What Should I Charge Local Graphix Design Biz 4 SEO?

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illmill

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Feb 20, 2009
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I've mostly just done my own affiliate marketing, just marketing products through my affiliate networks. Of course now people I know are finding out that I'm doing this and they want to know how to get their website more visible on the interwebs.

My dad's best friend from middle school owns a fairly successful graphics design business. They've had clients like PS3, designing some of their games, breweries, and corporations who needed promotional brochures or training books, etc. They actually do really nice work and this is a good guy to know for business purposes. If I do a good job on his site, then I'll definitely get more clients through him.

Anyway, what should I ask for as payment for doing SEO on his site. It's an entirely flash site, so I won't be able to do much as far as on-site SEO. Therefore, it'll mostly be getting backlinks, social network marketing, and I'll ask him about a budget for PPC, just to see if he wants to get into that. I'm thinking about asking for about 8-10% of the sales that come through the website, since I'm pretty sure he's not getting any sales from his site now. Should I do that, or should I ask for an hourly rate? If so, then how much should I ask for?

Thanks!
 


First find out how much the graphic design company is charging it's clients. Without that information you are just randomly throwing numbers out there.
 
You need a lead valuation... on average, how much is a new client worth to them.

Lifetime value? Be sure to explain that properly.

You need 30 days worth of hard data... find out for real what you can really generate for them.

At that point, you will be able to make an informed decision about choosing a performance based model or not.

It doesn't matter to them if you can get them #1 for go blow me search terms. It will in the beginning if you hype it and teach, but in 6 months all they will care about is how many people are paying their invoices.

So how the hell do you do that?

Get your feet wet for free if you want to really get in the game. Spend some cash and time with effort.

Go buy a design domain if you need to for ppc purposes. Get it ranked. PPC. G maps, Y local, you know the drill. Ifbyphone so you retain all control over the leads.

If the shit doesn't work out, no hard feelings. You now have practice and confidence, not mention a system already in place for the next graphics place down the street.
 
must have been a late night last night. ;)

definitely go with a flat rate for now. you shouldn't have to wait for the site to start making money to profit from your work.

it's good that you are thinking long term. however, often the beauty of freelance work is short term cash. it can help you fund other long term projects of your own.
 
Good advice here guys. I think I will ask for an hourly rate to start. I'll need a decent amount of data before I can figure out how much each visitor is worth to his business. After I analyze that I can ask for a pay per sale.

Any suggestions on a fair hourly SEO rate? Keep in mind this is a family friend who can hook me up with more clients later, so I don't wanna overcharge. The business is located near Sacramento, CA.
 
They owner of the design company should know how much a new client is worth to them. I've never been paid by the hour for doing SEO, so no suggestions there. If they're a family friend, and they will be able to refer more clients to you in the future, then charge a little less I suppose. It all really comes down to what you want to do.
 
You have to have some idea of what you are worth on an hourly basis. Keeping in mind that time spent optimizing someone elses site translates into time lost working on your own money making projects. Seeing that it's a family friend you obviously do not want to overcharge, but at the same time you have to compensate yourself for your time. I would flat rate for a family friend and throw in some freebies (make sure he knows you are being generous).

As far as asking for a rate, that is completely based on your hourly worth, I can no way determine that number for you because I do not know what you are currently making.

Also some words of advice, keep good records and track your time well. It's easy to say $30/hr for a project then bill for 5 hours when you actually have about 7.5 into it and look who just got shorted $75, catch my drift? I'm all for helping out friends but don't get yourself into a tight spot where you may be taken advantage of (unless GHB is involved, then that's fine).

Just my .02

MT
 
Plus your work & this site should be a business expense for his company, right? So it's not like what you charge will be 100% out of his pocket. So don't stress out too much.

Maybe call a few local seo/website designers would charge for the same work - present those researched prices to him, underbid by a bit, and (as another poster suggested) throw in some freebies the others didn't offer - preferable the type that sound good but require very little extra time.
 
Have you ever tried to SEO an all Flash site? Remember that unless you have an HTML equivalent Google is going to see this as a site devoid of any content. You need to a lot of backlinks to overcome that kind of handicap.

Just make sure you know what you're taking on first.
 
Just find out what the other local optimizers are charging for similar services. Just go in for a rate that is competitive. I mean to say... best service at cheapest price.
 
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