Pricing can be one of the most difficult aspects of running a business, and this is true whether you are just starting out in the SEO services sector or have been doing so for many years. In particular, when the services include doing various tasks in order to fulfill the requirements of the client.
You have arrived at the right location if you are interested in learning how much to charge for search engine optimization services. In this post, we’ll assist you in defining your pricing strategy so that you can better plan ahead.
The first thing you need to do is choose which type of pricing structure will work best for your company.
Pricing Models
When it comes to the cost, there are various different versions to take into consideration. Take into consideration that not every model will necessarily align with the best practices of your firm. Before we get into the way that we advocate for setting prices, let’s first investigate these in greater depth.
- Hourly: You submit an invoice for the amount of money owed based on the number of hours performed. Although this is an easy-to-understand concept, it does not produce a cost that is predictable for the customer, which might make it challenging to market. You are consistently making estimates of the number of hours required for projects, which slows down the sales process and leads to inconsistent completion of projects.
- Rates are determined on a project-by-project basis, with you establishing prices for each of your service packages and producing a rate card that is exhaustively detailed. A rate card can be compared to an upscale version of an expense sheet that is shared with the client and lists each service provided in kind. Your cost based on individual projects is determined by the projected number of hours required for each project. Your project-based price is calculated by taking your hourly rate and multiplying it by the number of hours worked on the project.
- Monthly: You establish a monthly retainer price for your services, and a client pays this predetermined sum on a monthly basis. The monthly retainer that your client pays you can be related to the expected number of hours that you anticipate investing in the client’s SEO services each month.
- Value-Based: When you set the pricing of your services according to how much the customer values the service or how much they are willing to pay for it. This usually results in higher pricing being charged to clients in those sectors of the economy that stand to generate a large return on their investment in your services.
- Pricing Is Determined by the Number of Keywords You Want Optimized: The cost of your packages is determined by the total number of keywords that a client wants optimized. Although this is a common method for SEO services to be sold by many companies, we do not advise our clients to go this route because it is difficult for them to predict how many keywords they will end up optimizing for. Additionally, search engine optimization (SEO) is an all-encompassing practice that calls for investments to be made across an entire website and not just on a select few web pages.
- Pricing that is performance-based involves basing prices on results, such as the number of real sales, the number of leads generated, or improvements in traffic. Although we really like this pricing model because it connects your efforts directly to the results, it does make you vulnerable to a variety of other influences. Alterations in the market conditions, in whichever sector of the economy you are operating, are a prime illustration. Because of the increased risk associated with this pricing model, extensive due diligence must be performed throughout the sales process.
The Suggested Costing Structure For This Product
We suggest that you begin by pricing your SEO services on a project-by-project and monthly basis if this is your first time selling such services.
These are straightforward models that include merely predicting the amount of hours that you will put into providing each of the services that you offer and then multiplying that number by the rate that you charge per hour.
This is an excellent place to start with your pricing, as it safeguards the asset that you consider to be the most valuable: your time. Your initial rate can be determined depending on the projected amount of work you put in per hour. Then, you can make sure that your SEO services are lucrative by using time monitoring to compare your estimates to the actual results and by continually revising your pricing structure over time.
To gently bring it back to your attention, our packaging structure encompasses the projects listed below. Here is a guide on packaging SEO services that you can refer to if you would need more information about this framework before getting into the pricing.