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For those of you that charge your clients for Search Engine Optimization, how do you bill for your services?
A new web design client of mine recently requested that their website be the #1 result in Google and Yahoo! for a specific search term. While every website I create has SEO naturally built into it through valid XHTML/CSS and accessibility practices, I've only conducted full-blown SEO campaigns for myself and companies I've worked for. I'm confident in my ability to obtain that goal for my client, but I am unsure how to bill for my service. Taking the client's perspective, I imagine they'd be skeptical to pay the full price of SEO with no guarantee of when or if they'll see results. So a certain % up front, followed by the remaining sum once the SEO goal is reached, seems to make sense. I'm not sure what the %'s should be though, or if I should go about it another way.
Anyone have any advice? -
With pay-per-click campaigns aside, you really can't guarantee a specific rank placement, although you can get a feel of the likelihood of attaining the goal based on the particular keyword(s).
I generally just charge a straight hourly consulting development fee, but it'd be interesting to develop a "results-based" methodology for charging. Then the client would feel like there was less risked, and higher value of the bottom-line when goals are achieved. I would think it would be a set amount up front, then incremental increases based on the rank achieved.
Of course this brings up several other issues, like: How long you stand by the ranking, before charging again to increase it's placement. The world of SEO is an ever-changing mass. -
You would want to bill on deliverability. But things like QA and production and verification are important I think.
While you cant gaurantee placement, you can gaurantee that sites like Google and Yahoo! are looking at the site without error.
If your client is serious about this, you'll get paid. If you feel worried about it, I wouldn't hesitate to ask for half up front. Lord knows I've been burned by shady people I initially thought were geniune. -
- CommentAuthorPettyRider
- CommentTimeSep 11th 2006
We always include SEO in the development process, much like you say, JR. Sometimes clients don't even know what they're asking, but they want to know if we do "es eee yo."
In some instances, though, when clients have requested better ranking on specific (and realistic) key words or phrases, we charge them for the work involved to improve the ranking on the desired words/phrases (changing copy, link text), but we don't promise a rank (but most of the time we've been able to get on the first page of Google.)
It also depends on what the client wants. If they want to rank top for "real estate," we might suggest an ad campaign rather than mere SEO. But if it's something like "Donner Lake boat rentals," that's worth a shot, and the client's investment. -
I am completely making this up as I type:
We all know it takes time to get rankings and nothing is guaranteed; so I would assume the best practice is to creating a duration based contract.
Determine a set fee for accomplishing the #1 result over X months (6 months is strong). Have milestones on which you receive partial payment: initial set-up gets 15% deposit (non-refundable), page 3 gets 15%, page 2 gets 15% and upon getting page 1 results gets 30% and #1 on page one gets a final payout of 25%.
The client understands you can't guarantee SEO results, so you are only paid on delivery -- but it isn’t an all or nothing relationship. -
I'm not sure a "milestone" or "results based" strategy is the best answer here... At least from my perspective. As has been said before, it is very difficult to predict ranking, etc.
A better strategy is to teach the client so they understand results are not guaranteed... and charge per deliverable/hour. -
Perhaps it is just semantics. Maybe a better what to word my suggestion is:
You charge a base fee to SEO best-practices and its implimentation. You then set-up a "bonus" structure to be paid the closer you get to the end goal. If you never reach #1 ranking, you at least are compensated for the time and effort it takes to watch and track the results as they get close. And realistically, even if you never get #1 on page 1, you should be compensated for taking a site from page 30 to page 2.
Just ensure you are getting paid for work complete and not putting your entire compensation on the gamble of getting a #1 ranking. And realistically, this could be a very long-term client. Once you do get #1 ranking for a three word search term, then you set-up a plan to get #1 result for two word term and then one word (almost impossible these days -- for a common word).
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