49 replies to this topic

[idrive]

So my question to all you experts is, how do you all go about evaluating and billing the work, and still make a living ?

Denyse - I sent you a message here so check your inbox

If you speak and write well in French there could be a lot of potential for you to do some work here in Canada ;-)

[mcanerin]

Idrive,

There are 2 ways to handle that kind of client (well, three - sometimes I tell them I can't work with them).

The first is to point out that this is actually 3 or 4 different websites as far as the search engines are concerned, and that traditionally I would charge for 3 or 4 sites - BUT since I will only have one customer to deal with and the sites are heavily related, I can save some time and costs because of overlap.

I tell them that it's company policy to never give discounts (since it's unfair to those who didn't get a discount, and we believe in fair and equal business practices), but it is also company policy to pass on savings to our customers. In this case, there is a savings due to overlap and I'd like to pass that on to them, if that's ok. How about $5500 instead of the full $8000? Would that be ok?

Everyone likes a deal. Small business owners are usually very agressive about it, for good reason (err, survival against the "big guys"). By wording your billing as a discount instead of an extra cost, you can often satisfy their need to get a good deal. Everyone feels they deserve a discount, so it's a lot harder to argue with you when you are the one suggesting that they deserve one, as well

The other way to do it is by charging based on a per keyword basis. For example, $100 per keyword or whatever. This eliminates the issues of different "sites" and reflects the amount of work necessary for wide-ranging sites compared to smaller one. It also melds fairly well with PPC campaigns.

Hope that helps,

Ian

Edited by mcanerin, 23 August 2003 - 12:58 PM.

[compar]

Recently I have decided to combine submission with maintenance.  Submission doesn't take all that long, but is a critical point in their campaign. 

Several people have mentioned submission as part of the SEO process. I'd like to explore that a bit further. As far as I'm concerned, unless you are tallking about paid submissions or submission to directories, there is no need to ever submit to the search engines.

Further to that directory and paid submissions should only have to be done once, so how do they constitute part of an ongoing maintenance plan?

Now if you are talking about administering a PPC or AdWord program that is something else, but I would not call that submission.

As to charging for the work; we do a proposal outlining the steps we plan to take and our fee is based on our best estimate of the time that will be involved. And we charge for this time at $75.00 per hour Canadian.

[idrive]

Several people have mentioned submission as part of the SEO process. I'd like to explore that a bit further. As far as I'm concerned, unless you are tallking about paid submissions or submission to directories, there is no need to ever submit to the search engines.

Well as much as everything you read says that the search engines will come crawling, several search engines have submit url pages - Google, AltaVista and All The Web being the three most popular. I have been submitting to Google for over a year (just once per site and only the home page or site map) and immediately Googlebot comes acrawlin' and indexes the site.

For a new client I have to determine which pages are not currently in a search engine and submit from there. Absolutely it does not take long, but is of significant benefit to a client, therefore is worth money. It takes a little longer to get another website to link to yours and for that website to be spidered then for yours to be spidered, etc. Direct submit when possible is much faster IMO And it does not violate any terms of use.

I sometimes blur the language between submission and looking for links. I will submit my client url to an industry directory if I come across one during the maintenance period that I was not aware of or did not find during the optimization period.

[compar]

For a new client I have to determine which pages are not currently in a search engine and submit from there.  Absolutely it does not take long, but is of significant benefit to a client, therefore is worth money.  It takes a little longer to get another website to link to yours and for that website to be spidered then for yours to be spidered, etc.  Direct submit when possible is much faster IMO    And it does not violate any terms of use.

I'll look forward to Jill's comments on this discussion, but I can't agree with you -- at least as far as Google goes. Frankly I don't even bother with anything else these days.

For instance I think the question to ask, if there are pages of an existing site that are not index, is WHY? It is probably because the navigation on the site is poor or faulty. Rather than spending time submitting then I'd clear up all the internal links. If Google can find them Google will index them.

I have said this elsewhere in this forum, but our average time to get a new site indexed by Google is less than a week. Simultaneously with putting a new site up we put a link to it from our company website under the title of "sites we host" or "site we have designed". I'm sure Google crawls our site frequently because usually these links will be the first backlink reported for a new page. And the page shows up as quick or quicker than it would if submitted.

[Denyse]

Hi iDrive,

Yes I am francophone and would welcome any work you can send me.

I'll respond to your e-mail.

Denyse

[Jill]

Yep, I agree with Bob.

Submitting doesn't do anything. Paid-inclusion is fine for the engines that have this program, but again, it's not necessary.

Jill

[market seeker]

and oh by the way can you fix my computer too?"

there is good and bad in that sentence.

Recently I aquired a customer who wanted me to only set him up a hosting account and then configure his outlook express with his new email addresses.
An easy $200 so I thought.

As soon as I sat at his computor I new I had made a mistake. Everything I did recieved an error message. He would ask "oh, can you help me with this program too? it's doing this and this" Two hours later I was backing up his data getting ready to fdisk.

After spending the day reformating and replacing and setting up his programs I was on my way out the door when he asks. "What is it you do with search engines again?"

So he offered me $1000 to redo 5 pages for him and said if I do what I say I can, he will advertise me to an association of 500 business of which he sits on the board.

off topic
I showed him the first page this morning and he really likes it.
If you're interested here is the before http://vegasrvresort.com
and the after almost done. I know it needs to be proofed http://vegasrvresort.com/home.htm

[mcanerin]

Nice catch, Marketseeker!

If only they were all like that. It had all the earmarks of a bad day, but you are right, every once in a while there are gems in that thar pile 'o sand

I noticed you took them out of frames ,which is one of my personal grudges against the HTML community (along with the <blink> tag)

May I make 2 suggestions? A ) lots of times people print off pages, so often it's better to make the email mailto text the same as the email address, instead of the "for more information click here". Or keep that but put the email address down beside/under/near it. B ) the light blue border seems a bit painful on my eyes when moving across into the white - perhaps more contrast (darker blue or grey) would help.

Otherwise it looks like it's coming along well - I notice the SEO on "RV Parks" But it's fairly well written (at least it looks good to me!)

Ian

[DaveBeck]

the light blue border seems a bit painful on my eyes when moving across into the white - perhaps more contrast (darker blue or grey) would help.

Agree totally with this statement. You are trying to invite people who are traveling to come to your park, unfortunately that light blue detracts from the Clean, upbeat graphics on the rest of the page.

Color selection as such an important part of the design phase and there has been tons of research on how different colors have an affect on your emotions. Yellow is happy, blue and gray are supposed to build trust and a suitable for Business/Financial web site.... etc

Dave

[market seeker]

Color selection as such an important part of the design phase and there has been tons of research on how different colors have an affect on your emotions.  Yellow is happy, blue and gray are supposed to build trust and a suitable for Business/Financial web site.... etc

Dave

Thanks Dave and Ian

What would you suggest for a background. I showed it to the owner and he liked it but he might like something else to. I was looking at the color earlier and figured someone would say something. I like the color but somehow just doesn't fit.

Do you have any url's on those color studies.

[dragonlady7]

Know what, I printed this out and am going to keep it for reference.

I tell you, I just got the biggest boost in confidence this weekend in my confidence in my own status as a relative expert. My boyfriend's best friend, a law student, has been playing with websites and sending us his results. He knows no HTML and tried to use frames that didn't work to make his home page. He also failed to optimize his images. It was just a mess and a jumble.
Well, he just got a paying web design gig.
I asked him a couple questions (we were out having beers and hot wings in Buffalo) about how he planned on going about it, and he had no idea. About anything.

Hell, if he can get paid for this, I can get paid ten times as much!!
I'm thinking this is the incentive I need to get off my butt, finish the tutorials I was working on, and get going. I'll help him out for free, because he's a buddy and I needed the incentive to finish my materials. But man, if he can get a gig... I sure can!

It was also a bit of an eye-opener when he asked about SEO and I explained it cheerfully and rapidly and I noticed after about two minutes that they were staring at me... I know a lot about this stuff and I seem to care a whole lot more than is warranted! I am now officially "the Google dork" in my boyfriend's view.
So, look out world, I'm determined to make money at this.

[market seeker]

(we were out having beers and hot wings in Buffalo)

We have a place called Buffalo hot wings, I wonder if the wings from Buffalo are better.

Sometimes Dragon Lady it takes a little push to get going. I only wish the internet had been around when I was going to school to give me that little push.

I can see it now. A year from now one of your employees will be on this forum complaining about how hard you are on her.

[patrickh]

In regards to the way it gets done sometimes (IMO), it's not what you know, it's who you know. There are a lot of business' that would never seek out a designer to make a web page in a million years, but they will pay a employee or a friends kid if someone tells them "oh so and so knows how to make webpages".

[dragonlady7]

> I wonder if the wings from Buffalo are better

*sputter sputter* ff-- bah-- wh-- of COURSE they are!!!
They INVENTED them!!
Wings elsewhere just aren't the same.
Labor Day Weekend there's an International Chicken Wing Festival in Buffalo. I suggest you attend, to find out what you've been missing. ;D

Anyhow, yes, they're better there, and I think we debated this over in the pub already.

>but they will pay a employee or a friends kid
Yeah, I know...
I wrote a quick-n-dirty (and hopefully amusing) primer for my bf's buddy, and emailed it to him. Maybe it'll help him out, and hopefully I can expand it into something more usable. I think it'll be a good thing to have somewhere on my site just so people will link to it... It's a good start, anyway. A previous incarnation of the tutorial is what got me my current job as a tech writer, so there's some foreshadowing I hope...