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How Much Should SEO Cost (Local)
Hey guys, I’ve got a question.
I run a local print shop. I’m a bit tech savvy, so I set up my own WP site and did all the basic SEO stuff (keywords, some backlinks, whatever Yoast recommends..) myself. I rank first for “printing” in my town and never considered paying for SEO.
Earlier today I met another print shop owner from the town over. He has a nicer site than me, but it’s still a static WP site (10-15 pages, no blog). He doesn’t rank well on Google, yet pays $650 a month for “SEO services”. He explained to me that his SEO guy sends him a monthly report and “runs the social media”. I checked his social media and he hasn’t had a new post since March. The site looks nice, but there’s no blog or dynamic content on it so I can’t imagine what he’s paying for.
Is this a fair price for SEO? The guy is paying almost 8 grand a year for “SEO” on a static site, but he’s not showing up locally for keywords related to his business. Aside from paying the hosting fees, and updating plugins and SSL on the site every few months, what the hell could he be doing to justify that price tag?
We’re both sole proprietorships by the way, one employee plus family members. Very small companies, in towns of under 100,000 people.
Thanks!
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15 Replies
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Sounds like he is getting ripped off for sure. Unless he had paid SEO writers and social media managers and an adwords campaign. But he is not getting them since his content is static and social networking site are dormant.
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For $8000/yr I’d make 52 pages and get maybe 1k words written on each one. I’d make a page a week and teach him how to take over his own SEO and page creation.
If he wants to offer new services, he’d learn how by example and training, etc.
But he’s being taken advantage of – he likes the guy – but its clear if he’s not on page 1 yet or getting calls its not effective. Maybe its an old strategy, but its not working.
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He’s getting fucked in the ass
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if, and this is a big if, a SEO practitioner knows what they are doing they’d charge around 50 bucks an hour. the truth is most places can’t justify the services of a very skilled SEO specialist because it takes almost as much effort to do on page, technical optimizations and content strategy for a mom&pop shop as it takes to do it for say a larger site that earns affiliate commisions.
that being said, you could find some people living outside the US that are good and can offer great value. if you’re interested in contracting / outsorcing SEO services, hit me up.
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Tell him to tell the ‘SEO service’ to at least put some lipstick on before they fuck him
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Town of under 100k is the key there. Well that and no posts. For that is he completely dominating his market?
Any responsible SEO is using Yext for citations for local SEO so thats a fixed cost. There are a few more things they should be doing on top of that but 500 a month for something like that would be the ceiling. There are probably some working from home who could do it for less and still get it done. But be careful about anyone offering it super cheap. They are usually hoping you will think it’s so cheap that you will just forget about it. I have never seen someone offering local SEO for under say 300 that was worth a damn.
Most of the people on this sub will tell you that he is definitely getting ripped off hoping they will finally get a client. The key is. Are they ranking at the top and making them money? If so it’s working why stop!
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I’m a professional SEO Specialist.
SEO is not a one-time job just fix it & go, it is a process which we have to do it regularly till some months & years!! until we get good traffic Or else someone will hack your keywords and organic traffic!!
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In that price and the years he is paying I would rank him the only number 1 in your town and you wouldn’t think rank better than him.
I am ranking best Irvine printing companies for 3 years.
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Thank you
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Starting $200 for 10 keywords, $300 for 20 keywords and so on…
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The only thing a newbie SEO like myself can think is what a rip off!
He could get so much more for less.
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Guess it totally depends on what value you are getting out of it. If you’re getting back $6,000 then $650 wouldn’t be a bad investment right. You’d do that all day long.
With my local lead generation business I’ve got it setup so that I send customers leads, and then take a % of any deal they close (e.g. 10%)
What’s cool is that they only pay me when they make money, so they are always happy and never really have any issues paying.
Ironically they wish they could pay me more, because that would mean they are making more 🙂
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Back when I was doing freelance SEO, I can’t tell you how many times I was approached by an honest business owner who told me the SEO results he was currently paying for “weren’t working”, and could I help?. It was aggravating because when I went into the back office of the website, I could see his current “SEO” didn’t know what the hell he was doing, (or in any event, not doing enough to move the needle on the site). and they were just baffling the owners with bullshit.
.I would tell owners, as far as my own efforts were concerned, I had a simple equation. if I didn’t get them (and keep them) in the top 3 results, I would return their money. ( which I only had to do once) . I say “put up or shut up” The risk is on me, but I also I like the challenge
I would be fairly confident I could beat their competition before making that offer, of course.
I never charged monthly retainers, but would work hourly ($30 or $40 per hour) on a freelance basis for whatever changes/additions were necessary, and that worked out well, because I would get the results they wanted – for far less than a monthly retainer.
In a small town, (depending upon the niche of course), I find it is not too hard to get someone in the top 3, because when I would do a competitive analysis, I would often find the competitors website lacking in multiple areas (which I could exploit), and predictably outrank them.
Today I would tell business owners if they are approached by someone promising SEO work, get references from past clients, If possible, see case studies/explanations of how they got their clients higher in the SERPs, etc.
Vet-Vet-Vet. It’s your only defense against getting ripped off.
I now work full time from home for a business in my town, and they pay me well – as long as I keep the phone ringing…and that’s the name of the game.
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It depends on many factors, anyone wants to learn I can quickly teach and guide outrank with low budget
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That guy is wasting his money. Not because of how much he “should” he pay for SEO but he’s not really buying anything worthwhile. SEO is only worth it if you intend to use it in congruence with good communication with your customers. SEO should yield a return on investment in the form of attention (traffic), engagement (likes, comments, shares), and revenue (sales).
If you can’t hire an SEO who also does your communication/marketing, make sure they work together closely. Because a marketer without SEO won’t get the business discovered, and an SEO strategy without marketing/communication will get discovered but ignored.
Sounds to me like he is buying work performance. Search engine optimization is more than just pleasing an SEO auditing tool. It’s inbound marketing strategy–how do you position yourself in front of customers, what is/isn’t working with social media, are other industry players engaging with you?
I’m a pro SEO and I honestly think anyone is wasting time and money on SEO strategy that just promises reports. Reports inform your strategy, they don’t dictate it. Your customers and your industry and your mission as a brand should dictate your strategy.
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