What to charge for SEO?

[skyblueyou]

I am new to SEO. But I have lots of experience in the web design world. One of my old employers (before I was a web designer) wants to use me for their SEO services. I am not sure what to charge. Does anyone have any suggestions for a new SEO professional? These are the skills I will be doing:

1. Create an XML sitemap and submit to all major search engines.

2. Install a Wordpress Blog which matches the theme of your site. I will be responsible for maintaining it.

3. Create new pages/forms as requested. Update any of the pages as requested.

4. We will add appropriate meta tags/titles to any new page. You would have to provide with the keywords and accordingly we will create them.

5. Submit the site to all major search engines and directories.

6. Install Google Analytics so that you can monitor site performance.

7. Optimizing pages, title, tags and keywords.

8. Link building of website.

9. Increasing Company Website’s presence on Google maps.

10. We will use keywords to optimize website rankings.

[Nicholas]

It depends, most of what you list is easy to do.

Onsite seo makes up a small %, its all about the backlinks. If you feel its not too much of a competitive area and you reckon you can obtain backlinks then you should take on the job.


1. Create an XML sitemap and submit to all major search engines.

^^takes 5 minutes

2. Install a Wordpress Blog which matches the theme of your site. I will be responsible for maintaining it.

^^^ usually the figure is anywhere up to 1000

3. Create new pages/forms as requested. Update any of the pages as requested.

^^ using wordpress lets face it, very easy.

4. We will add appropriate meta tags/titles to any new page. You would have to provide with the keywords and accordingly we will create them.

^^^ I think you are very new to this so you will have to be cheaper. Meta tags arent used any more. The research for good titles is pretty easy.

5. Submit the site to all major search engines and directories.

^^^ easy

6. Install Google Analytics so that you can monitor site performance.

^^^ easy

7. Optimizing pages, title, tags and keywords.

^^^ easy, just dont keyword spam by putting keywords everywhere

8. Link building of website.

^^^ this is where the bulk of your work will lie, especially if the site is pretty rubbish

9. Increasing Company Website’s presence on Google maps.

^^^^ is hard but with the special technique is really easy, most people charge about 50 to quicky optimise that.

10. We will use keywords to optimize website rankings

^^^ that stattment also leads me to think you are fairly new to seo.


All in all some one would charge x amount for the wordprees theme design and quick onsite seo then x amount for link building. Maybe an aditional budget to buy valuable links.

You will be best charging an hourly rate when link building. As you are new to it you should be 50% cheaper an hour than the "proffessionals"

[J Grabowski]

Hey skyblueyou,

That entirely depends on what you value your services at.

How much extra traffic can you direct to his website, as a direct result of your optimizations? How creative do you think you can be for providing unique content?

And how familiar is your old employer with comparing prices to other clients outsourcing their work? You'd be surprised how much work others are willing to do for $5