How Do You Charge For SEO

[julian]

Good evening.

I'm no seo guru but I know enough to help someone who has no idea. I normally turn down all seo work because I see it as such a pain in the arse to maintain.

So it's the same old story, over and over, Blogg's wants their Brighton B&B to be on the first page of G when some types in [brighton B&B]. Their on page 10, realistically I could get them to page 3 given the competition (and budget).

The thing is even if you achieve this for say £££ or the like - what then, aspects of seo require ongoing content updates, link building, blogging etc etc - it's not something you can just drop once youget them a reasonable result.

Your thoughts..

 

[Murray]

No offence, but just from what you've said in your post I don't think you should do it.

 

[julian]

Good - that's what I wanted to hear! - that's why I tend not to get involved.

but can you expand..?

No offence, but just from what you've said in your post I don't think you should do it.

So what's the answer - what do you do with these people who want to throw money at 'seo', seems like most of the time some dodgy agency will offer them the world, do nowt, and skin them for ££££ plus.

 

[Murray]

Good - that's what I wanted to hear! - that's why I tend not to get involved.

but can you expand..?

You said

So it's the same old story, over and over, Blogg's wants their Brighton B&B to be on the first page of G when some types in [brighton B&B]. Their on page 10, realistically I could get them to page 3 given the competition (and budget).

There's no difference being page 10 or 3

Even being bottom of page #1 most of the time wont bring in any noticeable traffic

They want to pay money to generate traffic and bookings, results in google are meaningless unless they deliver that.

 

[Retired_member41]

Surely you just look at the competition. Plan to build similar link profiles and give google what it likes. Content and geo domain targeted news content.

And a small Adwords campaign targeting associated business and not your own segment.

No google analytics and no old yahoo or bing stuff.

Charge them an upfront fee and bill them at £40 an hour and expenses from the upfront fee.

Isn't that what the big boys do?

Or is all that nonsense?

 

[julian]

Ok, so we know you don't get much unless your in the top 5.

But if I'm an SME on page 10 I'm currently getting less than zilch. Surely logic dictates that to get on page 1 you have to get past page 3 and 2 first.

I suppose the question comes down to: is it worth risking the effort and money to even 'try' and improve ones position. To know that you have to know wtf your doing - I'll get my coat

You said



There's no difference being page 10 or 3

Even being bottom of page #1 most of the time wont bring in any noticeable traffic

They want to pay money to generate traffic and bookings, results in google are meaningless unless they deliver that.

 

[Retired_Member38]

Surely you just look at the competition. Plan to build similar link profiles and give google what it likes. Content and geo domain targeted news content.

And a small Adwords campaign targeting associated business and not your own segment.

No google analytics and no old yahoo or bing stuff.

Charge them an upfront fee and bill them at £40 an hour and expenses from the upfront fee.

Isn't that what the big boys do?

Or is all that nonsense?

I would say thats almost certainly a recipe for disaster. I wouldn't let you do that on my sites for free.... I certainly wouldn't give you £40/hr to do it

 

[julian]

Caz and I are showing our age with our 'old-skool' seo tactics

So from what you've both said I'm getting a negative vibe from all the usual stuff:

-blogging
-getting credible backlinks
-adding good content on a regular basis
-social media signals
-good, fast, responsive website


What are we missing apart from fairy dust?

 

[tifosi]

-blogging
-getting credible backlinks
-adding good content on a regular basis
-social media signals
-good, fast, responsive website


What are we missing apart from fairy dust?

Most of those aren't old-school, just standard practices which are still relevant imo especially the speed factor.

Fairy dust I'd add includes semantic mark up. HTML has moved on considerably in the last few years and google I think have followed that. HTML5-based sites with the new doctype and semantic markup using the newer heading, nav, footer tags, and roles I think benefit.

Other things I'd add are microdata, rich snippets & microformats as tools for visibility in the organic search

 

[bermuda]

SEO may seem a bit easy to digest at first glance, but even if your website already has startling bright ranks on Google, you may find it extremely puzzling to handle a real-world job belonging to your client. Have a look at tens of thousands of webmasters' posts on discussion forums, many of them already know a ton of information about SEO but the recent major algorithm updates of Google made them absolutely baffled and now they are scratching their heads, trying to come up with some solutions.

Having said that, you could even manage to get your customers' web ranks to the front pages of Google for the targeted niches, but these days it seems like a risky bet because there are some secrets to achieving top ranks in competitive markets. Just a tip, you can actually act as a professional ad manager for your clients, i.e, manage their Google AdWords campaigns, choose better terms that bring in customers and sales for them, and help them save up cash for the rainy days.

 

[greg2013]

There's no difference being page 10 or 3

I agree, this is true 99% of the time.

Even being bottom of page #1 most of the time wont bring in any noticeable traffic

I agree, top 5 on page 1 is really the target to aim for the get the most traffic, and certainly the most likely to guarantee a lot of traffic in a given search.
But in this scenario I think maybe it will bring a fair bit.

People looking for a B&B somewhere popular will likely rake all of page 1, maybe 2 (though not much traffic) as they:
a) Get fully booked B&Bs
b) Too expensive
c) Not to their taste
d) Not in the area they want
etc etc

So waste of their money getting to page 3 (unless "The Sun" related..).
If you can get them to bottom of page 1 for a budget they're happy with, and if the resulting traffic and your monthly charges to keep them there gives a ROI, then do it.
Too many params to know for sure though.
i.e., if they're nearly fully booked all the time now, then perhaps spend the money on some ads here and there instead of SEO/promoting.


I wouldn't mind a Brighton B&B who's website which comes in even bottom of the 1st page of Google...