look at SEO another way.

How much would you have to pay to have a 10,000 sq ft shop on oxford street.?

Because thats what a top position on the search engines equates to.

The 10,000 sq ft shop is probably a bit on the small side compared with the amount of products that can be shown on a website.

Plus of course you have the ability to reach a potential of 1.3 billion customers per day as apposed to a shops few thousand.

Earl

 

[Chris Ashdown]

If your £500 is a load of dosh, you are probably a small start up company living on a tiny budjet hoping to grow quickly

You can do a lot of SEO yourself by following the many SEO links on the internet, you will also find many software packages that can give you a helping hand for little money, both these methods will make a dramatic improvement on your web positions at low cost and also teach you a great deal by doing it yourself

When you are making a profit each and every month you can then pay for external help, this is where your troubles really start in selecting a person or company to help you, some are number 1 -10 on Google by deviouse methods some genuine so recomendation is best, but someone reccomended after moving a startup from £1000 to £5000 a month may be not so good taking a much bigger site from £50,000 to £100,000 per month who's SEO is already very good but looking for that little bit better.

OldWelshGuy has been around many years and always given a lot of time on forums, if I was to hire anyone it would be him

The best thing about SEO is that you can prove the results of before and after, so ask to see some of their recent companies improvements and dont be afraid to ask the companies to confirm

Also for SEO and PPC if someone shows you a contract with difficult endings or no trial period then walk away, there is a reason they are not confident of their work so they have to lock you in. nothing wrong with 3, 6, or 12 month contracts as long as you have a fair way of ending early if the company is not getting the results, ask for a three month trial with 30 days from the end to cancell if you are not happy

 

[DotNetWebs]

...the BASICS of SEO are common sense things like having... ... structuring a site into small groups of pages in folders each with its own index page...

That's a new one on me. Are you implying an "index" page somehow carries more weight and that the number of pages in a [virtual] directory is somehow significant.

Regards

Dotty

 

The up-front cost is very cheap. The other 250 for reporting - that I don't really know if it's worth it. If it's a basic ranking report then you can get it free with a service like Sheer SEO.

But even if the cost was 500 for the full SEO that's a good deal. You'll probably need link building as well (rarely does onsite SEO alone do the trick unless you've already got a well linked-to site). That's something else you'll need to factor in.

I don't know if I've helped or just added new questions but either way - good luck !!!

Chris
Metro Hi Speed

 

[Deleted member 27344]

Did I not post this already?
http://pointandstare.com/project/how-to-get-to-number-1-on-google---orly

 

[DotNetWebs]

Did I not post this already?
http://pointandstare.com/project/how-to-get-to-number-1-on-google---orly

Hi PointandStare

Was that posted in reponse to my post above?

Regards

Dotty

 

love this quote from point and stare.

"Build your site using common sense, logic and cleanliness."

Always wash your hands before using the keyboard.:|

Earl

 

[DotNetWebs]

Assuming PointandStare's post was aimed at me (not the cleanliness bit I hope!):

It doesn't really answer my question because (ignoring the significance of the words "prestige" and "jalopy") OWG seems to be implying that this example site structure:

cars.com/index.html

cars.com/bentley.html

cars.com/jaguar.html

cars.com/daimler.html

cars.com/skoda.html

cars.com/lada.html

cars.com/polskifiat.html

Is not as good [for SEO purposes] as this one:

cars.com/index.html

cars.com/prestige/index.html

cars.com/prestige/bentley.html

cars.com/prestige/jaguar.html

cars.com/prestige/daimler.html

cars.com/jalopy/index.html

cars.com/jalopy/skoda.html

cars.com/jalopy/lada.html

cars.com/jalopy/polskifiat.html

Regards

Dotty

 

[UKSBD]

why the need for the .html?

why not just

cars.com/prestige/bentley/

cars.com/prestige/jaguar/

cars.com/prestige/daimler/

It makes the website more future proof

 

[DotNetWebs]

...why the need for the .html?...

That was just an example I used because OWG said:

"small groups of pages in folders each with its own index page"

Off course you could divide it still further by having:

cars.com/prestige/jaguar/X-type/

cars.com/prestige/jaguar/S-type/

etc.

My question, in relation to OWGs statement is: is the number of pages in a virtual directory significant for SEO and does an "index" page somehow carry more weight?

Regards

Dotty

 

[fisicx]

Not so sure about the index but google does prefer a hierarchal structure. Can't find the video (either Matt Cutts or SEOmoz) but they do explain the preference for folders rather than a linear structure. This means a preference for index.html/php/asp in every folder because that's the first thing an SE will look for if it stumbles across the folder. Furthermore, it make htaccess rewrites so much easier.

But I'm not sure it makes a much of a difference.

 

[DotNetWebs]

Thanks fisicx.

I have always tried to use a hierarchal structure anyway but have not always used a default index page if the directory has been dynamically created and no links point to the directory root.

If it is true that Google prefers lots of virtual directories rather than lots of files in a single directory I would be interested to know what the optimum cut off point is. i.e what the optimum file to directory ratio should be. Thinking of it from how the developer would write the algorithm, I can't see how this could possibly be determined because it would largely depend on the subject matter.

I would be very interested to see that video if anybody has a link to it.

Regards

Dotty

 

SEO is just part of the design and research of the site.

 

[DotNetWebs]

SEO is just part of the design and research of the site.

Well yes and that is why I normally structure my site for myself and my visitors rather than the search engines.

Until now I had thought that the actually directory structure would be significant if all other things were equal.

Regards

Dotty

 

[DotNetWebs]

Just to clarify what I mean;

Here are two URLs

cars.com/XK60.html (this is linked to from the home page and is one of a 100 car.html pages in this directory

cars.com/prestige/jaguar/xk60.html ((this is linked to from the cars.com/prestige/jaguar/index.html and is one of a 5 car.html pages in this directory)

Both pages are identical and all other links pointing to them are identical.

Now if someone Googles "XK60 cars" which page will likely rank first?

Regards

Dotty

 

cars.com/XK60.html

Earl

 

[DotNetWebs]

cars.com/XK60.html

Earl

Thanks Earl that is what I would have assumed until I read OWGs post. Maybe I misunderstood him. Hopefully he will we along to clarify.

Regards

Dotty

 

[fisicx]

cars.com/XK60.html

Earl

I agree - it's because cars.com/XK60.html is closer to the homepage than cars.com/jaguar/XK60.html

What would be better would be to have cars.com/jaguar/xk60/ and then index.html. You can then hang other xk60 pages off the index. You might not have them now but as suggested, this will future proof the site.

Another advantage. I can type cars.com/jaguar/xk60 in to the address bar and it will find the index page. If I have cars.com/jaguar/XK60.html then a url of cars.com/jaguar won't ever get to the xk60.html page.

Yet another advantage. Using a hierarchal structure means making breadcrumbs is easy peasy with a bit of JS.

 

[DotNetWebs]

...What would be better would be to have /jaguar/xk60/ and then index.html...

But would that rank better than cars.com/XK60.html ?

Regards

Dotty

 

[DotNetWebs]

Yet another advantage. Using a hierarchal structure means making breadcrumbs is easy peasy with a bit of JS.

I agree. I do use breadcrumbs based on my site structure (although I do them dynamically server side)

Regards

Dotty

 

well he is welsh so I have to struggle to understand him.:|

Maybe he means if your searching for "jaguar xk60".?

I which case your URL should be "sitename/jaguar-x60.html"

Earl

 

[DotNetWebs]

well he is welsh so I have to struggle to understand him.:|

Maybe he means if your searching for "jaguar xk60".?

I which case your URL should be "sitename/jaguar-x60.html"

Earl

But that example the page still resides in the root folder.

The actual URL (page file name) is insignificant becuase the statement made was that it was better to have lots of sub folders each with their own index page.

Regards

Dotty

 

[fisicx]

Really don't think it's going to make much difference. Google used to dig down 4 levels of directory but seems to be quite happy to go to 6 or 7.

Don't believe Google ranks on the directory structure as long as there is good internal linking. This is important.

If you have:

cars.com/jaguar/xk60/hardtop/index.html

and

cars.com/fiat/pinto/sports/index.html

and the only way to get from one to the other is via the homepage then the robots will follow one directory path and discover there is nowhere else to go. The indexing stops right there until the next visit.

 

But that example the URL still resides in the root folder.

The actual URL is insignificant becuase the statement made was that it was better to have lots of sub folders each with their own index page.

Regards

Dotty

I would disagree for a ranking point of view.And if you want to have seperate folders better to call the folders "jaguar" e.t.c.

no advantage to calling a sub folder page named index.

Earl

 

[DotNetWebs]

...no advantage to calling a sub folder page named index...

Actually I wouldn't call it that on a .net site. I would use default.aspx. It's just the default page the server will render if the directory root is requested.

Regards

Dotty

 

[UKSBD]

Really don't think it's going to make much difference. Google used to dig down 4 levels of directory but seems to be quite happy to go to 6 or 7.

Don't believe Google ranks on the directory structure as long as there is good internal linking. This is important.

If you have:

cars.com/jaguar/xk60/hardtop/index.html

and

cars.com/fiat/pinto/sports/index.html

and the only way to get from one to the other is via the homepage then the robots will follow one directory path and discover there is nowhere else to go. The indexing stops right there until the next visit.

Are you saying if you have a link to cars.com/fiat/pinto/sports/index.html
from the homepage that google will follow the directory path?

 

[fisicx]

Are you saying if you have a link to cars.com/fiat/pinto/sports/index.html
from the homepage that google will follow the directory path?

Should had made it clearer:

cars.com/index.html > cars.com/fiat/index.html > cars.com/fiat/pinto/index.html > cars.com/fiat/pinto/sport/index.html

Google will follow the links through the directories.

 

[UKSBD]

That isn't making a true comparison then, as you're talking about going
through the breadcrumbs rather than just direct linking.