Knowing how to charge for search engine optimisation services is the key to building a profitable agency. Keeping your clients happy and profitable should be the number 1 priority. Patrick talks about how to approach charging for SEO.
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3 Comments
Comments
Great allegory! That’s how it is.
So true about selling SEO. Incredibly appropriate analogy- this will come in handy. It’s funny because I’ll bet the same prospect has paid 5 figures for other advertising channels... it’s all about knowing what SEO can do for you and what it takes, and a lot of clients just aren’t there.I particularly like the third man- we have several clients like this who were sold at too low a price, but their expectations aren’t any lower. Now when we sell, we set expectations at the same time.
@Patrick Altoft: A potential client of ours was shocked when we quoted a substantial 5 figure sum for SEO last week. His main rival makes £5 million a year from organic search.Your client may know how much his main rival makes from organic search. He may even know how much his main rival has paid for SEO over time. But you have no way of knowing in advance how much work and other resources you will have to invest in order to bring your client’s site to the same rankings as his rival’s site. And therefore that substantial 5 figure sum might be insufficient and you will fail this task. All tailors in the (irrelevant) allegorical tale knew in advance the amount of material they need for a suit and the number of workhours they will have to invest sewing it. The various prices reflected quality of material and quality of workmanship. But in SEO, even if you charge the highest price per hour and you devote to this client’s project a higher number of workhours than all your SEO competitors, you have no way of knowing in advance whether it will be sufficient.