What Kind of Hourly Rate For SEO Services?

I haven't done this freelance at all, but I can tell you that the company I work for charges $130/hr for SEO as well as development work. We usually do SEO work for existing clients, so this might not help you.

Good luck!

Hi, thanks for that and rep added!

$130 seems a lot to me - does anyone else have an opinion and i'll split the difference

:sold:

it depends upon your references, client list, etc..
The more of that you have, the greater of a rate you're able to demand.
IMO, try to get the pricing by project , including deliverables.
This way, it can get measured and you can get repeat work.
Best of luck

I haven't done seo work for hire for a while, but always try to avoid pricing by hour. $130 an hour is an absolute bargain for a real seo. I won't do client work for less than 200 or 250 an hour, but mostly because I hate working for clients.

Hope that helps.

This is a problem that most people have been faced with in the past, and speaking from experience, let me tell ya - don't undersell yourself.
For example, when I started doing work, I would say really cheap prices but at the end of the day, there are people doing work at a lower standard than I was and made more money for it.

The question you have to ask yourself is, how much would you sell your spare time for? I know myself, that if I am out working all day and come home with another job to do, theres gonna be a nice reward at the end of it for me.

It's totally up to yourself on this one, remember if they are a company, they will be looking for a decent job and will be willing to spend.
I personally wouldn't be willing to go below $80 or $90ish, roughly, but $120, $130 they should be willing to spend if they want it done right.


Hope I helped in some way during this rant :P
All the best, and have a happy new year :tu:

You should see what the keywords are.

The keywords that the site is going for will increase or decrease the headache you might have to take.

It is still based on hours but still if the market they are going to hit is super saturated you will also have a tough time ahead of you.

My suggestion is make it $40 USD per hour. [This I am just saying because I don't know what kind of work might be involved.] More hours means more money for you. But gives you flexibility to spend some hours in better research and without going too high in the totals.

I would settle on a scope of work,a price, a deposit, and set your own timetable.

Hourly rates can get into split hairs about how much takes how much time. Deliverables help the milestone get tracked by both sides. A professional will balk at paying someone 130 dollars an hour to do anything they think they can do by themselves, but they would gladly charge their own clients or customers whatever hourly rate they bill at.

I would set a quote for a package of work performed by a set date, and deal with overages paid by the hour depending on how many changes they make to the original scope of work and how much feedback they expect to change the direction of the work.

These are all great suggestions, and really helping me to get a handle on the question.

Hopefully it's adding up to something that will help others wondering what they should charge - reps added to all who have contributed so far

:tu:

the most important factor i look at is how much can the client pay and how much time i have to personally spend on the project. if the estimate is lower than what i assume it will cost me in terms of "MY" time and energy spent... i very sincerely look the client in the eye and refer him to someone else simply saying thou i would love to work on the project i might not be able to deliver this time (please dont ask why) maybe the next time and no, i am not sorry, i know i will be working with you again in the future. i would rather spend the extra time with my wife. but as thumb rule i never bill below $65 if i like the client a lot and as much as $350 if i dont.

i hope what i said makes sense.

You should look for keyword competition , then any company give you better price.

The one thing you dont want to do is undersell yourself... I did it for years and made alot of people happy except for me...

If it is your first paid job for SEO I would say $75-100(I dont know what type of company they are or what they are willing to pay). I always say "The price is $Xamount." Never somthing like "Well..i think ill charge you $Xamount". Say it firm and let them know you know what your doing.

I myself only do 'seo' now as a 'page price' or a 'job price' and it's very expensive

usually to put a businesses front door on page one or two of the major engines for their keywords

I could care less about the rest of the site, I do the front door so it pops the major engines and it's normally tied into a development package for 5K to 10K

When you consistently get page one for many businesses your resume speaks for itself

Someone looking for hourly SEO is trying to do it on the cheap

So if you can really get PAGE ONE for major words, it's worth a lot of money, since each new client a business gets could be worth 5K to hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the business

Example an auto repair shop gets a new client, he spends 300 average per visit a few visits per year and over 10 years how much is it?

I wouldn't be educating their programmers with reports and stuff

You do it, and charge what it's worth

Someone says hourly rate, my hourly for software was 250 per hour 20 years ago, why? I do niche market high end stuff

Now I tell people, you dont' want to know my hourly rate, I don't work by the hour

I get results, I do a job and I get 5K to 10K for a few hours of work

Sure I can do the same job for a couple of grand IF I want

But, that's my rate when I'm with a lawyer or auto dealer or realtor and showing them my work

The other 'seo gurus' are usually not that good, so if you have a bunch of happy clients on PAGE ONE for major words in a market, you get a lot of clients off of results and businesses PAY to control page one

Some clients also buy page one, to get dominant control of page one in the sponsor sections local businesses often pay 1K to 7K PER MONTH NOW to take control of PAGE ONE SPONSOR SPACE

So if you're 'in the business' of internet marketing you don't talk about 'hourly rates for seo'

Just like you don't talk about paying per click for niche market keywords

You speak in BUDGETS

What's the BUDGET to do this

So that's what you should be asking the client

Build a portfolio of keyword dominance and then people know

YOU DO THE JOB AND THEY WANT RESULTS

Now once the job is done and say they start to drift a little, then you have a contract where for X amount of time you do a little updating to help them

But after X amount of time, you have the right to start billing them BY THE HOUR

I usually show a 500 per hour rate for that now

But once you get page one and it stays within the top two pages, your client should be happy

My contracts actually state, look, NO ONE CAN GUARANTEE PAGE ONE, but I get it a high percentage of time and if not page one then usually page two

So they're happy with that, since they know it costs 7K in some markets to be page one for sponsor ads for certain industries

Anyway, SEO is an 'art' and there's more to it than what's on the page, but if you really know how to grab PAGE ONE over and over for major business words that businesses NOW PAY THOUSANDS to get sponsor position in their LOCAL MARKETS, you don't do this for a low hourly rate

A business is relying on real SEO GURUS to become RELEVANT on the Net IN THEIR INDUSTRY

The same business buying full page ads on yellow pages and huge ads on local tv and cable are also paying huge dollars just for 'sponsor' position on google and yahoo

So if all their marketing is geared toward spending THOUSANDS PER MONTH, you see how silly talking about an hourly rate is?

You buy advertising IN BUDGETS, not by the cheap

So you may want to learn more about 'business' and what they do to get people in the door and then you will realize, IF YOU CAN GET PEOPLE IN THE DOOR FOR THEM, it's not an 'hourly rate', you need to be discussing 'budgets'

Many half way decent SEO guru's now take Internet Consulting positions with mid sized businesses to oversee their internet marketing

150K is the range per year

but that's a JOB

so a company that can't afford an IT marketing guru (which seo is) is trying to get 150K results for what?

100 bucks an hour for a few hours

hahaha

don't go cheap, if you can get PAGE ONE, it's worth a lot to lawyers, doctors, realtors, auto dealers, whatever

Every client is worth THOUSANDS to those businesses

Build a portfolio and don't be afraid to speak in BUDGETS or PROJECT BIDS and move away from 'hourly' rates

My 2 cents

SEO is the high end of the net, it's all about RESULTS, you get results you get THOUSANDS not pocket change per hour

I know you want the job and it may seem rational to charge a lower rate to increase your chance of getting the job.. To be completely honest, as a business owner which has paid for services such as SEO, web design, etc in the past, I would be LESS likely to use you if you had a low price. To me, a low price suggests to me one of two things:

1) You're new to the field and haven't yet established a reputation or large client base.

2) You don't feel that the services you're able to provide are worth more.

the best money i have made so far.
$1480.00 per hour
the worst about $100 per hour

However, the stress in the ever changing world of, well, search engines.
and someone, "a client" From the otherside of the world, yelling almost, wanting there moneys worth, emailing everytime the site moves a spot or even worse ,, not moving. your worth every cent if you sell seo services. IMO

I think it depends on the country, because SEO depends on demand as there is more demand in your country the income for per hours will be more..
I had searched it and i got there are some people who are earning 300 to 1000$ per hour...i dnt think so it is like this much will be someone got paid for offering service as SEO..
anyone please let me know about it...
thanks..

You should set your rate. Build your credibility, 75$/h is very good to start. And work your way up to 200$/h!+

I don't run a SEO company or offer SEO services, but I have done a SEO job for a company from USA in March. A friend of mine recommended me to them and they emailed me. I told them what needs to be done to improve their rankings, and let them know that I charge $300 per hour. They paid in advance and I did the job. Two months have passed, and their rankings have improved significantly (to be exact, they are now #2 on Google for their main keyword, although the goal set by them was to get them on the first page in the first phase).

Anyway, I think that you should ask yourself how much does your time and your knowledge cost? If you work hard for an hour, is it worth doing it for $50? $100? $1000? It's up to you. I guess that there are different types of buyers -- some are very easy to work with, some aren't (count in the stress, etc).

wow I never think of SEO jobs getting that pay for a per hour basis...