SEO Service - How much can I ask for?

[habanerolex]

I've been making Websites for quite a while and I only own Sites with Affiliate Links on it. Only done SEO Work for myself.

But now a friend of mine, asked me to do some SEO Work on his Website.
I will give him a good deal or maybe charge nothing, cause He's a friend.
But what can I ask for in general?

I'm thinking about starting my own SEO Service, as the Panda makes it pretty hard now to make money with non unique Content.

But as I said I have no idea what I can charge for what.

His Website offers some Service for Musicians, it has unique Content and Keyword Competition is low. It should be easy to get it ranked quite well.
Right now the Site has one Backlink and is about a year old

 

[tbsweet52]

You can probably get a better answer if you include what your SEO services will include.

 

[beeHWfan]

Charge him 199 to get his site up in the search rankings. Then go through BHW and spend 100 dollars on Article submission and backlinks. keep the rest.

 

[GrizzlyAdams]

Charge on an hourly basis for how much time you put in.

Base the rates on whatever you want.

 

[sconson]

Charge him at least $300, you'll have to do on-site seo too as well as off site seo. If the competition is low you should rank pretty handy within a few weeks so $300 is nothing when you think about it.

 

[Royalserviceteam]

It depends on what is your plan to do for his website.

 

[Derpy]

How tough in the keyword you are trying to rank for? How much money/time would you need to spend to rank for it?

 

[digibing]

First you say that you will charge your pal very little or nothing, and then you ask how much you can charge in general. Then you mention starting your own SEO-service, then finally you end with talking about your pals website. This leaves me confused, do you want to know how much you are gonna charge your pal, or do you want to know how much you are going to charge b2b clients that you aren't pals with?

In the first case, it's up to you. In the 2nd case you should charge as much as the client can possibly pay.

 

[SEORocks]

I've been making Websites for quite a while and I only own Sites with Affiliate Links on it. Only done SEO Work for myself.

But now a friend of mine, asked me to do some SEO Work on his Website.
I will give him a good deal or maybe charge nothing, cause He's a friend.
But what can I ask for in general?

I'm thinking about starting my own SEO Service, as the Panda makes it pretty hard now to make money with non unique Content.

But as I said I have no idea what I can charge for what.

His Website offers some Service for Musicians, it has unique Content and Keyword Competition is low. It should be easy to get it ranked quite well.
Right now the Site has one Backlink and is about a year old

As for your friend do as you like, free or a little money. What I recommend is for you to make a detailed list of what you can do (whether in-house or out-sourced) and put the cost beside each item.

Then figure the percentage of profit you would like to make and add that to the cost to have it done.

Figure out what you want in each package and now you have your pricing.

If you are doing it, what do you want to make an hour? Figure out how long it takes....Rate X Time = Cost....then add the percentage your company needs to make to that number.

Now you have a few ways to figure out pricing.

Do NOT sell yourself short. Don't worry about all the people telling you your crazy for charging what you do and don't worry about all the people giving away their services since there is plenty of work.

If you tell people what you will do for a price, they pay that price, as long as they get equal or more than you told them they would, they will be happy.

NEVER guarantee ranking, no matter what you think, it is out of your control.

Hope this helps.

 

[Longover]

I don't recommend hourly.

A) Figure out what and how you are going to do for his website
-on page seo (rebuild the site?)
-off page seo (backlinks and where?)
-how long is it going to take you? (hours)
-how much will it cost you?

B) How much are you willing to get paid per hour to do the job?
-simple stuff... hours that you figured above X your rate
-that gives you a round abouts figure for how much you can do the job for
-subtract your cost for tools and outsourcing to get an idea of how much you will be making
-after you figure out how much you can charge, lump that into a monthly fee

That should get you started. It's not a definite way to set price, but it works. Later on, when you get more clients and have results with previous clients, you can raise your rates. Your time will be more valuable and you can justify charging more.

 

[AM223]

i am fairly new, but is this site good to use for offline service building?

 

[Derpy]

i am fairly new, but is this site good to use for offline service building?

This is a good site for SEO. Period.

 

[yerrot1]

NEVER go hourly. Determine what it will take in terms of backlinking and man hours. Take the sum and double it, there is your price. If he's REALLY a good friend do it at maybe 50 bucks above your estimate.

 

[habanerolex]

Thank you everyone,

@digibing, I meant to ask how much I can ask for in general, not what I can charge my friend. Sorry about the confusion.


@SEOrocks, you say "Never gurantee ranking".
Well this is exactly what keeps me away from starting my service right away.
I really don't want to deal with Customer Complaints etc. as I know results can vary.
I have some Sites that perform very well and I have others I've done the same SEO Methods on and they suck in SERPS, so I know you never know what happens.

 

[becauseimhot]

How much time do you expect to put into your work per customer? That should really be the basis. And who are you focusing on as a target customer base? Are you trying to sell to people who don't know they need someone who is an expert in SEO, or are you trying to take the burden off people who are already familiar with SEO; but want to take some of the time, monotonous work, and energy out of their equation?

You will inevitably be able to upsell to the first group of people, as they don't know what you are talking about. As long as you package it nicely and as something they really NEED then selling at virtually any realistic price will be fairly easy. Get a few people to review your service too, and the price goes up even more!

To the latter group, it will be a bit more difficult to go high in the price range. They may also be trickier to get to try out your service at all as they probably try to work with the lowest costing and best available. And frankly, I'm sure people are doing things like this for $5 dollars on a site like Fiverr. The big question is: who is your target customer base?

 

[Kikerinka]

To guarantee ranking is fine, if yu know your stuff - at least, to guarantee ranking improvement. What we do with our clients in the small SEO company owned by me is the following SEO process:

1. Determine, what keywords have any value to the customer. This depends a lot. For some customer, even a keyword with 50 local searches per month can have the value and is worth the investment). For some customers, 100 or more keywords have some value. We use brain and G00gle Keyword T00l for this.

2. Using Rank Tracker, make a report of current position of all keywords in all search engines that are relevant for the client. Send him the report.

3. Guarantee, that at least 50% of keywords improve their ranking, but do not guarantee how strongly they will improve it. If you are not a complete noob and know your stuff, you will be able to achieve this.

4. Take half of money before, and half once the goal is reached. This is fair and client can see you think it honestly and believe your skills.


We are very successful with this technique, in terms of turning leads into deals.

But now the tricky part:Never ever guarantee profit increase, and better say right in the beginning that you do not guarantee it... 95 percent of all people having online/offline business overvalue the potential of their website, that's it... Sometimes they will expect to earn $$$$$$ monthly once they rank the 1st position, but this just never happen.

Simply try to be fair, and always show them what the potential of your co-operation is... I mean, even if they earn just $250 monthly more net profit, if they pay you 150 monthly for some small SEO, it is still $100 net profit, and that's what is it all about.

Hope my post help you at least a bit, good luck

@SEOrocks, you say "Never gurantee ranking".
Well this is exactly what keeps me away from starting my service right away.
I really don't want to deal with Customer Complaints etc. as I know results can vary.
I have some Sites that perform very well and I have others I've done the same SEO Methods on and they suck in SERPS, so I know you never know what happens.

 

[dcuthbert]

I usually work out roughly how long it'll take to provide the service, multiple the number of hours by 30 (I charge about $30/hour), and add 20% onto the total to cover any oversights.

 

[steviep]

...never work for family or friends (thats at least my experience). It will never stop,there will always be something that needs to be done, here some editing, there some coding. They wont know what to do when this or that happends. etc...

What to charge in general, how much is your time worth? Estimate the amount of hours, and multiply with your number. Remember to have a contract that covers all aspects of your work. You dont want your client come back to you every second day with more things you have to change free of costs. Always make sure to get an upfront of at least 25%, set two milestones each time 25% worth and when the site/job is done, make sure to get in writing that the job IS DONE. Any more work is part of a new contract...

good luck

 

[boomboom031]

Hi guyz i have a question i dont know how to price an SEO service..

Example I have Client and he/she selling a brand new car and he wants that each car on his website to be on top 1 page on google and also the main site. Lets just say that he/she wants that 20 cars to be on the first page on google.... how can i price that on SEO?..

 

[xoziggieox]

I vote for an hourly rate.