[Hidden-tech] How to price your work

[Rob Laporte]

Hi LP,

In 1997 I founded a search marketing, DISC Inc (www.2disc.com <http://www.2disc.com/>), which i still direct. I’ve known most of the greats in the industry, and I have seen way too much of the damage done to businesses and to the reputation of the search marketing industry as a result of unqualified and often under-priced work. 

Before explaining a history of costs and packages in SEO, I’ll set the big picture. As I imagine you know, successful SEO requires obeying ever more rules with ever greater fidelity. Cherry-picking SEO tasks can be done, as long as one explains to clients the risks of not being thorough, and knows well what can be cut with acceptable risk. For most businesses, SEO is so important to success that half measures are penny-wise and pound-foolish, but sadly many small businesses simply have to cut costs. Myself, I rarely accept partial SEO jobs because even if the risk of a low budget producing failure is only, say, 20%, the damage done in wasted client money and impaired reputation for my firm and for the industry is just not worth it. But there’s a lot of opportunity out there to help smaller-budget businesses, who are getting hosed by hucksters in droves now. I wish I had the time and energy to go after that market, but my firm is spoiled by plenty of high-test SEO (and PPC and CRO) work these days. 

Regarding SEO prices, let’s look at a brief history of hourly rates. I’ll omit history of the very early years, 1996-2001 or so. Before the financial crisis, most of the truly good SEO firms charged $250+ per hour, with the most self-promoting charging $450/hr.—Moz (then SEOMoz) charged $1000 per hour for a while before moving out of consulting and into software and education subscriptions. Such rates may seem outlandish to some, but think of standard lawyer fees—and SEO done right takes at least as much education and experience as lawyers need. More importantly, the math often makes sense. If $100,000 of SEO work increases sony.com <http://sony.com/> organic traffic a mere 5%, the ROI is astronomical. Unfortunately smaller websites need a large percentage of the SEO labor time needed for huge sites, creating a brutal economy of scale and another cause of income inequality, but I digress. My firm used to charge $175/hr, but spent little on marketing, speaking, and other costly promotional activities that the $250 to $450 firms did. Then, after the great recession, I went to $150 per hour, and $125 for marketing agencies that pay us to handle SEO or PPC for their clients. There are good reasons that few law or CPA firms charge $75/hr, and there are more such reasons in search marketing. 

Regarding SEO packages, the highest priority and most cost-effective SEO is one-time, so the monthly retainer packages are usually for the benefit of agencies that want ongoing predictable revenue streams, not for the benefit of clients. Monthly retainers make sense for SEO keyword research and ongoing SEO writing, but I’ve found that most clients have more cost-effective things they can do with that money, like conversion rate optimization, PPC, schema.org <http://schema.org/> for rich snippets, One Boxes and Answer Boxes, Google Analytics tuning (really important), and maybe non-digital marketing way outside my firm’s services. That all said, I am moving to requiring at least some monthly engagement to be sure the client does not damage past SEO work, to keep clients apprised of business-impacting developments at Google and Bing, and to take a spin through the SEO health reports in clients’ Google Analytics and Search Consoles. If a client failed to implement some SEO recommendations, or damages SEO later, and results suffer, that hurts the client, my firm’s reputation (even though not my firm’s fault when disengaged from the client), and the reputation of the industry. I wrestle with the topic of set SEO packages and prices in this blog post: http://www.2disc.com/blog/seo-consulting-pre-packaged-set-prices/ <http://www.2disc.com/blog/seo-consulting-pre-packaged-set-prices/> . Upshot is that packages make selling and buying efficient, but really most clients’ needs are unique. I start with the essential one-time jobs, let results inspire more work, then suggest the next priorities. I base my package prices, like for SEO technical audits, on the average time needed in the past. As an aside, this Forbes article on SEO prices posits detailed SEO audits at $3,000 to $20,000, and that’s just the beginning of SEO: http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2013/09/12/what-does-seo-cost-infographic/#20a5ef3645b4 <http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2013/09/12/what-does-seo-cost-infographic/#20a5ef3645b4>. My firms is at about $5000, though I can divide that into smaller segments beginning at about $1500. 

I like to predict clients’ profit coming from SEO (and PPC and CRO) prior to doing much work. Sure, sometimes it’s a no-brainer that basic SEO health is a must, but substantial ongoing investments are worth some predictive analytics prior to a lot of work, in order to discover likely profit the client will make in 6 months, a year, two years. This kind of prediction, or at least reasonable scenarios, are surprisingly doable. The math is there, whether or not the client is aware of it. I prefer that they are aware of it before investing much. 

Best Regards,

Rob Laporte
Founder & Managing Partner
DISC, Inc. - "Making Web Sites Make Money"
413-584-6500
Rob at 2disc.com
www.linkedin.com/in/2disc
www.2disc.com

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> On Sep 14, 2016, at 11:03 AM, hello at lplouw.com wrote:
> 
>  
> Hey all
>  
> I’m new at freelancing so I’m a bit short in experience when it comes to knowing how to price your work. I just got my first quote request for SEO work on a small business website – travel industry. From my reading, most companies charge a monthly rate. What would be, in your opinion, a decent and reasonable rate to charge for such a service? And what hourly rate would you base that on?
>  
> According to this article on moz.com <http://moz.com/> the rates vary widely: https://moz.com/blog/seo-pricing-costs-of-services <https://moz.com/blog/seo-pricing-costs-of-services>
> (I have a strong suspicion using foreign subcontractors plays a role in some of the work price in the $250-$500 range, but I’m also not sure a small business could afford $2500-$5000 per month.)
>  
> Cheers
>  
> LP Louw
>  
> hello at lplouw.com <mailto:hello at lplouw.com>
> http://portfolio.lplouw.com <http://portfolio.lplouw.com/>
> +1-310-498-6062
>  
>  
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