18 replies to this topic

[Jill]

I don't know any SEOs that will work with performance contracts. The only way to do it would be if you had total control of the site and basically build them a site on your own servers. And that has its own implications.

[FP Guy]

I came across a potential client that had a SEO company do the seo on the site without changing the content and charged $1000 for 12 keywords. At the time there was no way I could charge only $1000 for optimizing 12 keywords. And she claimed they were doing it without changing her content on her pages!

After looking into it further I noticed that no changes were made to the text of the page, but instead they spammed it to the max for ONE keyword by making the alt tag appear over sixty times for that ONE keyword. The showed up #1 in some obscure search engine, then they proceeded to change that keyword every month. I felt sorry for here because she was burned twice by black hat seo 'companies'.

They didn't even have 60 graphics to spam out so they probably put 1x1 pixel gif's on the page.

If your customer wants it done there way, you could refer them to a black hat seo company that will hurt in the long run.

[Raphael]

It strikes me that in the highly changing and mostly uncertain world of SEO, getting paid for performance is like expecting a single person in a baseball team to win the series for the team. Yeah, you do what you can, but there's always factors that you can't anticipate or control.. And you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men......

[Michael Martinez]

It strikes me that in the highly changing and mostly uncertain world of SEO, getting paid for performance is like expecting a single person in a baseball team to win the series for the team.

I liken it to expecting everyone to be Tiger Woods AND to win every golf tournament.