How Do You Charge For Google Places?

It depends on several things.

Do they just want it claimed and optimized or do they want it claimed, optimized and driven to the top?

Simply claiming it is one of the less expensive offers I make to get a foot in the door. Beyond that I charge based on the difficulty of the niche and the value of a new customer to the business.

I suggest charging a one time set up or Optimization Fee then a monthly recurring to keep their rankings up. Definitely charge the recurring fee because there is a good likelihood that if they have any questions or their ranking slips they will be calling you anyways.

Plus, once you build up a solid client base the monthly residuals well be real nice.

Sean

Thanks for your response. Would you guys like to give a rough estimate of your charges for just claiming a listing? And what does claiming a listing involve - any images, video or citation work? Or just putting basic information in and claiming it from google?

When you charge recurring fee, do you do anything beyond the initial optimization (citations, images, videos, etc.) on a monthly basis? If so, what do you do regularly? And how much roughly do you charge?

Thanks.

Great questions.

I would like to know the answer to those questions as well.

As you have to charge something that makes sense for the business, you have be careful to work for businesses that can afford to pay you what you're worth. Doing everything for a few dollars / hour may get you clients, but it doesn't make sense for you financially.

That being said...

I've charged varying amounts.

Full setup, I've charged $1,000. This included 10 images, 5 videos, claiming the page, creating 100 citations, altering their main website for on-page SEO, writing 5 articles targeted to their 5 categories, creating custom YouTube, Google Plus and Panoramio accounts. And I topped it all off with some initial social bookmarking of their site, each article and each video.

Now that's a HEAP of work. It would take me several days of solid work to get all of that done. Especially if their website wasn't easy to alter (non-WordPress). So I definitely charged accordingly.

After that, I quoted the client $500 / month for 3 months of SEO to the listing. After that, if they're on page 1, we could switch to a $200 / month retainer to maintain everything. This included creating 1 article + video + image per month + 10-20 new citations. I would then backlink that new article, the website and other articles again with some social bookmarks and article marketing.

I actually ended up getting $3,000 total for those 3 months of work.

I usually charge a large amount for SEO until they're on page 1, I then cut that fee by at least 50%. I justify that method by explaining that I COULD charge less right from the get-go, but then it would take that much longer for them to get page 1, and the opportunity cost of losing those clients is far more than the example $300 / month for 3 months ($900). Clients seem to appreciate that right away.

Really... for $200, I'm not going to work that many hours for them, so they will rank more slowly, and they will lose out on customers who could have a lifetime value MANY times that of my paltry $300 premium.

Those are my fees because I believe I'm worth at least $50 / hour to a client. The work takes up about $35 / hour and I charge more because I have to deal with client questions, meetings and chasing the payment I've earned. Offline clients can be a pain in the butt, so I demand top dollar or I don't work for them.

Another note on that... if you're in a position where you don't need their business to survive, have that attitude. Do not lower yourself just to get the business and do not offer them a "deal." Lawyers don't offer deals. Accountants that know their stuff don't offer deals. Have a backbone and walk away if they don't like your fees. Suggest that there are hundreds of out of work college students that would probably love to take a crack at doing their online marketing and if things don't work out, they can call you then.

Things got a whole lot easier once I did nail down that number, you're right.

If you need to ask 1/2 that to get a client... make sure you can do the work in 1/2 the time

Right there with you. I explained this to a client clearly (I thought) and my "lack of progress" after the first week was already frustrating the client.

It's best to do the citations first. While they're being done, I work on my images and videos, etc. I'm usually ready to claim the listing after 1-2 weeks. Never more than that.

I think some clients will always be a pain, no matter what you say or put in writing. Comes with the territory, I guess.

I charge a $750 upfront fee to claim and optimize the Google Places listing. Every month thereafter, I charge $500 for the duration of a six month contract.

After six months, the client can determine whether they want to continue using my services or leave. IF a client really wants out of the contract, they can go... only had that happen once though.

I find this pricing structure pays me what I feel I'm worth. In addition, the client is having to put some 'skin in the game' upfront with the higher payment. The six month contract is due to it taking 8-12 weeks to get the results desired... keeping an extra 12-16 weeks allows them to enjoy the fruit of my labors and their investment. Meanwhile, it lets them know that this is a long-term venture.

I don't pick up a TON of clients as I'm higher priced than some of my competitors. However, I have very loyal clients with those who choose to use me.

We only do it as part of larger packages. If the client isn't willing to really spend for marketing, we don't really bother.

Even if that were true, placing high in 7-pack for a a decent niche keywords is worth $xxx-$x,xxx a month. So just pay and get over it. Whether that's for you or for your clients.

This is a great business and you should realize that each new client you get for your client has value.

Let's look at a family doctor, a new patient could bring in $1,000 plus because they most likely will return and many times bring other patients to this doctor for doing a good job.

Now this about the google places listing, family doctor city state. Buy looking at the local search volume, you can see how many people are looking for a doctor.

Ok, lets say you see 300 people looking for a doctor, now let's say you can win a first page spot for this doctor. Well by doing this that doctor will get 20 to 30% of those calls. This means that your doctor will get 60 to 90 calls per month... this is real, very real! Now about 60% of those calls will convert to clients.

So now the doctor have 36 to 54 possible new clients a month coming in if he is smart enough to work with you.

Sooooooo, you would would be able to increase his revenue buy $36,000 to $54,000 a month.

How much is that worth? I simply say about 10% of the low end or $3,000 per month.

My strategy is $1,000 now to get started then $3,000 from that on, you should get an idea of what a client's clients are worth and do the math. Hope these guidelines help.

I also set things up so that if and when a client stops working with me, I can take away my work because this is my business and they don't keep anything they don't pay for.

Vududawg,

I do think $3k is a bit too high and not many will take that offer. They will find someone else to do it for cheaper. But the idea and formula to gauge the worth is there and that's the direction I'm moving to.

I'm more interested in your last sentence where you say that you will take away your work if they leave you. How can you do that for Google Places? I'm interested to know.

Hey Jon, I understand you position on what to charge, but you should know that the example I gave is for doctors and if well prospected its not to much to ask for.

I have seen how much these guys make because I've worked for one. By me showing them the numbers and positioning myself as a marketing agent, all they are doing is paying me 15 bucks an hour for something they can't do.

I also let them know I'm talking to thier competition and I will only work with one of them, I am getting them money so I want mine.... Do not be afraid to make them pay.

Jon this is an evergreen business and I'm aware of over 1600 industries If you really are looking to move in the same direction as I am, then welcome to the money.

Now Jon understand that you don't do google places but market for business and your service is leased, so if they stop paying, than you stop and take back your support... How (with out telling my formula) Hmmm.... only give them there google places account, everything else is yours hint hint.

vududawg,

I'm not sure I totally understand your last paragraph. Let's leave out SEO for a moment, but purely google places. Optimizing it depends on citations, reviews, photos, videos mainly. And perhaps backlinking related to the above (photos, videos). When you say everthing else is yours besides the account, I'm assuming you mean you keep hold of the 4 above. Are you saying that? Of course all this is possible if you want to do so - although for citations it's a bit hard coz it's all spread out. Is this what you mean?

I'm wondering how ethical that is? Any thoughts?

iInvent, monthly maintenance would include additional citations and reviews mainly. And also other SEO stuff I guess related to Google Places or even their website.

Jon, you know you got this method of valuation in my training, right? It's something I've put out on the forum from time to time anyway.

It's worth...

How many new customers, conservatively, your client thinks they'll get a month

times

How much they bill a customer, on average

times

12

=

The total conservative revenue from your solution over the next year

X

Some percentage...5%? 10%? 20%? what do you think you're worth?


So if your restaurant client says they believe they'll get 200 new guests a month (only 6 or 7 a day, not too many), and you're comfy with that number,

and

they tell you the guest check average is $50 with appy, food, booze & dessert...

Your solution is worth $10,000 a month in new revenue for them.

Over a year (X12) that's $120,000 !!

5% of that alone is $6,000.

I think most of y'all have been undercharging...


Remember Fight Club?

First rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.

Well first rule of Sales Club is you don't talk about your solution. Not until waaay late in the process. Unless, of course, you wanna be cubby-holed, treated as a commodity, and paid accordingly. Take yer pick.

Thanks for the reminder Jason

Marcinao, I've settled with a main package (which consists of about 2 months work of setting up everything) then monthly. I don't think I'll do the setting up for free. I guess you could do that but then if they don't follow up, then it's wasting your time. Also, if you were to do the basic set up for free, then you probably won't want to do too much optimization on the first set up and keep it as simple as possible because they may not go monthly. But then if you do this, there may not be a whole lot of ranking changes and that may not induce them to want to sign up.

For the second question, I include in my GP basic package a bit of SEO because I believe people are saying that GP rankings is more and more dependent on SEO.

I never guarantee anything (this is put in the contract), but I do say that I'm quite confident of getting them to the first page - of course after doing an evaluation of the competition. My structure is a basic set up fee. Then subsequent months at a certain rate. The more months they pay in advance, the cheaper the subsequent monthly rate. But I give them the opportunity to not pay anything upfront beyond the basic set up rate. But their monthly would b a bit more expensive then.