how much to charge?

complete site and marketing

[chasing something]

an old family friend (i know...but i've done other work for him...lol) wants help.

his brick and mortar biz, selling one specific widget, has had a site done years ago by someone else...it is awful from the word go...lol... and brings almost no business. maybe 2 - 10 obscure natural searches/month.

he wants a complete new design, rewrite and seo/marketing.

i've told him the marketing will take a minimum of 6 months full time...and i do mean minimum.
his site only has 10 links pointing to it and is travel industry related, so it's very competitive.

i won't be writing too many articles, because with only one widget, there just isn't a whole lot to say..so it's mainly link-monkey after the redesign/seo.

i've never done a site for anyone other than myself, i don't have a clue what to quote him. can someone give me some tips, things to consider, a starting price to consider, etc?

[Webwork]

Since you've never done a site for anyone I'd start humbly: How much are you making an hour doing whatever else you do to make a buck? Charge that and a little mark-up for your expertise. Set the expectations low and use the experience as a learning process.

Don't focus on price this time. Focus on learning the entire process from intitial client consult, to template building, etc.

Perhaps keep the door open for a bonus if they're happy with the outcome. You might negotiate for that at the outset: "I'm a beginner. I have some skills. I know it will take me more time to build this than a pro, so I won't bill you for every hour. Here's my estimate of the time. I promise it won't exceed this by more than 20%. Etc."

[etechsupport]

Webwork has given a good suggestion.

After getting completion of the project for atleast 25% I think you can be able to assess what you should charge for that project.

[chasing something]

thanks for the suggestions.

[chasing something]

thinking back over your answer, it occurs to me that maybe you thought i meant it would take 6 months to build the site? i just wanted to clarify...

i've done some kw research already, and the site will only take a few hours to build once i settle on a design.

it's the link building that i quoted as 6 months.

[cdbragg]

I've been in much the same situation the last few weeks - my friend's dad is an artist, so I said I could build him a site - using Mambo/Joomla. I was new, and for me it was very much about learning - so I didn't charge him anything until it was finished. It probably took me 20 hours to actually do his site, not to mention the time it took me to work out how to do it generally! For domain, hosting and maintenance costs, I'm charging him $150 pa (Australian) and I only charged $250 to establish the site. Because he's my friends dad, this is less than I would charge a regular client, and I'll do more for him in terms of helping him maintain his content, add new images of his artwork, etc.