Seo what do people charge for

[Ian J]

To get back to the £199 a month subject, depending on what you wanted to rank for you can do a lot of good with that if you are trying to rank for most local phrases outwith the 5 biggest cities.

That will get you 4 to 5 hours per month of a decent seo time.

Assuming your figure of 4 hours that makes a charge out rate of £2,000 per week. Not bad if you can get it

 

[JamesMason67]

Absolutely Ian, but I have been quoted that hourly rate (£35 to £45 plus VAT per hour) a few times.

 

[JamesMason67]

However if they can get your rankings into profitable ranking positions then its money well spent normally.

 

[Hospitality_king]

Never pay for optimisation work, long-term its a waste of money,

On-site work you can do yourself, its not difficult to pick up.

There's a site that gets 100'000 visitors a month - and pulls in £10k deals at a time from it -- its a job board, uk based. The site is content rich, so self done and that's where the traffic comes from.

 

[JamesMason67]

I would suggest an unoptimised commercial site that pulls in 100k visitors per month and £10k deals a time is very much the exception than the norm.

When you say "optimisation work" are you referring to SEO? And that it is a waste of time longer term?

 

[stevebrownlie]

Never pay for optimisation work, long-term its a waste of money,

On-site work you can do yourself, its not difficult to pick up.

There's a site that gets 100'000 visitors a month - and pulls in £10k deals at a time from it -- its a job board, uk based. The site is content rich, so self done and that's where the traffic comes from.

If it's a waste of money, then by definition it's also a waste of time to do it yourself surely...

Of course it's neither a waste of time nor a waste of money.

Naturally for some small businesses with low competition or a content creator in house who's so talented they can't fail but to attract attention and generate excitement from visitors there's no need to pay but that time doing it in-house is just money the same as anything else because it's the businesses assets being used to do optimisation work.

If you're a lawyer who hates writing for the web, hates talking to bloggers in your niche (say consumer advice if you're a consumer protection lawyer...), hates working with the press, hates html... and you bill yourself out at £300/hour you'd be mad to 'pick it up' and waste your time doing it when you can get a freelancer or agency in for less than your hourly rate, get more business, bill your clients more hours (because you're working more instead of messing about with schema...) and avoid doing something you hate.

Even huge companies have agencies on retainer to do all sorts of things that they 'could' just do in house as it helps them focus on their core business which in the long run is more profitable than trying to become a second-rate SEO agency in house, a second-rate copywriting business, a second-rate advertising agency, a second-rate designer, a second-rate web developer and anything else they might be able to just about do in house that isn't core to their business.

 

[boring-friday]

ShowDomainOrNoJobSiteWith100kVisitorsFromGoodContent

 

[JamesMason67]

If it's a waste of money, then by definition it's also a waste of time to do it yourself surely...

Excellent point..

 

[Hospitality_king]

I would suggest an unoptimised commercial site that pulls in 100k visitors per month and £10k deals a time is very much the exception than the norm.

No - not unoptimised, the guy I know of, personally wrote the vast amounts of content himself, but then he did have the domain expertise.

100k visitors a month, isn't horrendously tough, and doable with time!

£10k deals just requires a lot of Public relations profile work.

which in the long run is more profitable than trying to become a second-rate SEO agency in house, a second-rate copywriting business, a second-rate advertising agency,

Really, oh, ok.

We did this ourselves with a Travel site, in the early days it got 600k of visitors within the first 2 years. We then set up a member type site that got over 10000 members within a year.

I could waste my time detailing exactly how we achieved this, but you know so much its hardly worth the time.

 

[JamesMason67]

I don't think it was necessary to be so rude to Steve was it?

He's just trying to quite correctly say that it may be better to leave SEO work to the pros and free up your time to get on with running your business.

If you are not experienced in these matters then it will be second rate.

 

[Faevilangel]

I don't think it was necessary to be so rude to Steve was it?

He's just trying to quite correctly say that it may be better to leave SEO work to the pros and free up your time to get on with running your business.

If you are not experienced in these matters then it will be second rate.

As with anything, if you can't or don't want to learn how to do it then pay someone else to do it for you.

Seo isn't complicated and anyone with half a brain can do it BUT it's repetitive work with a lot of research and testing, not a lot of "doing". If you want to do it yourself then it's really simple but like anything when you pay someone to do it for you, you are paying an expert because they have experience in that field and will bring more benefits.

Most of the time it's better to pay them to do the job so you can spend your time wisely on the stuff that matters to your business e.g. sales.

 

[JamesMason67]

Hi Gareth
I don't know about it being easy tbh. I certainly struggle with a lot of it.
There's a lot to take in for my non-techy brain. Maybe my age of course.
Getting there though,
James

 

[Faevilangel]

Hi Gareth
I don't know about it being easy tbh. I certainly struggle with a lot of it.
There's a lot to take in for my non-techy brain. Maybe my age of course.
Getting there though,
James

It's not technically difficult, it's just data resourcesive, there is a lot of stuff to do, and it's a constant "job" where you are always making amendments. it can be exhausing hence why I don't do it. The easiest way to do stuff like this is break it down into smaller elements e.g.

Day 1: page titiles
Day 2: page descriptions
Day 3: page content

Spend an hour a day on each of them and you will soon see results, that hour can be 30 minutes "research" and 30 mins "doing" the changes.

Research would be stuff like:

- google searches
- analytics
- google trends
- keyword research (via the adwords tools)

 

[JamesMason67]

Thanks Gareth

 

[Hospitality_king]

I wasn't rude, not at all.

Seo isn't difficult, repetitive yep, but once you have something in place, all it requires is a top up now and again, unless you are competing with the big boys, and suspect sole traders won't be, they just want to eek out a few clients now and again.

One of my sites (ages ago) ranked for maybe 10 keywords - now it ranks for 300! What is really tough is writing content, you may as well kiss goodbye to your life you go down that path, although can be done and has been many times, probably not for feint hearted but the dedication best left to the young and inspired with the cool ideas - the sole trader isn't in the content game.

Most seo is a joke, we paid out for some once, we knew we weren't getting much, but knew it and so didn't expect much, although expectations changed when we picked up a few clients from it - we just about broke even on it, but the short rush of hope vanished and what we shelled out on fizzled to nothing, we've so been there and done it.

Its too risky when you have search engines moving the goal posts, moving sites, shuffling them like a deck of cards - they are in control, and unless you got 20k a month to splash, forget it.

The seos want more money, the web designers are the same, with their great ideas for yet another re-design that will truly 'lift your site', then your software is old and needs to be updated/re-coded and all the other crap. Oh and this would look great, it will only cost £3000, and we'll bolt on some extras like a naff twitter feed - oh man!

Here's one, only £200 for seo, yeah great, oh no, its failed, ok another one, this one's just £500, oops same result. Hey maybe better spend more cos some dude said its what you pay for, ok, so we spent another £2000 all-in, ok some clients but nowhere near to getting back on our original investment of £50k. Ok, so we know the types to avoid, and at least wont make the mistakes again, but crikey, what a cost to learn this stuff.

 

[Faevilangel]

and at least wont make the mistakes again, but crikey, what a cost to learn this stuff.

My best clients are those that have been through this as they understand what a good developer (or seo) does and how how avoid the dodgy ones again.

It's a ritual all clients should go through as it makes them better clients (imho)

 

[Hospitality_king]

My best clients are those that have been through this as they understand what a good developer (or seo) does

No not really, just means they got stung, but maybe got lucky by breaking even. It won't help them find the great seo consultant at a reasonable cost though. So much risk as seo's won't work for paid on results - just effort/time involved which isn't good for most sole traders, as they cant afford to lose out on a trial and error basis eg: try out 50 - 100 seos at a time until they strike lucky.

 

[Faevilangel]

No not really, just means they got stung, but maybe got lucky by breaking even. It won't help them find the great seo consultant at a reasonable cost though. So much risk as seo's won't work for paid on results - just effort/time involved which isn't good for most sole traders, as they cant afford to lose out on a trial and error basis eg: try out 50 - 100 seos at a time until they strike lucky.

I agree but seo is a numbers game, it's a risk taking as you can't control what google will show, and everyone needs to be paid for the work they do, most seo can be done by the business staff anyway

 

[DhruvSoft]

Basically agencies charge money for there running expenses, as Seo is very competetive and good resources comes with nice package,apart from this good content writers are very well required as content is one of the major player in Seo.
The agencies provide full fledged services in this package starting from onpage analysis and implementation to offpage like posting content on high Page rank sites.
Hope this answers helps.

 

[Hospitality_king]

and everyone needs to be paid for the work they do

I wish people wouldn't justify what is an unregulated, chancy industry. We aren't in it to fund a lifestyle to a bunch of agency - we want results for our cash.

Having spoke to quite a few seo agencies, we make the point to ask them how much traffic they can deliver and what type of traffic will it be, and almost always what they say they deliver, we get totally for free easily, and much more, so I don't see why we should pay for what we can do for free.

 

[searchangel]

People who send those types of emails are, 100% of the time, spam. Avoid them.

 

[Faevilangel]

I wish people wouldn't justify what is an unregulated, chancy industry. We aren't in it to fund a lifestyle to a bunch of agency - we want results for our cash.

Having spoke to quite a few seo agencies, we make the point to ask them how much traffic they can deliver and what type of traffic will it be, and almost always what they say they deliver, we get totally for free easily, and much more, so I don't see why we should pay for what we can do for free.

You are asking the wrong questions then, NO reputable SEO will guarantee any traffic at all as unless they are making their own traffic (spam) to meet the targets.

Any decent SEO would be looking at your website and making amendments to that to improve your conversion rate.

Anyone with a little time can do what an seo does, but most won't because of the time aspect, it takes time to do it properly..... either you have been speaking to bottom of the barrel feeders or just don't know what you really want / need. You wouldn't ask your builder to work for free as you can do it yourself, so why ask an seo to do the same just because you don't understand what they do.

 

[Hospitality_king]

Any decent SEO would be looking at your website and making amendments to that to improve your conversion rate.

No- that's a job for a copywriter. Something else that can be done for free.

either you have been speaking to bottom of the barrel feeders or just don't know what you really want / need.

I think as owner of my company, that I'm a bit more informed about my needs than some idiot total stranger who resides from third world country, or the latest self-appointed seo genius.

A builder is so different, and I doubt most people can learn those skills. SEO is far more basic and can be learnt in a short space of time, plus your website won't fall down if you make a slight mistake with a couple of keywords, and the fee is free!

 

[HighProxies]

I personally would be leery of the person that was going to charge me a very cheap rate. Not saying you need to go with the most expensive option but there is a lot entailed in SEO. Cheap will not get you there.

 

[Hospitality_king]

Cheap will not get you there.

I beg to differ, having run some businesses, web based, and offline too. Here's the basics of how we did what everyone says cannot be done:

For starters theres difference between 'cheap' and 'lean and mean', although the 2 are infact the same. This proof is taking into consideration of some inbound linking work, so not completely link-free, as that would be inpossible web-wise - but 100% seo agency free!!

A basic website for £50 was built, was a few pages long and that was it. Next we got a free line listing with YP, then did a ton of link exchanges (please remember this was many moons ago when it could be done), mabe about 300 swaps, then bought a few links to pull in the enquiries - but no seo agents needed.

The YP got us over 200 clients over about a year, then we got about 400 free links, one ways inbounds, and left it at that. Pulled in about 12k, pure profits, but due to competition, we binned the biz, to operate an SEO style website, but not as SEO agency, it was different - more of an ad space flogging site, made some cash and binned that as it no longer interested us.

We have set up about 9 sites over the years, so are experts, and won many awards to boot. So there you go, a brief intro in what can be done if you are willing to be clever and not so keen to open the wallet.

Another site we owned got over a million visitors to it - all free, we never paid a ££ for that traffic - ever. Its like taking Candy from a baby, it really is...

 

[jefhasmi]

Its a very intriguing topic, so many people out there doing it. Often if it sounds too good to be true it normally is!

 

[Hospitality_king]

The clients want results, but never see it, cos every seo does exactly the same link work. I mean, can't do a deal with everyone and we get link requests, but tell em to shove it

The use of blog comments pages, deep free link pages etc is spam, unwanted activity that must ruin the so-called reputation of these seo firm, that aren't actually firms at all - but kids hired to spam open forms. Theres no skill, no art to it - as the seo firm doesn't provide the promotion work - its just form filling.

Not aying it cant be done properly ofcourse - but someone else mentioned effort, and agree with this that its insane effort to get the results. However I do not believe in such seo gods, as know anyone can do the seo thing if they put their mind to it.

I think most want some level of link profile, that starts them off on that promotion road, but seems that to maintain this is harder now since Google, if you use them that is, maybe better to side step the G from now on.

 

[David G Rees]

There are so many companies that advertise overnight rankings and while industry people know it is a bunch of cr*p, many business owners have no idea. They see these ads and the claims and think they found a winner since they are going to be ranked on the first page of Google in just a couple of weeks.When I take on a new SEO client I am genuinely interested in helping them improve their business, sadly a lot only care about were getting the monthly fee.
There are a lot of SEO companies that will lie through their teeth to get a sale.
"We will get you ranking #1 on Google for all your main keywords!" you see it all the time. You cannot guarantee anything like that and if you do your lying. Good SEO takes time, and anybody who tells you otherwise is deluded. But done correctly it can benefit the business greatly.