Pricing Advice

[LINCOLNLORD]

It’s been years since I’ve posted here but it’s good to be back!

I just wondered if anyone could help me to assess whether a quote I’ve had is reasonable.

I have a website that ranks for main terms for its homepage. However, there’s one service I offer where I’m nowhere to be seen. It’s a local service so I only want to target my locality.

I’ve had a company suggesting a rewrite of the service page, which I’m happy with, but also suggesting ongoing work. Looking at creating 2,000 words a week. 1,000 for relevant blogs/articles targeting keyword and 2x 500 words to appear on external sites for backlinks.


Quote for this is £1,200 per month. Is this reasonable? I’ve seen content companies charging pennies per word - is there much difference?

 

[fisicx]

Bonkers.

Local SEO doesn’t need that sort of spend. A bit of site reorganisation and some focused content and it’s usually job done.

There are loads of ways to rank for a range of local keywords. The most basic of which is a page title that includes the service and location. Back this up with a bit of marketing copy and an example of your work and results normally appear within a couple of days. I’ve seen some keywords rank within hours.

 

[Shopclicks]

Quote for this is £1,200 per month. Is this reasonable? I’ve seen content companies charging pennies per word - is there much difference?

That's ridiculous. What platform is your website built on?

 

[Fagin2021]

As always with this type of question - it depends.

If (as implied by the way you've put the question), it involves some callow youth employing AI to churn out a monthly word-salad of generic content then, not only is £1200 outrageous, but it won't do you any good.

On the other hand, if it's a proper local SEO campaign that includes setting up your Google Business Profile, researching your local market and competitors, looking at local keywords/long-tail keywords, collecting local reviews, citations and links and updating blogs/articles etc in response to local changes/events, and crafting locally-focused content, then £1200 might not be unreasonable.

Ultimately it depends on what business you get from your local web presence and what that business is worth to you,

If you do engage a third-party to do your local SEO, make sure of the following...

• Set clear performance metrics. With local SEO this probably just means appearing in the '3-pack' map location for the service you offer. As @fisicx says, local results can appear quickly - you should be seeing them within 6 weeks. Don't take a contract that simply rattles on about 'reasonable endeavours'.
• Make sure your contract has a break clause (of say, 1 month). Don't accept any rubbish about why it needs to be longer.
• Very important - make sure the contract specifies who owns the copyright (you) to the content produced for which you are paying.

There are loads of articles about local SEO you can read for yourself so you know what to expect.

 

[fisicx]

Everything @Fagin2021 suggests is correct. But local SEO is a very different beast to general SEO. The core techniques are the same but the focus is different.

As an example. Post a couple of case studies about the service you deliver mentioning the location. Create a GBP and collect reviews. Connect the two together and you will be doing better than most of the competition. And you can do all this without spending a penny.

 

[LINCOLNLORD]

Thank you for the input. I think I may be best steering clear and looking at what I can implement myself. GBP is all set up but may need tweaking for a particular service and content I can sort myself to be honest.

 

[Shopclicks]

On the other hand, if it's a proper local SEO campaign that includes setting up your Google Business Profile, researching your local market and competitors, looking at local keywords/long-tail keywords, collecting local reviews, citations and links and updating blogs/articles etc in response to local changes/events, and crafting locally-focused content, then £1200 might not be unreasonable

Sorry but there is no scenario where that would be reasonable. Yes, you could do that and the work might be worth £1200/month. But the majority is not required and it's the wrong strategy for local SEO.

 

[Fagin2021]

Sorry but there is no scenario where that would be reasonable. Yes, you could do that and the work might be worth £1200/month. But the majority is not required and it's the wrong strategy for local SEO.

Again - it depends.

If you're refurbishing horse-drawn carriages then, as @fisicx says, your work need only be minimal.

On the other hand, in my area, there must be 50+ companies offering double-glazed products - ranging from one-man-bands to the big national brands. You'll have to put in a bit more effort to get noticed.

 

[fisicx]

Thank you for the input. I think I may be best steering clear and looking at what I can implement myself. GBP is all set up but may need tweaking for a particular service and content I can sort myself to be honest.

Reviews, reviews and more reviews. Every time you do a job, write about it with pictures and post on your site. Put the reviews on your site. Put each service on you GBP as a product.

Help Google find this service and you will be rewarded.

 

[Shopclicks]

On the other hand, in my area, there must be 50+ companies offering double-glazed products -

This is not about products. Big difference. It's a completely different SERP and local pack results for services eg. double glazing

 

[Paul Carmen]

As @Fagin says, it really depends; e.g. on the location, the industry, services/products and how many leads you need. We only know the industry here, so it's hard to fully guide you.

In a small town, with minimal competition, where you only need enough leads for a one man band, that's a DIY local ranking effort, so you'd not need what they propose.

If you need to rank in a large town/city, rank organically in a competitive industry, or get enough leads from lots of local towns to generate business at scale, then purely local efforts won't cut it.

Double glazing is a competitive industry, and in most large towns/regions you're up against loads of local competitors and often builders, plus you are competing with bigger industry players like Everest, Anglian etc organically for the main searches.

We work within similar industries and generate leads at scale across large geographic areas and multiple towns/cities, there's no way you're doing that for a limited budget or just with an optimised Google listing.

This should be customer and market research based. I could understand the focus being on rewriting or creating lots of service pages; e.g. customer search terms targeting double glazed windows, front doors, glass replacement, patio doors, conservatories, UPVC repairs, fitting etc, plus some regional or town specific targeting.

The focus on blogs and 2,000 words a week sounds completely wrong though. No customer is going to read a blog here, and Google won't be interested.

You need a breakdown of what they are doing and what the goal of any onsite content, outreach and link building is. Basically, what leads are they planning to get you, for what services/products and what does success look like for you.

There also should be some sort of lead tracking and measurement involved. We would be putting advanced lead tracking in place for a project like this, so you could see what calls, form fills, pages, GBP etc generated leads, or you risk not being able to understand what's being done and measure success.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

For £1200 a month, i would find the time to write my own content!

 

[MarketingQuote]

All SEO companies set their own fees, so it may be wise to get a few more quotes.

 

[fantheflames]

I can see why the price is high if they're recommending website work. What does the ongoing work entail? Have they shared this with you? What I suggest is ask for a breakdown of what the £1,200 you would pay them would cover. Best to do this work before paying anyone to make sure you're receiving the right level of service for your business.

 

[Shopclicks]

Again, there is no justification for the £1200/month price tag. It's clearly chancers looking for a quick buck and when it fails, they move on to the next gullible website owner.

Local SEO needs the most relevant localised on-page content, meta and internal linking. The page content needs to be user friendly and answer relevant queries. Optimise the GBP and that's it.

If you want to feature in the SERPs for satellite towns or regions, you introduce locality optimised pages.
Follow the Enterprise Car Rental model.

I have a page which ranks locally #1 for the search term 'pubs' (search volume 2,240.000/month). It outranks Tripadvisor, The Good Pub Guide, all the directories and every local pub website. Simply by following the above. The site has no blog posts, no reviews on page, no backlink building.

Anything else is just a money grab.

 

[fisicx]

Remember the offer was £1200/month. Which suggests content creation or link building. Neither of which are going to help with local SEO.

 

[annabelleme]

It’s been years since I’ve posted here but it’s good to be back!

I just wondered if anyone could help me to assess whether a quote I’ve had is reasonable.

I have a website that ranks for main terms for its homepage. However, there’s one service I offer where I’m nowhere to be seen. It’s a local service so I only want to target my locality.

I’ve had a company suggesting a rewrite of the service page, which I’m happy with, but also suggesting ongoing work. Looking at creating 2,000 words a week. 1,000 for relevant blogs/articles targeting keyword and 2x 500 words to appear on external sites for backlinks.


Quote for this is £1,200 per month. Is this reasonable? I’ve seen content companies charging pennies per word - is there much difference?

Hi,

I do believe that is a lot - I would definitely look for other quotes