Reasonable rate for SEO

d0sa

d0sa

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I'm looking for an SEO person to help me with keyword research and possibly backlinks for a website I'm building. I posted a job on Upwork for between $10-$20 per hour, and got a bunch of responses from people who seemed to not have much experience. Do I need to pay more than this to get someone good?
 
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Instead of per hour, for SEO, consider paying per task or rather per project.
 
Trust WorkShop said:
Instead of per hour, for SEO, consider paying per task or rather per project.
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I've asked the prospective SEOs from the $10-$20/hour job I posted to quote me for the project and they all seem to come in at about $50-$100.
 
Good people will prefer to work based on per website. Per hour is more suited for VA work.
 
There are mixed chances. Price is not the ultimate factor. You may get the best SEO person with good knowledge at a low cost. At the same time, an amateur with basic SEO but good sales skills can charge 100s of dollars an hour which is worthless. So it is crucial for you to assess the quality by interviewing them.
 
Nunit said:
There are mixed chances. Price is not the ultimate factor. You may get the best SEO person with good knowledge at a low cost. At the same time, an amateur with basic SEO but good sales skills can charge 100s of dollars an hour which is worthless. So it is crucial for you to assess the quality by interviewing them.
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I have been but am not 100% what metrics I should be judging them by? I could ask them for data from an SEO campaign that was carried out using their keywords but then there are other factors involved including how the keywords were used.

How do I pick a good one?
 
reasonable is different for each person. some think their low skill is worth 1k, other think their expertise skill is just $10.
what you should do is ask them detailed plan what they will do for your site, how it will help your site aske them to explain it etc.
 
d0sa said:
I'm looking for an SEO person to help me with keyword research and possibly backlinks for a website I'm building
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have a look around the forum's marketplace and see what kind of prices people charge for keyword research (and also check their salespage to see what's included in that keyword research) and then you'll know what kind of prices you should be expected to pay. I think I've seen several services for keyword research in one of these 2 sub-forums (I don't remember which one):
https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/seo-other.199/https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/misc.18/
And likewise with link building: have a look around the link building section to see what kind of prices are being charged for which types of links. That will - hopefully - give you an idea :)
https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/seo-link-building.43/https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/seo-packages.206/
And like others said, paying per hour is not a good option when it comes to SEO because the seller could simply not do anything for 55 minutes but charge you hourly rate for a 5 minute work. Much better to pay per task / project
 
d0sa said:
I have been but am not 100% what metrics I should be judging them by? I could ask them for data from an SEO campaign that was carried out using their keywords but then there are other factors involved including how the keywords were used.

How do I pick a good one?
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Ask them what techniques they will be working on. They will usually provide you with a list of activities they will do for you in a month.

Some will also provide reports from past successes. That can also be beneficial for you to assess whether they will be suitable for your project or not.
 
Upwork is filled with low quality freelancers. I've never had a good experience with them, so maybe you're looking in the wrong place.
 
If your marking the project as a few hours work to sort all your onpage and keyword research and you'll pay $10-$20 an hour then that would explain it.
 
$10 per hour is less than the UK minimum wage. $20 is what the cleaner gets. Similar rates in similar countries. So, you will be looking at hiring tier 3 people at that rate.

Anyone in a tier 3 country who could do what you will be asking of them, will be living it large and likely uninterested in doing the job.
 
d0sa said:
I'm looking for an SEO person to help me with keyword research and possibly backlinks for a website I'm building. I posted a job on Upwork for between $10-$20 per hour, and got a bunch of responses from people who seemed to not have much experience. Do I need to pay more than this to get someone good?
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Try Onlinejobs.ph, they have some good VAs on there but again do your own due diligence.
 
lewwy789 said:
If your marking the project as a few hours work to sort all your onpage and keyword research and you'll pay $10-$20 an hour then that would explain it.
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I'm not marking it as a few hours work. I'm asking potential employees to tell me how long it will take them to do keyword research. Most are telling me about 5 hours.

GringoMonkey said:
$10 per hour is less than the UK minimum wage. $20 is what the cleaner gets. Similar rates in similar countries. So, you will be looking at hiring tier 3 people at that rate.

Anyone in a tier 3 country who could do what you will be asking of them, will be living it large and likely uninterested in doing the job.
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Anyone who can do basic SEO will be living it large?
 
d0sa said:
Anyone who can do basic SEO will be living it large?
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In a tier 3 country where the average wage is $500 or less per month, enough that they would not be bothered with a few hours of work for you.

Which was the point of your question.

If you want talented people for a few hours you need to pay really well.
 
d0sa said:
I'm not marking it as a few hours work. I'm asking potential employees to tell me how long it will take them to do keyword research. Most are telling me about 5 hours.
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If it's just keyword research you're after then there are some keyword services in the marketplace.
 
lewwy789 said:
If it's just keyword research you're after then there are some keyword services in the marketplace.
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Are there any you could recommend?
 
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