[terydinho]

Hi all

I have an SEO question for you - I have a mate who is being offered SEO services for £500 per month. Now my SEO knowledge goes this far:

1. Good content
2. Good code
3. Good link structure
4. Good URL Structure
5. Get in-bound links (not by buying them)

And that is about it. So answer me this - what would a £500 per month budget actually be buying you in SEO terms? Just time spent on the above list? or are there paid for services that I don't know about?

I would like to start branching out into SEO in a bit more depth and offering it as a service to my clients, but other than the obvious, I don't know enough about it. So anything you guys can throw at me would be awesome.

Cheers

[zed]

at a guess from most outfits I've seen. £50 of them actually doing any work, £450 clear profit and cheek.

[terydinho]

Yeah that is what I thought. I can totally understand and justify the £500 per month, if they have an agency day rate of say £250 per day and would spend 2 days per month on your site perfecting/tweaking copy etc... and making sure all your structures were good. I think if the site is big and takes a lot of traffic as well as being constantly changing, then you could justify it - but for a small company, surely just doing it the once would be ok...?

[Renaissance-Design]

Could probably justify a good couple of hours per month for any site - monitoring SERP changes, checking analytics & visitor flow, identifying exit pages and recommending changes.

This post has been edited by Renaissance-Design: 28 January 2012 - 05:44 PM

[Ste Hughes]

I charge £500 to set up and £300 every month after that.

The £500 is to alter the site - make sure every page has all the tags it needs and in the correct places. Make sure link structure is good. Make sure we have G analytics's and G web master tools and other tools set up to monitor process.

This also gets the competition looked at and analysed and a clear battle plan along with notes of all changes are delivered to the client.

Month after month £75 of that £300 is outsourced to content writers. I get 4 well written articles. The person I use is a professional and I get an excellent price as I did a deal with him to deliver plenty of work his way.

A large proportion of the original £500 is spent on domains and I aim to create my own blog network sort of in his niche - these are all built by me and all link to him from different hosts so nothing looks fishy. I build 10-25 of these per client.

If I am ranking for a london hotel I will target london attractions and london shops and london directories and build them and point them towards the client. Maybe hotels in other places could be good. You don't target them directly but you do sort of around their area.

These are the links I give him. However the quality content is also linked to by real people and it grows and grows.

I then spend my time building these sites and writing stuff myself for them. The other articles are posted to their own website and are linked into my sites.

I use some of the £300 each month to grow and grow this little network. I buy $1 .info domains and set up auto blogs and point them towards my network. I do buy links to them, I do all the greyhat stuff because through my sites there is no way I can harm the clients site.

I tried this with my own portfolio. I got a new domain, set it up and got myself deliberately sandboxed. No effect at all on my site.

I only started selling SEO mid December. I've 3 clients so far.

I took one from page 12 to page 4. He is happy with this.

I took one from page 6 to page 3. He is also happy.

I took one from not being indexed to page 12. She got de-indexed by her last SEO guy. I did this for free to just see if I could do it. She is paying from next month on.

Thats my formula. I see myself going into this rather than web design tbh. I enjoy it more.

It is no easy money done my way but my structure means I will be making it easier and easier hopefully.

My clients get a monthly report - they get to see every link I build, every post, everything. Nothing is hidden.

The network is my own meaning as time goes on ect I will get more and more 'powerful' and I will be able to rank people easier.

cheers

[SEO Girl]

That depends upon which niche your friend is in, how competitive the keywords are, how many of them and the status of site's current ranking and onsite factors. There is a lot pre offsite seo and link building to check. So £500 seems fair looking at the content writing, research, monitoring and link building costs.

[zed]

how often do you write content? or do you mean spamming 'content' on forums, blogs etc?

[oakleaves]

Ste Hughes, on 28 January 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

I took one from page 12 to page 4. He is happy with this.

I took one from page 6 to page 3. He is also happy.

Does anybody really look past page 1?

Also, are you using any techniques that Google will punish you for later down the line?

[terydinho]

zed, on 29 January 2012 - 08:00 AM, said:

how often do you write content? or do you mean spamming 'content' on forums, blogs etc?

My question exactly - I can appreciate a good amount of money going into SEO at first - but every month? If it is an ever changing site, then what is the money for?

Thanks for the excellent responses so far people, much appreciated

R

[SEO Girl]

Examiner.com, reputed blogs, Infobarrel.com, mashable etc. don't accept spam. BTW, SEO is about quality as well as quantity of backlinks. As long as you play fair, under the radar and natural with content that's useful for readers, SEO works and pays off. And now when it's nicely combined with social media.

zed, on 29 January 2012 - 08:00 AM, said:

how often do you write content? or do you mean spamming 'content' on forums, blogs etc?

This post has been edited by SEO Girl: 29 January 2012 - 04:35 PM

[zed]

so what are you rewriting to justify £500 a month.

Just because something is 'under the radar' doesn't necessarily mean you're playing fair or doing anything useful. If you're just duplicating content all over the place then it's no wonder the internet is the mess it is now.

[Ste Hughes]

oakleaves, on 29 January 2012 - 12:29 PM, said:

Does anybody really look past page 1?

Also, are you using any techniques that Google will punish you for later down the line?

No one looks past page one but no one goes from page XX to page 1 in a single move for keywords worth targeting. It does not happen to my knowledge. It's a steppingstone to page 1.

Google will not punish me - I am doing nothing wrong for the client.

My own micro blog network may possibly be hit over time if the algorithm changes, but it's the same for everyone. Adapt or be eaten.

zed, on 29 January 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

so what are you rewriting to justify £500 a month.

Just because something is 'under the radar' doesn't necessarily mean you're playing fair or doing anything useful. If you're just duplicating content all over the place then it's no wonder the internet is the mess it is now.

Its SEO. The whole essence of SEO is to exploit your idea of the google algorithm for your own gain. If you are doing SEO you are not letting the net be natural and you are spoofing something...

Duplicate content is a waste of time. Google is so on point with this now you have to be stupid to think it will do you good. It is simply ignored while the original content is not punished and it is left untouched.

You all may think "OMG robbing ****, £500 a month for SEO"

lets do some numbers.

You own a psychologists practice.

You charge £100 a session to help people with whatever it is they need help with and the average client stays on for 6 sessions. Each and every client is worth £600 to you.

You are based on London, the total searches for the keywords "psychologists London" "psychologist in London" and "psychologist London" is lets say 800 a month.

If you are number 1 for these terms you can expect at least 56% of all these clicks to be on your website. Cornell university did this study. They actually found it to be nearer 70% for local terms like these as well so that's a conservative number.

56% of 800 searches a month = 418 people.

You do not search for terms like this by accident. These people want the services you have on offer.

If you can only convert 2% of these 418 people that's over 8 people worth 4800 every single month to you.

If we cut it down further to 1%, 1 in 100 people looking for what you offer. that is still £2400 a month in sales from SEO.

This model does not work for all businesses. For example SEO on a chip shop would be pointless you would not see the value but good SEO should pay for itself over and over and over every single month.

It is worth every penny of £500 a month if you have a high enough customer value to make the numbers work.

This post has been edited by Ste Hughes: 29 January 2012 - 09:30 PM

[Jason Dexter]

zed, on 29 January 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

so what are you rewriting to justify £500 a month.

Just because something is 'under the radar' doesn't necessarily mean you're playing fair or doing anything useful. If you're just duplicating content all over the place then it's no wonder the internet is the mess it is now.

All the money I charge for SEO on a monthly retainer is based upon the hours required for that particular website and all my clients are extremely happy with that.

I take my hourly rate, and suggest a certain number of hours per month based upon their website. A small, 5 page website that is wanting to rank in a very local, very targeted market is going to take less hours then a large website, such as an e-commerce website so hours can vary from 8 hours a week to two hours a month and my pricing reflects this.

How do I justify my prices? Well, I'm competitive and provide great results. A good business will know its a good deal if they pay me 300 quid a month and I get them to the first page and their revenue increases 10 fold.

A lot of my clients are "once bitten, twice shy", just the same as everyone else and they often don't trust SEO's as it's something they can't physically see until I get them onto the first page.

Each client is different, but the bulk of the work is:

Monitoring their websites
Changing and tweaking content
Increase CR and SERP CTR's
Traffic monitoring and visitor tracking
Constant on-site SEO
Link building
Brand protection (Checking the web for reviews, anything bad being said can be replied to, to ensure all questions have been answered. This includes forums etc)
Social media such as maintaining their facebook and twitter accounts

It all depends on what the client requires. I couldn't charge someone 400 quid a month if they just want to maintain their position.

Each and every client knows exactly what they're getting for their money and where it is going. The money they pay, pays for me to work solely for their website in an agreed amount of time.

Ste, clients that are happy to be on 4th and paying 300 quid a month? I need me some of those ha

EDIT: Just seen your reply Ste, I retract my last comment. But great way of breaking down the numbers, I was going to do the same

[Ste Hughes]

Jason Dexter, on 29 January 2012 - 09:32 PM, said:

Ste, clients that are happy to be on 4th and paying 300 quid a month? I need me some of those ha

I took him from page 12...

He has been doing his own SEO for 18 months posting his own content and getting only from page 14 to page 12...

He is made up he is seeing results in 1 month. He knows it will take a while to get where he wants but he is happy indeed.

[terydinho]

Just to say guys, this wasn't meant to be any kind of a negative thread on people who do charge a monthly fee for SEO, I don't doubt the legitimacy of your work, I was mainly curious about what goes into a monthly package that would warrant around £500's worth of time.

Jason and Ste, som great replies there lads. I just wanted to make sure that my friend isn't being taken for a ride for his £500 per month. I have asked him to ask the company to provide him with a breakdown of what they plan to do each month for him. Is this a reasonable request? What I don't want is his site being stagnant for 3 months and them giving him a load of old bulls*it about how it is all 'link building' and 'back-end work' - obviously I can check things too, but I just want to be sure for him.

Cheers

[Ste Hughes]

Make sure they put in place measures to monitor the progress for you to see.

I put every link I build into an Excel pdf for the client to check out

I put every effort into making sure the client can see what I have been doing.

[oakleaves]

Ste Hughes, on 29 January 2012 - 09:28 PM, said:

No one looks past page one but no one goes from page XX to page 1 in a single move for keywords worth targeting. It does not happen to my knowledge. It's a steppingstone to page 1.

Fair point.

[Jason Dexter]

terydinho, on 30 January 2012 - 08:16 AM, said:

Just to say guys, this wasn't meant to be any kind of a negative thread on people who do charge a monthly fee for SEO, I don't doubt the legitimacy of your work, I was mainly curious about what goes into a monthly package that would warrant around £500's worth of time.

Jason and Ste, som great replies there lads. I just wanted to make sure that my friend isn't being taken for a ride for his £500 per month. I have asked him to ask the company to provide him with a breakdown of what they plan to do each month for him. Is this a reasonable request? What I don't want is his site being stagnant for 3 months and them giving him a load of old bulls*it about how it is all 'link building' and 'back-end work' - obviously I can check things too, but I just want to be sure for him.

Cheers

Any good SEO company will offer as much transparency as they can into what they do and should be more than happy to provide this. Ask the company for a full break down of the package so you and your friend have a better understanding of what is included. Also ask about getting monthly reports. These are often automated and shouldn't really take up much time.

Would be interesting to see what the company offer for £500, maybe I could sort out a more cost effective package haha

[terydinho]

Jason and Ste - again, thanks for your professional responses, it makes a lot more sense now.

I haven't ventured into the world of SEO much more than the usual Good Content, Good Code, Good URLs/Structure and get some backlinks - but this makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks guys.

[Jason Dexter]

terydinho, on 30 January 2012 - 01:25 PM, said:

Jason and Ste - again, thanks for your professional responses, it makes a lot more sense now.

I haven't ventured into the world of SEO much more than the usual Good Content, Good Code, Good URLs/Structure and get some backlinks - but this makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks guys.

No problem mate, glad we could help. That is what many people think, when it comes to SEO and it is good practice to ensure that is the case. But, much the same as design, it is more than just " a few nice colours and good fonts"

[rallport]

terydinho, on 28 January 2012 - 04:47 PM, said:

Hi all

I have an SEO question for you - I have a mate who is being offered SEO services for £500 per month. Now my SEO knowledge goes this far:

1. Good content
2. Good code
3. Good link structure
4. Good URL Structure
5. Get in-bound links (not by buying them)

And that is about it. So answer me this - what would a £500 per month budget actually be buying you in SEO terms? Just time spent on the above list? or are there paid for services that I don't know about?

I would like to start branching out into SEO in a bit more depth and offering it as a service to my clients, but other than the obvious, I don't know enough about it. So anything you guys can throw at me would be awesome.

Cheers

£500 per month is a huge amount for SEO - your client should be seeing a huge increase in conversions from the website for that amount. For that, you'd want to see lots of things from your SEO company:

• Regular rankings reports with projections
• Results of current and planned split tests
• Continual split testing across the whole site
• Content writing - reports analysing the impact of each piece of new content
• Link building - again, constant and very detailed reports of what links they are getting and the impact
• Set of goals and user funneling - all visible in Google analytics

Reports wise, we're not talking about a simple click and download export from Google - we're talking something bespoke in a proper report with everything explained.


Basically, for £500 per month any SEO is going to have justify their time.

[rallport]

Ste Hughes, on 30 January 2012 - 11:12 AM, said:

Make sure they put in place measures to monitor the progress for you to see.

I put every link I build into an Excel pdf for the client to check out

I put every effort into making sure the client can see what I have been doing.

You're chrarging people £500 per month and providing reports in Excel format - wow!

Also when you say "It is worth every penny of £500 a month if you have a high enough customer value to make the numbers work.", I let out a little lol. The amount of emails I get from India offering their services, who all quote something along those exact lines is insane. As an SEO you need to prove why your activities will have a positive impact upon a site.

[Ste Hughes]

It's not just a excell document. It's a 3-7 page report. It includes a excel sheet.

Go check my other post showing how SEO is worth the money.