What should I charge for SEO?

Just as the title states, how much do people normally charge to do SEO work for a company? A friend of a friend want's me to get his companys site on the front page of G. and I want to know what to quote him?

Go to GFA.. U can get urs ans...

very much depends on the ow competative are his main keywords. also how dumb is he.

best way if you tell him, that u have to maintane the rakning as well, so u charge him for the initial set up+ranking, and ask him for a monthly fee as well.

thanks, i'm don't know what GFA stands for. I also don't want to rip the guy off, but I do vale mu time as well. Does anyone know the going industry rate?

You should learn to evaluate his site and competition first before you can give a quote.

If it takes long to make his site appear on 1st page then charge him a little low because he might be frustrated of the cost and the result is taking a long time.

Depends somewhat but I generally charge $500/month for 3 keywords.

Some clients need more work. I just signed a client that I charge $2300/month because I do a lot of extra work (that I outsource for $300/month).

And some need less. I have another client that I charge $50/month because I'm doing minimal work and no monitoring for a friend.

So just take a look at the big picture and see how much time it will take and figure out how much you can outsource and come up with a quote from there.

I do this all of the time...

1. evaluate the site to make sure it can be ranked due to not being in a dead market or crap site in the first place.

2. quote based on the specs of:

$ what you have to do to his site to get it ranked; seo, changes on and off site.
$ time investment you are going to have to make to get this accomplished.
$ time investment of how big of a window it is going to time for these changes to be made and take a positive resulting effect.
$ what tools, skills, resources, outsources, etc. you are going to need if any; article writers, etc.

As well as anything else you can think of that comes into play for this unique project.

Once you have all of that information, then decide what your time is worth to you based on what you do within an average hour and what effect/impact it will have on the end result.

I charge different custom rates, depending on what needs to be done but have a standard price that I won't budge on as the min. Also, get at least half upfront and NEVER work for free unless you are doing it for the point of proof that you need to gain the first project. IF you have to setup a site for free to prove that you can do it, which you should have already done this to know if you are up to snuff or not, do it on your own site projects. Work for free once and you will never get paid. Your own projects are sure to pay you down the line.

I believe dustangle was refering to GAF or "get a freelancer". Google either of them and its there. Its an outsourcing site where you will see many expamles of people doing this work.

Its also a good place to find people to do individual jobs related to what your wanting to achieve.

There is no set price. Again depends on many factors. You dont want to seem too expensive or too cheap. I try to get the "oh, that seems a little step" response. When you have that, tell the client (in laymens terms) what you will be doing for them, and why it needs to be done constantly ie on a monthly basis, to keep their position in the SERPs.

When you have this you can maximize your income, and outsource all the work for next to nothing either with the site mentioned above or with your fellow blackhatters in the forum.

I know you were looking for a figure, but sorry I cannot give you 1.