How much would you charge???

I am putting together a SEO proposal for a company I met today, but I always get stuck with what to charge a company of this size.

The main site I am starting with has about 150 pages (checked by googleing site:domainname.com )

The site has good meta tags and a decent description (which may need adjusting down the line), but no h1 tags, little content on the product pages (to also increase keyword density) and the images need optimizing too.

Then it is down to the backlinking and branding across the internet.
For that I was going to start with:
Articles
Web2.0
Bookmarking
RSS
Guest blogging
Video sites and video responses

Doing this on a monthly basis and give out a monthly report.

For the guys that do SEO in the UK, what would you charge???

Well work out how many hours per day you'll be dealing with the website, in any way, for example simply writing up reports, charge as working hours for that, figure out a hourly rate, $xx/hour, then work out how much they owe you for that day, lets say you did 5 hours, at $10.00/hour, that would be $50.00.

But let's face it, nobody likes to work for what they are ment to, so you can easily add as much as you want on, but it definitly gives you a good base price.

Cheers for the ideas guys.

Now just got to close the deal.

I'd agree with what's been said in the thread already and doing SEO work by the hour, I'd be charging 50 quid an hour minimum.

the charge not only depends on the hours of work u invest but also depends on the budget the company wants to spend on that work ,you cant expect them to pay as much you ask for.so better to get an idea of how much their budget is before you quote ya price.and always quote a little more so that if they ask for a concession you can politely agree for and lessen the price.

Cheers

Define what your REAL cost expenses are. Assuming the most expensive. Charge 4x that amount. Then you have a working number. If they say it's too much. Offer to give less services to fit their budget and then you can add on the additional services later.

Personally, I just ask them what their budget is and their goals and then base the proposal on that. That's much easier than what you're trying to do. And you have a greater opportunity of having your proposal accepted.

Good luck!

What grafx said. You should always find out the budget of the company and what they want out of that money.

Provide them with as much as you can to make them happy and also make you happy.

If its a small company id charge a modest rate. Maybe $200 a month ?

You definitely want to make sure that you are being appropriately compensated for your time, but I really don't like the idea of coming up with a target per hour charge. The reason is, the more you do this the faster you'll get, so should you start charging less? Conventional wisdom says the better you get at something the more you should be charging not less. I think most of us aim to make this as hands off a business as possible, outsourcing and whittling down the hours we work so we can enjoy more of a lifestyle. If you get stuck in a per hour basis you're going to end up making very little, or just having a job that you created.

I always approach pricing from a value standpoint, how much value is the client getting? I also prefer to know the company's budget so I have some idea where they're coming from. If they only have a $3,000 budget there's no sense pitching them something that I'd charge $8,000 for. I'd pitch them something around their budget and let them know their options for expanding in the future and what else I can do for them if they're wanting to kick it up a notch later (this works good at bringing forward the people who low balled their budget in order to get a low quote).

All that being said, if the company you're approaching would only see a value of say $500 a month from your service (totally arbitrary number here) and the project would take 100 hours of time (again, arbitrary), that works out to $5/hr so you should just walk away. My advice is instead of starting with the hourly consideration, finish with it just to make sure you are asking enough. Starting out from an hourly standpoint I think most people end up just screwing themselves out of more money. It probably has something to do with the fact that many people are programmed to exchange time for money. You're providing a professional service and deserve to be paid as a professional. You're not being compensated just for your time on the job, but the time you've spent over the years developing your skill.

Good luck!