How to charge for SEO work?

do i charge per phrase? how much?

[daverb]

Hi
Quite new to SEO and have had a few good top 5 results. A customer now wants me to optimise his site for some new phrases. I'm loathe to charge up front as I don't yet have the confidence that I can *guarantee* positions for his phrases.
So I've proposed to work on a "no win no fee" basis. He's interested and wants a quote.
Anybody got any ideas on what to charge per phrase? I'm in the UK.
e.g. £200 for top 5, £100 for position 6-10 per phrase?

I'm using ethical SEO methods.

Dave

[sidyadav]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, daverb!

There was a previous thread about this:
[webmasterworld.com...]

Might want to read that. You can also try this:
[google.com...]

Good Luck,
Sid

[2oddSox]

If you're prepared to work on a 'no win, no fee' basis, then you should try to determine what effect moving up to the top 5 slots would be for your customer. If it would transform his business and bring in a lot more income for him then set your fees appropriately - and don't underestimate your abilities or the time it has taken you to learn your skill so far (that was the biggest hurdle I faced when I started contracting out for techie work - I thought it would be better to undercut the going rate just because I was new to the scene. That's a totally wrong approach and it didn't take me long to figure it out. The higher my rates went, the more customers I got!). If a top 5 position is worth a lot to your customer, then the work you do to get him there is worth a lot to you - and he'll understand that also and be happy to pay accordingly.

If you're just looking to get him to a good position to flesh out your own portfolio to attract more customers in the future, then come down in your rates but make it clear to him why he's getting a 'discount' - that you expect to cover your 'costs' and also expect to use his site as an example.

Sorry this doesn't give you a dollar (or pound) figure to work from, but I'm not sure there is such a beast.

Good luck, and as Sid said, welcome to WW.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I got my fingers burned recently when I agreed to try to get someone into a first page position in Google for a competitive term. I agreed that I should only be paid for results. My efforts got him number one in Yahoo and MSN and a lot of Google traffic but not for the particular KW phrase we agreed beforehand. I put a lot of effort into this over a three month period, he got traffic and I got zilch!

I have now changed my tack. When designing a site I offer to do SEO for a low basic fee with additional sums becoming payable if I get the client an agreed amount of traffic over the first four months after launch. The agreement is based on reaching an average figure for one week at any time during this period.

I do small business websites so I usually charge only about £250 for the basic job. I then look at the earning potential for the client if I am successful in achieving the traffic I charge accordingly.

Targetting a specific keyword in competitive markets is a now a no no for both the SEO'er and the client. Normally this business is all about traffic so success should be based on delivering this traffic for several KWs.

Typically, for an average business, I look at the traffic the opposition is getting and base the agreement on this. My charges are on a sliding scale based on how close I get to the top figure.

All I would say is that you should not underestimate what you are doing for your client. If he/she runs a consultancy and gets £600 per day in fees it does not take many clients derived from the website for him/her to earn a LOT of money.