You No Longer Need To Ask What To Charge For SEO Services
Between $76-$150 dollars per hour is the most charged amounts, and also project based pricing with retainers is popular as well.
Top 9 Takeaways
These are my personal takeaways from the data:
Sourced Story here:
SEO Pricing: 600+ Agencies Share Costs of Services & Pricing Models | SEOmoz
Top 9 Takeaways
These are my personal takeaways from the data:
- Hourly SEO Costs Vary Across Countries, but $76-$200/hour is Most Common
With the exception of India (the only developing region that was well-represented in our survey), hourly costs of $76-$200 (representing three responses) covered 50%+ of all firms. It was highest in Australia/New Zealand at 62%, followed by 58.1% in the US and 56% in Canada. Granted, this is a wide range, but it provides the answer to a frequently-asked question from those seeking SEO services for the first time.
_ - By-the-Project Pricing is Popular and Most Commonly $1,000-$7,500
70.1% of respondents said they offer project-based pricing (the most common pricing system selected in the survey). 43% of consultancies were represented by the four price ranges: $1,001-$1,500, $1,501-$2,500, $2501-$5,000 and $5,001-$7,500. Obviously, there's a wide variety of prices here, not surprising given that the types of projects offered may be quite diverse.
_ - Monthly Retainer Pricing Has the Widest Distribution
While both hourly and by-the-project rates do have a wide range of pricing, monthly retainers are certainly the most distributed of the price questions asked in our survey. The two most common were $251-$500/month (13.8%) and $2,501-$5,000/month (11.3%).
_ - The Death of Hands-On SEO Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
There's been plenty of hand-wringing over the past few years from both bloggers and SEO clients complaining that consulting firms don't provide enough "hands-on" help. Yet, in the survey, 88.5% of respondents said they offer "hands-on SEO changes to sites" and 79.1% provide "hands-on link building." Clearly, hands-on help is still very popular.
_ - Inbound/Organic > Pure SEO
Pure "SEO" consultants/agencies may be fading as broader "inbound marketing" services firms (offering SEO, social, content, conversion, analytics, etc) rise. The data showed 150 respondents (25%) saying they were primarily focused on SEO while a slightly greater number, 160 (26.7%), offered a broader range.
_ - Web Design/Development Agencies do a Lot of SEO
The third most popular type of respondent was a web design/development agency offering SEO services. In the UK, these types of firms were better represented than either SEO-focused providers or broader inbound/organic firms.
_ - Employees:Clients/Month Ratio is Between 1-2
The screenshot below takes advantage of SurveyMonkey's crosstab feature, which enabled me to look at the number of monthly active clients broken down by the quantity of employees a consulting firm has (you can only choose 5 responses at once, but the data's still revealing). - Vast Majority of Consultants Service Small-Medium Businesses
This may seem mathematically obvious, but it's not always top of mind at many of the marketing conferences I've attended, nor the blogosphere in general. A disproportionate amount of attention is often focused on top brands, but in the world of consulting, most firms service relatively small businesses. Even those who do serve larger businesses (perhaps aspirationally) often offer services to small and medium businesses. 41% of respondents offer consulting to small, hyperlocal businesses, e.g. the restaurant around the corner.
_ - Though Project-Based Pricing is Most Popular, the Majority of Consultancies Also Offer Monthly Retainers and Hourly Rates
Early in my SEO career, project-based pricing seemed relatively rare (though quantifying this is hard since no formal surveys I'm aware of collected this info). Today, it was the top response, offered by 70% of the participating firms. Monthly retainer pricing was next, offered by 60%, followed closely by hourly rates (55%).
Sourced Story here:
SEO Pricing: 600+ Agencies Share Costs of Services & Pricing Models | SEOmoz
Greg Schueler - Wordpress Fanatic... Living The Offline Marketing Dream...