SEO - Search Engine Optimisation

The many positive features of Search Engine Optimisation:

High ROI - Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, SEO brings you a higher Return On your Investment than any comparable form of marketing
Long Term Positioning Once in place, a properly designed and optimised site should stay long term in the rankings compared to PPC where costs and outlay are ongoing and unpredictable
Targeted Traffic - SEO can increase the number of visitors who are actively searching for your service or product
Promotion that Doesn't Sleep - Imagine having your own marketing and promotions company working exclusively just for you! One that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days every year. That's the benefit of SEO!
Increase Brand Visibility - SEO can give your brand a high international profile - and for a comparatively low outlay
Higher Sales - SEO can mean increased sales of your product or service
Faster Loading Pages - Properly validated and optimised files will be smaller and leaner, meaning less server requests/overheads and quicker download times.
More Cost-Effective - SEO is among the most cost-effective ways of marketing
Increased Accessibility - Observing sensible optimisation procedures can make your site more accessible to all users
Cross-Browser Compatibility - A properly optimised site will be as near as possible validated to high standards. This means that it works in all browsers, meaning your site may be viewed by the greatest potential number of visitors
Navigable by the Engines - Properly optimised, all links should function correctly and all pages should be accessible to the engines, thus making your site easy for the engines to index and correctly categorise
Usability - Observing basic optimisation guidelines should mean that visitors have a more pleasant user experience.

TIP: If you thinking about engaging SEO services, get in touch for a FREE no obligation quote, we will be delighted to hear from you.

The 7 Most Popular SEO Pricing Models

Hourly Consulting
The simplest way to price a project is to charge by the hour. Rates in SEO vary with the lowest, entry level folks around £30-£40 / $40-50, mid-tier consultants around £70-£140 /$100-$200 and high-demand firms & people from £200-£350 / $300-500.

Once company in particular, whose name shall not be mentioned is actively trying to limit their clients by going way outside the norm and charging around £750 / $1000 / hour.

Project-Based Consulting
Many SEOs will use the business model common to web development agencies and charge a flat fee (often in several chunks over the course of a project). The total price is based on an estimate of time, effort and personnel involved in the project. At QFJ Media we often charge in this fashion for a site review + keyword research + consulting time or for an on-site SEO training series.

Contract Services
Plenty of SEOs offer dozens of individual services, such as directory submission service, link building & publicity campaigns or SEO assessment services. These offerings present a single price for a set amount of work, though I have little doubt that many of them are customised and have modified pricing based on the factors discussed in the next section.

Standard Profit Sharing
Some limited number of SEO providers offer profit sharing based compensation. These frequently include a relatively small down payment to begin work and then a percentage of revenues (usually before non-essential expenses) from sales through the website. This can be a good option for SEOs who have great confidence in their abilities and are ready to assume a significant share of risk. We at QFJ Media have tried this in the past with mixed results - one big problem is that you'll need to ensure that the business operations, outside of the website, are running on all cylinders, which really doesn't fit well with the job of SEO.

Modified Profit Sharing
As above, but modified profit sharing typically includes a clause that gives the SEO firm a cut prior to any expenses and may even set minimum’s of payment. Other modifications could make the deal similar to a Pay-Per-Action (PPA) or Pay-Per-Lead, the latter of which can be a better way to limit risk. Both SEOs and those seeking their services should be wary of any kind of profit-sharing deal. It's akin to a real business partnership in many ways and shouldn't be treated with any less weight.

Monthly Retainer
A few good SEO firms I know use a basic monthly retainer with a standard workload package (or several options). Some companies modify this system so that during development, marketing & ongoing maintenance, different prices are charged as part of the retainer. This can be a very good model for companies seeking to retain clients over a long period of time, but it can also be abused by those who claim (hopefully falsely) that the site will "lose its rankings" if the customer cancels.

Pay for Rankings
This is one of the more interesting strategies that SEOs employ. The idea being that you pay one price for reaching, say, page 2 of a particular result, another price for position 10, 9, 8 and so on, usually with particular bonuses for #1-3 rankings. It really only makes sense for companies seeking to rank for a particular set of terms/phrases that they know converts quite highly.

Pay for Traffic
As with pay-per-ranking, a traffic payment system treats SEO very much like PPC. I like this model in some respects, because it does measure the SEO's work, but it can get messy as the quality of traffic isn't measured here.

TIP: If you thinking about engaging SEO services, get in touch for a FREE no obligation quote, we will be delighted to hear from you.

Tel: 0871 5989 529
E-mail: support[@]qfjmedia.com

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