February 19th, 2012
Most people in the business of SEO marketing services enjoy improving business for their clients, milling through data, coding websites, and building empires. What they don’t necessarily like is the sales pitches they need to deliver to “sell” the value of their services. Yet, this is an inevitable part of business and a lot of it has to do with expectations, as well as accurately scoping out the project.
Here are some of the factors that go into devising fair market prices for SEO marketing services:
- Profit Goals: This can lie anywhere from 15 to 30 percent on average, although some firms may charge even more.
- Fixed Costs: Things paid, no matter what sales are like – internet service, office rent, utilities, that sort of thing.
- Variable Costs: Covers the costs that go up as sales go up – like advertising efforts perhaps or the cost to hire and train new employees as the demand for work increases.
- Direct Costs: The prices paid out to copywriters, web designers, and other laborers, which is usually a percentage of the actual sales.
Many companies offering SEO marketing services offer package deals. These offer tactical work like keyword research, structural analysis, competitive analysis, an SEO audit, analytics review, and consulting on usability. However, this does not cover the ongoing work it takes to make a site ultimately successful – like video, blogging, social media, link building, and website restructuring.
So other variables you need to consider in the pricing of SEO marketing services includes:
- Talent: Do you want $400 a month guys from India or $4,000 a month professionals with college degrees in English and Marketing?
- Software: Do you want people using limited scope free tools you could’ve accessed yourself or guys using slick $10,000 a month software that improves the process ten-fold?
It’s important to remember that the value for SEO marketing services may not be realized in the first 6 months or even the first few years. One company paid $6,000 a month for organic SEO and reported that, 5 years later, they were realizing ROI of $319,000 a month in SEO! Results may vary, but that goes to show that it can take time to build, but once it does, you will find it was the best decision you ever made for your business.
