Am I Charging too little for Local SEO?

I charge $500-$750 with 6 and 12 month agreements. I usually just start off with the first months installment, no set up fees. Is this too cheap? Still a newbie at selling this so I'm happy to make the sales at the same time I don't want to give my services away either.

Thanks for the replies.

ok, break your pricing down for me.
how much do they pay up front
and then do they pay monthly after or anything
and how much

6 or 12 equal payments of $500-$750... That's it.

I usually include several cities and like 10 keywords... so if the city name is "Cityville A" they would get 10 keywords for that particular city, then for the next city "Cityville B" they would get the same keywords 10 keywords as "Cityville A" for the additional city they want. I charged one customer 15 keywords/8 cities for $750/month- 6 month agreement.

Another customer $760/month for 10 keywords across 3 different cities- 12 month agreement and to get him to sign I threw in the first 3 months for half price and added an SMM service too.

I do try to go with all competitive keywords for them and they usually trust me to pick the keywords. Am I charging too little or is this pretty much right on?

I think the price is fair and competitive. if you can get a continuity agreement that doesn't end in 6-12months that would be better and justifiable since initially your monthly fee represent a larger portion of their return. later as they get ranked for more keywords and traffic, that fee is spread over the acquisition of more clients, bringing their return on investment up. most businesses expect to pay and have a monthly budget for advertising which they pay as long as they continue advertising. compare yourself to their offline options; yellow pages - a large flat fee for the year, newspapers - a large fee monthly/weekly/yearly (which by the way are also calling on your customers daily to sell them some big "internet package" that costs 10x what you are charging).

At the end of the day it really comes down to the value you are offering, what results you are delivering and how much profit your customers will relize by using your service.
any business would gladly pay you if it is profitable for them to do so.

what specifically are you offering these businesses? and what if any guarantees or results can they expect?

From BHW suggestions, I don't offer any Guarantees, and I've been averaging a sale a week, which I don't know if that's good or not I'm still new to selling this(only about 4 weeks of actual selling). So I just guarantee the services below (they are listed on contract as follows)... After the initial term it does say in the contract they are billed month to month. Please check my services and let me know if that looks about right... thanks...

Services:
w3c validation home page (if reasonable... if they got like 100 errors I don't even bring it up)
optimize 10 keywords
Ongoing biz and target analysis
1 canalysis of their compeition
Ongoign SEO andTech Analysis/Recommendations
Monthly SEO landing page creation and optimization
Conversion Analysis and lead forms
*Enhanced local search- They must pay extra for this (PPC)... But as a hidden bonus do include initial Adwords $100 coupon... nice perk
Online PR and link building campaign
Monthly meeting calls with Senior Account Rep (which is me)
Quarterly game planning and goal establishment

I don't actually guarantee any specifics but I can show them clients I've done the work for and have some good referrals so it seems to be enought to make the sale. I've had some prospects want the money back guarantee but they usually are the computer illiterate country bumpkins... one claimed to be a lawyer but had a business as a roofer. Anyways I've shown you all my cards.

Still the price looks good and fair? Would love to hear more from others too please.

How many weeks or months does it take you to close a $2500 client?

Keep in mind my residual payments compound too. Don't get me wrong I'd like to charge $2500 if I could close like 1/month but if it takes me 3 months to close one of those guys am I truly any better off? I am 100% a phone closer, don't want to leave my house.

Which brings up another question... slightly off topic... What perentage of the clients in your opinion cancel their contracts early or stop paying? 1 in 10 or 1 in 100? I would think it's a low percentage.

OP: your pricing is right in line with mine except I never require a long term contract. I just go month to month from the start. So far it had worked well for me.

Hey man. How may article(s) you write for him/her in a weekly or monthly basis? Thanks

Yes Wholesalereplica, $500-$700 per month... not every 6 months they give me $500, LOL hope everyone is clear on that now.

To Teeniegenie, Hi how long do your customers stay aboard? How many months or years has your longest customer been with you? Thanks for the reply

Johnny Who... Article writing actually isn't in my service description.

yes, the price is fair BUT keep the continuity program going. Dont stop billing in 6 months.

Care to share how youve been able to land 1 client per week? where/how are you getting your leads?

Blackhat Scott said:

Johnny Who... Article writing actually isn't in my service description.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the answer, so you use BH tool for your link building operation? I am doing the same thing too. But I have a freelance writer who wrote articles for our clients in a consistent basis. We normally wrote 3 articles per week.

Blackhat Scott said:

To Teeniegenie, Hi how long do your customers stay aboard? How many months or years has your longest customer been with you? Thanks for the reply

Click to expand...

OP: I'm fairly new to the Google Places game, but my longest customer has been with me about a year now.

Your pricing seems fair - you should always throw in some extras like website creation / application development / email marketing / etc. etc. - then you could raise your prices (from experience )

Competitive indeed.

It is a good price. You could consider charging a premium if the keywords targeted are very competitive and require some extra effort (video creation, articles, podcast, newslettr etc - just make sure you outsource it).
The main principle should be providing the client with extra leads/customers/business that easily dwarf the price you're charging - be it $750, $2750 or $4750.