If you have never hired an SEO consultant before, trying to figure out how search engine optimization pricing is structured and itemized can be daunting. Many consultants do not openly publish their SEO pricing because they want to make contact with a client first.
Some charge by the hour, but many (like us) will develop an estimate based on a project fee for specific deliverables.
How to Evaluate Search Engine Optimization Pricing
The first thing to know is that there is no such thing as a cookie-cutter SEO project. Every site has different issues and opportunities and every business has different SEO goals. A little communication upfront with a consultant is usually necessary, just to give them some sense of what your objective is so they can begin to work on pricing the SEO work. You should expect that any pricing estimates you get are designed with your particular site’s needs in mind.
Be wary of any SEO pre-priced “package deals” if it is not absolutely clear what volume of work is included with the package. Some disreputable search engine consultants say things like “we’ll guarantee you’ll be ranked #1 in Google”, but they don’t tell you what keyword term you will rank for, making the “guarantee” somewhat pointless. They may mean that they can get you ranked only for the name of your company, which a) you already may be ranking for, and b) would not take very much SEO work at all, if your company name is unique. Charging someone hundreds or thousands of dollars for this type of “guarantee” is a rip-off scheme.
Break it into Pieces
If you request it, a reputable SEO consultant should be willing to give you itemized pricing for each stage of a proper search engine optimization strategy process. 
The fact is that there is a lot of SEO you can do within your own company, and you may decide that you need a consultant only for a research piece or some general strategy work to get you started.
Here are some of the typical “components” that might be included in SEO work:
- Keyword Research and Recommendations: This should include a wealth of statistics on the keywords so you can understand why certain words and phrases are recommended and others are not.
- Site “Health Check”: A report including a check of common site issues, both technical and not, that may get in the way of search engine optimization. Should include a list of things you can hand right over to your site developer to fix.
- Site Architecture Recommendations: Folowing a site review, this should include recommendations on how to optimize, what pages or links to add or subtract, how to optimize navigation options, and how to use keywords in meta tags and site content for best results.
- Competitive Analysis: An evaluation of sites which are ranking for the terms you would like to rank for, with a “reverse engineering” of their SEO strategy so that you can understand the volume of work it might take to outrank them.
- Content Suggestions: How to employ appropriate content and keywords in your site for maximum SEO benefit
- Link Acquisition Suggestions: A list of sites to make requests for links, and additional strategies for a link building effort over the long term.
For more about the consulting process for search engine optimization, take a look at this article which goes through more specifics: HOW SEO WORKS.
Contact us here to find out more about our search engine optimization pricing, or request a quote. You can also send an email to: jim@boomient.com
We will look at your site for free and give you some pointers you can implement right away, and then provide a specific pricing estimate for our search engine optimization services.
