10 replies to this topic

[lister]

Hi, I contacted an SEO agency in the UK for a quote and they came back to me saying £12000!

My goodness.

They said that they would add content, submit to directories, submit to blogs, and all the usual run-of-the-mill stuff. All that for £12000 - seems ridicolous or do they really have the skills that merit that money - do they know things that we dont, can they pay people off?

I am in the wrong business. SEO firms must be making a lot of money......

[2Clean]

Well if you came to me you wouldn't see change from 15K, sounds like you got a deal.

What people don't seem to have fathomed is the change in SEO over the years, this is not finger pointing at you so don't get me wrong, but for example the nature of search has changed. If you want exposure the resource requirement is much heavier on agencies than say 10 years ago when a doorway, and an paid inclusion would bring you up on the first page.

[Jill]

They said that they would add content, submit to directories, submit to blogs, and all the usual run-of-the-mill stuff.

Were they going to work on the actual pages of your site or just write articles or posts? If it's the latter and you only need link building that's fine, but most sites need a lot of fixing of their on-page stuff.

Did they even mention keyword research?

The price itself isn't necessarily an issue, it just depends on how much additional targeted traffic you will see from it.

[CDGUK]

over what period of time is that? it really depends on what they are doing and how you would benefit from it? if it increases your sales and gives you a good ROI then its worth it. You need a detailed outline of what is involved

[mcanerin]

Honestly, that's a low-end quote for most professional SEO's.

In my case, I offer 2 services - totally free, by contributing to forums like this, and fees ranging from 20-200K, depending on the client and project.

I agree that if you are a struggling small business, anything more than a few hundred dollars can seem like a lot. In that case, I'd recommend DIY using forums like this. It's a great learning experience.

On the other hand, I have clients that make almost 500K per month due entirely to SEO, so to them a few K per month is not only reasonable, it's a steal.

What you need to ask yourself is what SEO worth to you, in real cash. If it's not much, then don't spend much on SEO. But spending 10-25% of your income on the advertising to get that income in the first place is fairly normal in any industry.

One thing that does concern me about your post is the floccinaucinihilipilification of SEO. I'm not sure if that's what you meant to say, but it came across that way to me.

The same could be said about almost any professional service. Plumbing? Bah, how hard is it to unplug a toilet? Lawyer? Just filling in paperwork. Doctor? Most of their recommendations boil down to "lose weight and start taking care of yourself. You can get that advice free anywhere!

See what I mean? When I was running a small business, I actually had people who felt that they should not have to pay any more for a product than I did, and insisted on getting a "wholesale" price. Not only does that defeat the purpose of even going into business, but it's rather demeaning and insulting to have your chosen profession so casually judged as worthless.

Ian

[Scottie]

I would say it depends what you need and how much you stand to gain from it.

Good SEO for a profitable or potentially profitable business is well worth the cost.

Overpaying for SEO for what amounts to a hobby site won't make it profitable.

I used to turn down prospective clients who expected SEO to be the answer to their business problems... SEO is an important part of an online business but it's just part of the overall picture.

To answer your question more directly... that's not a ridiculous price to pay for an established business.

[qwerty]

To me, it all depends on what you expect the SEO to do for you. I've had a number of clients who had me work on just a few pages, and since I charge by the hour, my services didn't end up costing them very much at all. The idea was they'd use those pages as examples and work on the rest of the site themselves. Some of them actually do that, others come back to me and have me do more of the work for them, and others lose their momentum and end up with a site with just a few optimized pages (which frankly doesn't do them much good at all).

[OldWelshGuy]

What did they quote for?

That is the question really. if you asked them to get you to #1 for mortgage, and they quoted accordingly, then it is cheap.

Did you call them up, or was it a full RFP in writing?

[BeTheBest]

Don't want to stick my 2 cents in here and upset anyone, but I never seemed to have too much problem with SEO. I have to admit I have read this forum a lot (and other information too). Sooner or later you begin to see who's telling the truth. But following a lot of the basics is a great start. I think most would tell you that there's no real 'tricks'. Well, at least nobody has shared them with me.

It also depends on the industry and what your competitor is doing. If you're trying to sell computers on line, I wouldn't even try. I don't have enough free time for that effort. But if you're in an industry that is less competitive, you may be pleasantly surprised at what you can achieve.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[Malok]

It also depends on the industry and what your competitor is doing.

This is the truth. It all depends on the competitiveness of the niche in which you are trying to compete.

But, in general you can expect the costs to be high - much higher than most "normal" persons that aren't involved in it would believe to be reasonable.

[JVRudnick]

Up here in Canada, I'd guess that this 12k pounds would translate into about $24k...or about say $2k monthly. We too like others here, offer plans in that pricing range too...tho our canuck buck is somewhat still less than 1-to-1 with the US dollar.

Depends on what they were offering at that pricing, but for us, that's a full package of on/off page SEO for your site, including weekly serp reports with your own logins to our secure reporting site too...

:-)

jim