When A Client Asks What The Monthly Fee Is For...

1. I can't say what I charge because I charge according to where I live (since most of my clients live there).

2. When I send the monthly fee, I attach a breakdown of what the tasks are but I don't put any price for each task. I will simply detail everything I will do for him but NEVER tell him the money I am going to pay for each task (usually, people who do this lie with the numbers).

1. Hosting
2: Maintenance (this has bigger meaning to them than it does you... but for you it just means "being on a cs retainer". I dont contact my own host more than once every 45-60 days on average and your average customer will be about the same as far as upkeep once their site is up... Most customers dont cost you 15 minutes per YEAR after that.
3: Periodic performance checks and analysis, including qurterly reports sent to you via email or snail mail.
4: Continual SEO monitoring to keep you optimized as keyword trends change and evolve constantly.
5: Customer service.

You can add some more obviously...

One may say that 50%n of that list could have been just simply stated as "customer service".

But thats not how you sell features and benefits...you take a general word like 'maintenance" and outline every thing that entails , break it down to five individual elements, or steps...and talk about them individually as if you are describing separate, isolated features and their respective benefits.

You can take a word like maintenance or CS...divide up all the elements and what each entails, and come up with 10 different points of interest that will build perceived value in the prospects mind and blow them away.

Even though in our world its nothing really extra that we would do to complete the site than normally.... simply "Designing it...", doesnt ring of a ton of perceived value beyond the norm, nor give you a unique selling proposition.

Thats where I feel like I can share lot... because business owners dont speak like we do.

You can say "url" and 50 percent of the clients you talk to wont know what it means and wont admit it , so while you are making your next point they are still stuck trying to decipher the last abbreviation.

If you dont get on their level (WIIIFM) explaining on 'their terms",, then throughout your pitch they will always be two steps behind you and at the end they wont reach the natural conclusion at the same time you did, and maybe not even arrive at it at all.

Break it down to all of "design's" individual components...things like "parking" -explain how some charge a separate fee for that alone, but "dont worry we take care of all that for you and its included in your price already, you dont have to think about it". (Customer says "Whew", relief and gratitude, you want every point you make to have that effecgt).

"Parking" isnt a word with alot of perceived value to you and I, but to an offline business owner it could be the most expensive aspect of the whole project for all he knows and the most involved aspect.

"Some companies charge $200 just for the parking phase alone...".

You just wracked up another $200 in PV and all you said was "parking".

How you explain these things builds value. So dont say "Oh thats for hosting and maintenance".... break it down for them and stretch the elements out as far as they can go without losing him. Build the value sky high.

Talk to them about "meta tags", as if "meta tagging" were its own separate paert of the process that could (on its own) have its own price... but its included.

Not "copy"-

Instead, "professionally written ad copy including attention grabbing headlines, and compelling calls to action.... and "professionally written keyword optimized content on each page".

So yeah, you can stretch out 20 different aspects/elements of what "maintenance" means/entails, and put a "usual price" or "competitors price" next to each bullet

Build the value sky hiogh and then relieve them and ingratiate them with your going the extra mile and throwing "ALL THAT" (standard stuff) in for free!!!

Can you believe it? We REALLY want to earn your business.

Is this deception?

On your end it is usually...because you are decieved about how much value each of these points truly has to a person who cant do it for themselves, and so because you/we are deceived, we miss alot of opprtunities to close because we fail to relay why they need us so badlly...

They need us because look at all thes 50 different aspects of building a website that there are...

Otherwise, they just think "maintainance?" (one point of interest/feature/benefit).

Im paying $500 for maintainance?

No. You are paying $500 for

A:
B:
C:
D:
E:

All the things we need to do to keep your site performing at its best.

Build value when someone asks you what "maintenance" means, its a "buying signall". You are inches away from a close if you answer right.

The standard answers are,

Monthly hosting
Monthly maint.
Security updates
and the list goes on but....

The #1 one reason for a monthly fee is...

Your top competitors are spending money each month to try and stay on top of the search engines, the moment they stop spending it will only be a matter of time before some one else with a budget overtakes them in the rankings.

"The $500 a month, for 5 keywords is sort of a "retainer fee", first and foremost , so I work exclusively with you in your area/for your keywords, it also includes monitoring of your keywords as well as maintenance. With out an on going maintenance, your rankings will slide, SEO is an on-going effort, and our goal is the Top 3 spots, ultimately #1. What is going to happen is this: once your rankings get noticed by other companies, they will ramp up their efforts, so I will be doing the same. It also is for my time, I make my self completely available to you up to a couple hours each month, and I leave you with my direct cell phone number, other wise, I charge $x-amount per hour, this is all included in the $500"

I usually say something to this effect, but those are normally the key points that I hit:

A. Maintenance
B. Exclusivity
C. My time on the phone



Ryan

Use this set up checklist as a guide and Im pretty sure you will be able to justify and explain ANY fee you are comfortable with.

I think I'm going to invent an extra day of the week and spend it reading the entire back catalog of John Durham threads & replies. You're a genius, sir. Thanks for sharing on WF.

True, for some very low competition niche you could do as you said for $50. But for most local services the top 2-3 sites have applied some level of seo to get them the top position.
Now, if another site hired someone to rank number one your $50 is history and by the time you realize what happened you will require a mo. retainer to catch up because another $50 won't cut it