by Andrew Jensen on December 19, 2007
If you’re going from SEO firm to SEO firm inquiring about how much they charge for their search engine optimization services, expect to receive a wide range of dollar figures. The reasons are many & varied. SEO has become a relatively flooded service segment, with new “SEO experts” popping up overnight. Conducting a broad search for “search engine optimization” on Google will reveal over 55 million result pages. It’s difficult to accurately estimate the number of SEO providers, but, if my memory works correctly, I believe I saw a figure in the range of 60,000-80,000. I’d be willing to bet that a majority of these might not actually give you your dollars worth.
In a future post, I’ll detail some things to look for when searching for the right match for your company. However, in this post, I want to look briefly at some actual prices given by Rand Fishkin, CEO & founder of SEOmoz. In his quite informative article on SEO pricing, he writes:
“The prices themselves are all across the board, but here’s my take on the general ranges:
|
Service
|
Low End
|
Mid Range
|
High End
|
| Site Review + Consulting |
$500 |
$2,500 |
$10,000 |
| Hands-On Editing of Pages/Code |
$2,000 |
$10,000 |
$50,000 |
| Manual Link Building Campaign |
$500 |
$5,000 |
$20,000 |
| 1-Day SEO Training Seminar |
$750 |
$4,000 |
$12,000 |
| Keyword Research Package |
$100 |
$500 |
$2,000 |
| Viral Content Development + Mktg |
$1,000 |
$7,500 |
$20,000 |
| Web Design, Development + Mktg |
$5,000 |
$25,000 |
$100K+ |
| Monthly Retainer for Ongoing SEO |
$2,500 |
$7,500 |
$20,000+ |
“You might see the incredibly wide discrepancy of prices above and think, if you’re a potential client, that the prices on the high end are evil, greedy SEOs gouging customers foolish enough to fall for their machinations. Likewise, if you’re an SEO, you might look and think that some of the folks on the low end or mid range are insane to offer such valuable, time-consuming services for so little.”
Of course, there are numerous issues which go into determining an exact quote for SEO services (which will vary by your company’s particular project), but if you’ll pop over Rand’s way and read his article, I think you’ll find that to be an excellent start to understanding how much your SEO contract should cost. And, if you’re wondering how Sozo Firm compares to Rand’s rate summary above, pop over to our SEO rates page.
by Andrew Jensen on December 10, 2007
Please note: While we’ve tried throughout the past year to keep this post up to date, as of December 2008 we will no longer be updating it whenever there are fee variations on our services. For current fees on SEO & related web marketing services, please view our SEO fee listing in our main website.
Unlike many search engine optimization & web marketing companies, we publicly post our rates online. At times this can create some headaches for us as particular services can never be a “one size fits all.” However, all in all, we’ve found that publicly posting our rates has been advantageous for us:
1. It minimizes the number of non serious inquiries. People know up front how much they can expect we will charge them; as a result, usually, those seeking low priced (and, typically, low quality) SEO services will not submit a request for a quote.
2. Some prospective clients wish to avoid the hassle of obtaining unpredictable quotes from multiple companies in their quest for the right SEO/web marketing partner. By posting our rates online, companies know up front how much we charge and some express that they were attracted by the transparency.
While we do post our rates for standard services & basic packages (especially those targeting small businesses) online, many of our larger prospective clients come to us needing more customized packages. We’re debating whether to post a page of standard corporate SEO packages with rates, but doing such realistically is difficult based on each company’s unique website(s) as well as their market. When you leave the world of localized small businesses and move into the more competitive arena of corporations targeting the US and other countries, each package bundle we create has to be tailored precisely to that specific company’s needs and the price tag will vary.
Having said all of that, here are a few of our rates (note: these do change from month to month based on the level of demand for our services; the pricing listed below is no longer current):
- Hourly: $195 (this includes SEO, competitor analysis, research, link development, consulting)
- Web Conferencing Consulting: $250/hour
- On Site Consultation: $785 for 3 hours; rate for local serviceable region only (Baltimore, York, Harrisburg)
- Remote Consultation: 1 day (up to 6 hours) starts at $4000 with host responsible for travel/lodging expenses
- Site Analysis with SEO Report: Starts at $2000
- Site Analysis with SEO Report for a Commercial Website (200,000 pages or a million): pricing varies; expect a minimum of $10,000.
- Ongoing SEO for a small business: $2000/month & up
- Ongoing SEO for a larger business/corporation: pricing varies; we typically offer a range of hourly based packages that they can choose from up front; the average is probably between $2,000 to $4,000/month.
Many of our services are now tied in to very specific conditions (i.e. includes 15 hours of consulting per month). Initially, we first offered companies packages without including the specifics but then discovered that some clients tend to “abuse the system” and expect a Rolls Royce when they’ve purchased a Honda. As a result, our current packages that we offer in proposals are very specific and often are tied to an hourly rate.
If you are interested in viewing some of our packages as well as other rates, be sure to swing by our latest rate sheet. If you are interested in obtaining a customized quote for your project, please don’t hesitate to request a proposal. We’d be glad to talk with you to see if we’d make a good match.
Please contact Sozo Firm for additional information on our pricing.
