Google BotAre You Scared of Paying for SEO?

Increasingly I’m seeing companies who are new to the concept of having their website search engine-optimized, or SEOd, balking at the prices we charge. In most cases the problem is that they’re not convinced that SEO is a worthwhile expense for them. My advice to them invariably is, if you don’t want to pay for this service, then simply don’t. Wait it out and see what happens. Like so many others, you can wait and see if SEO is just going to ‘go away.’

In the meantime, all your most aggressive competitors will seek and find competent SEO people to do work for them. Maybe even me.

I no longer have the time to convince anyone that they need my help. They’ll find out for themselves when the time is right.

Don’t Let the SEO Boat Pass You By!

You know what that means? By the time they realize what’s going on, their competitors will have a huge head start on them. That doesn’t mean the situation will be hopeless: nothing in this life is ever hopeless. But it does mean that they are losing business to the competition unless and until they get some decent SEO work done. Yes, the competition is eating their lunch!

How Much Should SEOs Charge?

But still, exactly how much to charge is a matter of confusion for people buying SEO services, and a matter of significant dilemma for those like me who are selling it. We shouldn’t feel guilty for doing something that takes such an enormous amount of our time, and for which we’ve spent countless hours collecting the knowledge to be able to do well. But we are sometimes made to feel guilty, so it’s worth pointing out why we charge what we do.

Let me stress the point because it’s important: Good SEO is extremely time consuming. There are no short cuts. We might spend a couple of days analyzing a your website and your most successful competion before we’re ready to make changes that will count.

But naturally, that’s not to say that all SEO operatives are of equal ability.

Personally, I’ve sub-contracted for quite a few larger companies than my own, whose in-house staff are nowhere near as competent as I am. I frequently find myself explaining basic SEO concepts (while rolling my eyes). Usually they’re benefiting from my knowledge free of charge at this stage.

I’d like to draw some attention to what Rand Fishkin said on SEOmoz last summer regarding the vast discrepancy in the standards of services provided by SEO:

“Generally speaking, however, if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is (as folks like Internet Advancement continue to prove). SEO is a challenging practice that requires both technical proficiency and a great understanding of marketing on the Internet. The fact that very smart people at very big brands make decisions to pay $500-$1,000 an hour to spend time talking to the best and brightest (and, yes, most notable) from the field of search marketing is one of many great pieces of evidence of the value of SEO.”

It is vital that you check out the SEO company you’re planning to hire. Let them refer you to people they’ve done work for. But once you’ve made your decision, don’t be surprised if they want to charge you up-front. It’s only fair: a website audit, competitive analysis and proposal take a lot of time and contain the author’s intellectual property. They deserve to know that they won’t get ripped off once you have this valuable knowledge in your hands.

In 2006 Rand Fishkin wrote a superb article about pricing an SEO campaign.

For a further point of reference, I’m going to reproduce Rand’s very interesting table:

Service

Low End

Mid Range

High End

Site Review + Consulting

$500

$2,500

$10,000

Hands-On Editing of Pages/Code

$2,000

$10,000

$50,000

Manual Link Building Campaign

$500

$5,000

$20,000

1-Day SEO Training Seminar

$750

$4,000

$12,000

Keyword Research Package

$100

$500

$2,000

Viral Content Development + Mktg

$1,000

$7,500

$20,000

Web Design, Development + Mktg

$5,000

$25,000

$100K+

Monthly Retainer for Ongoing SEO

$2,500

$7,500

$20,000+

Most of the SEOs I know charge in the mid-range, as do I. But people like Rand Fishkin, Michael Martinez, Andy Beal, and Bill Hartzer charge higher prices because they are leaders in the industry. They have a right to charge more for being the best. I picked these out of the thousands of successful and highly-respected SEOs in the industry because these are the ones I personally like best.

Of course it isn’t necessarily so that the most expensive SEO firm will be the best, just as cheap ones are not always awful, but you can depend on the names I’ve just mentioned.

As a parting shot, I’m anticipating some naysayers questioning my choice of Rand Fishkin as a resource for so much information on SEO campaign pricing. Quite simply it’s that no one else has put themselves on the line and come up with resources like he has. Rand can be counted on to tackle subjects related to SEO that everyone else shys away from. He has my utmost respect for that.