Opinions on this amount of work

I cannot really compare pricing as I am in a third world country where people expect to and can only pay way less than they do in the US.

But I would like to give you some things to consider.

Will $5000 a month be worth it to your client, could you honestly offer him a positive return on investment with very minimal risk.

What are your costs? How much is your base line and how much profit is reasonable for you.

What are the repercussions of asking too much and possibly not only losing this client but all the referrals that could come form this one client.


My personal opinion at first was $5000 was a big number, but again this is coming from a third world perspective.

I hope this helps, and good luck.

Regards.

Cathy

I charge 20% of the entire PPC budget. Budget has to be over $1k/month.

We can't give you an answer. If you don't know the price point you should be at, you didn't properly do your homework.

Completely depends upon their customer ltv, how many new clients can you conservatively estimate you would send them, etc. Annual sales?

Basically, you think he wants a lot for a little? Expect him to be a nightmare client, if so.

I recent client we acquired we charged $10k for his website redesign and then $5k a month to manage is marketing, which includes SEO/PPC and offline marketing. Any additional costs, like actual PPC costs, CPM costs, etc... he pays for.

To comment on your specific situation, with SEO, it ALWAYS depends on the competitiveness of the keywords you're trying to rank for. You have to make sure you can do what you're going to say you can do in the timeframe. He also has to remember that page 1 (#1-3) in Google boosts up revenues tremendously... and rankings will typically stick. How much is it worth to him?

$5k a month seems a bit low for 3 websites you're doing SEO for... but that's also with me not knowing what the websites are about. Do your keyword research, see how much people are paying per click on his main keywords for each website and price each site accordingly on a site-by-site pricing. That gives him the option to choose which sites are most important and go from there.

One point I'd suggest with E-commerce sites: Lots of people get in the trap of I'll optimize your e-commerce website and come to find out it's a huge mess because there are 100's of keywords/pages/products. What I typically do is this: Come up with a certain amount for, let's say, 3 keywords. You want to ask the business owner which products/keywords bring in the MOST PROFITABLE. You'll start with those, that way, when you get those ranked, he'll be making the most money and start to see great ROI - then you just say, each month we'll focus on another 3-4 keywords, until you have the whole site optimized.

It's a great way to keep the client with you, as well as making sure you do what you're saying you're going to do without over-extending or over-promising - which happens WAY TOO MUCH with almost every SEO company I've talked to.

Not really looking for an answer per say. I am just asking for general opinions on how others would charge for that amount of work, I don't want to be charging too low, or too high, even tho I believe $5k per month is reasonable for that amount of work, other people might think that is too low or too high. I asked him about what his average client was worth and he had no idea, he also has no idea about current traffic and conversions for sites which I will have to setup.

I'm not sure what you are looking for. Cathy gave you all the advice you need. No one can put a number on this because you haven't provided enough details.

Beggers can't be choosers - you're going to be screwed.

Figure your bare minimum you need to get by a month $ wise.

Then add your mark up to it.

Simple, if they reject your offer it'd be a **** deal for you that you'd want out of quick smart resulting in you getting a bad reputation and likely reducing chances of clients in the future.

Create a proposal for what you're willing to do it for plus 25%. So... if you are willing to work your tale off for $5k a month or whatever it may be, then charge at least $6250.

Don't let him think that times are tough for you... if that's the case, then why would he need your services?

If he balks at $6250/mo, then offer to reduce the price to $5k/mo if he can pay quarterly. Tell him that it takes at least 90 days to see solid progress (growth) and even though you will have results starting within a few days, you can save time and money by only having to worry about billing on a quarterly basis.

If he balks at the $5k.. then start taking away from what you are doing. Explain that you can not do as much work in a month.. the results will take longer to accomplish, but he'll get down to a budget that he can afford. This way you're not working your tale off and then resenting the job/client/your life/etc.

Do everything you can to keep yourself from just creating another job. You want to earn enough money to pay people to do the job correctly, cover any unexpected losses (they will come up!) and still have enough money to pay yourself as you build your business (create new leads, networks, opportunities etc.)

The last thing you want to do is to "work twice as hard for half as much" .... I can tell you that from personal experience!

So.. at the end of the day. If he can only afford $1k a month. Then do $1k worth of work (factoring in your expenses as described above).

Just keep the expectations as reasonable as possible (on both ends) and you'll have a fun and profitable business.