How much to pay for SEO?

It depends on what the niche is and what keywords you're trying to rank for. You can expect to pay anywhere from $250-2500/mo, depending on difficulty of the keyword, quality of the agency, and time sensitivity of the project.

How reliable is Elance in this case? Better alternatives?

It depends on keywords go for Freelancer it is best plus cheap.

If you are looking for some quality work I guess you should not ask about how much but when to start. Top SEO companies charge about $2000 to $5000 for an ongoing campaign. Try and search for reviews if you are looking for a reliable company. There are so many good companies but you need to digg lit bit.

I am sure you will find some companies that will work for less though.
As you said some people or SEOs just aren't serious when its about their work. They are happy to get their first CECs and after 2-3 months they stop working like they are from the start.

Start looking about a company that is 24/7 online - communication, transparency is very important in this work.

A good plan should start with a good On Page strategy (rich snippets, low attention ratio, high CTA (Call-to-Action), good forms, headlines with good contexts, quality and flawless articles with a good inside architecture) + Social media channels + Off Page ( local reviews ).

A very important aspect. If your business is local, get your SEO company to do some really good digg on real reviews that will help a lot Google Authorship.

If you need more SEO Coaching I can help.

Sincerely,
Matt

Prices will vary wildly. All I'll say is check the quality of their previous work; backlinks, on-page and all the rest of it. Don't just check the rankings and accept everything they say because the site could be on the verge of getting a penalty.

How long is a piece of string? That's how much SEO can cost... No exact figure, it's different for everyone.

Richard

I've used some services in the past just to have a different approach on another site for a similar niche but they never really worked out. I paid $700 a month for one and $1500 a month for another. Both ended up being crap. I think I got two bad ones out of the bunch though as I'm sure there are good services out there.

With that being said, you should take the time and learn it yourself first as you can spend a lot of money and not have a good feel of what they are doing.

Most reputed company in SEO industry will charge $1,000 or more for a SEO campaign to start. At the same time there are companies where you will find SEO package at $100 also. And this big gap is because of the result they provide. Before choosing a SEO company, it is better that you ask some questions and clear your doubts before hiring any company.
It may also happen that the company which is offering SEO at $100 is better than other one.

The pricing of SEO is definitely going to vary based on lots of factors such as the provider, type of SEO, niche competition, the earning capacity of the site among others.

However, it's not weird to pay $10,000 for SEO, a good number of people do it especially after the Google clampdown.

Yep. I used your $50 to pay for Monday mornings coffee, Thanks. With that generousity you're now guaranteed someone will answer the phone when you call.

Very rare to find a viable client who declares themselves, "running an Affiliate website". Your sites quality score is already @-250 in my mind already without even seeing it. Hard to think any "real" SEO company bothering with that kind of general garbage.