For example, if they are a local shoe store in a small town, getting them to the 1st page on Google for “Lake Somewhere shoe store” will not hold much value for them. Let’s say you estimate that it brings them 100 visitor a month with a conversion rate of 10%: so 10 customers bought shoes from their sole Google listing. Let’s further estimate a markup on their shoes of 50% and the average pair retails for $100. That means they made $50 per sale on 10 people so that’s is $500. You just made them $500 base profit (obviously this is a very rough estimate and example) on $1000 in sales. Now figure out how much that $500 in sales is worth to them in straight profit and potential return sales. I would guess 25%. So I would value my services to this Lake Somewhere Shoe Store at $125.

The reverse can be implied for a major industry and several listings. Lets use the example of a New York City Real Estate agency. You must estimate how many visitors your work will bring them. Lets say 10000. In that time span, they close 50 deals. Each deal pays the agency 10% of the total sale: the average sale being $500,000. So the agency just made $50,000 per deal and a total of $2.5M in profit on 50 deals from your efforts. Say we apply that same 25% value to that $2.5M in profits. That means your efforts were worth $625,000.

Clearly you wont be able to get all of the percentages but you can estimate and try to figure out industry standards. Further, you can play with that 25% value any way you like. There is no definitive way of doing this with clear cut numbers. In this case, you must really go with your gut. Many times, I have found that what you tell them your efforts are worth will be taken as gospel. Just don’t exaggerate. Be straightforward with what you think its worth.

In addition, you can throw in an extra 10% on all final profits for return customers, brand awareness, site success after your contract is up, etc. There is a lot of room to play here and be creative.

Feel free to email me with questions.

I think that a combination of flat fees and straight time will serve me well for the time being; I’m not sure how I could come to a price based on value to the client. How do I determine what that could be?

The rewards from their testimonials help me build higher prices that I think I am worth.

I tend to lower the price for low mental maintenance businesses and have a hidden forum for them – like my own little SEO advice center.

If I get an obvious PITA client to be out come the contracts and higher prices.

Good luck to you

David

I would like to highlight some points on which you can potentially price your services.

1. Straight time: figure out how much you want to make for the time frame and charge that. Many times, value is in perception and not in the skills involved experience or even in the results.

2. What its worth to the client: regardless of how difficult or time consuming the task is, if you feel it is of great value and can potentially have great results, make sure you get compensated for your knowledge and insight. If all it takes is a simple redirect from the non-www canonical version to the www version, but it will have great effect on rankings and ultimately revenues and profits, you deserve to be compensated for bringing that issue to light with what is almost a % of the final outcome.

3. Perceived value: do not cut yourself short. Ask yourself, where would they be without you? Without your help, would they have had the success they do now? Who else can offer your level of advice and service? No one!

4. Flat fees: Figure out each aspect of your service and then take into account how long each will take. Decision makers love clear cut services and pricing. This is a great way to continue your relationship and potentially get more work from that client as they will now have a price menu to look through and compare historic results to fees.

5. Results based compensation: figure out some data points and ask for compensation when certain levels are met. Maybe you can get paid when a page hits the 1st page on Google–maybe the top 5 for a high volume keyword? Also, look into PageRank (ugh!), link quantity (yuck!), link quality (yay!), unique visitors per day/month, conversion rate, and ROI.

I hope that helps.

Gennady
SendTraffic.com SEO Specialist