SEO Pricing & Generic Request for Proposals
Its brutal sometimes looking at a “RFP”, request for proposal, when it comes to SEO. A project will list in the details:
“Looking for SEO services. Need onsite and offsite optimization completed. Looking for a long term contract of 6 months. Whats your price?”
Nowhere in the site does it mention the keyphrases they’re trying to target. I wish I had a penny for every time someone asked me “what my rates are”, I’d be filthy rich.
Why Does it Matter?
Well, hell, lets go ahead and explain how pricing SHOULD work with your service provider. The first reply you should get back is:
“What keyphrases are you trying to rank for?”
I mentioned this in another comments section on another post. Someone was thinking about signing up, with a spam company none the less, yet doesn’t understand the difference between a longtail phrase and short tail. Not everyone should and certainly a CxO shouldn’t, but if a SEO provider doesn’t mention it, you should raise an eyebrow and scratch your head.
Longtail Keyphrases – Keyphrases that are easy to rank and are not searched as often. How can you tell? Take a look at the search results at the top right of the results pages. It will say “1 out of x results”. If the number of x is under 1 million, thats a longtail keyphrases. I don’t care if its a one word phrase or a 10 word phrase. I’ll be able to rank that site for that longtail keyphrase in my sleep. Want proof? Google “ijango scam“. Its two words with 24,000 search results. On number 4. I did absolutely nothing except write a post and moderated the comments. Quite a few website owners linked to my blog post on the topic but no effort was involved on my part.
Shorttail Keyphrases – Just the opposite. One word, two word, and three words typically. Google “Miami real estate“. 27 million sites competing against you. You better be ready to open your wallet because you can forget about overnight success. You should be in it for the long haul. Its going to take alot of effort to rank that well. Great content, great quality links, and tons more.
So what are my rates? What are the rates of a SEO service provider? Completely depends on your keyphrases you want to rank for. As for my pricing, anywhere between $300 per month up to $3500 per month.