Twitter, Mmm Delicious…

In case you haven’t noticed. You can now share your Delicious bookmarks on Twitter, right from the Delicious  dashboard!

This is a trend we’re seeing more and more of, social media integration. It is helpful to have important tools integrated together, and it sure make sharing information easier. Thanks Delicious folks!

Paying For SEO? Expect To Pay A Professional Rate.

I will solve your problem for you. And you will pay me. And you don’t have to use the solution. If you want options, go talk to other people. But I’ll solve the problem for you the best way I know how. And you can use it or not – that’s up to you. You are the client. But you pay me. – Steve Jobs

Any experienced SEO will tell you, pricing an SEO project is one of the more challenging aspects of our industry (it’s right up there with link building). What’s even more challenging is explaining to the client why you are charging them thousands of dollars for your services (that is, if you offer a service) – “$49.99 Per Month Top Page Ranking Guaranteed” companies tune out now!…still not sure how you pull that off?

The ROI & Pricing Conundrum

Rand Fiskin Art

The dilemma is a difficult one to solve. I certainly don’t have all the answers. But nonetheless, the majority would agree that SEO/SMM is not a cheap investment. Especially if you are paying a professional firm, and rightfully so. SEO prices are literally so scattered (which I think is part of the problem) that its hard to convince a client who’s seen the $49.99 per month fairy tale prices, that he’s getting more bang for his buck with your five digit offer. We’ve all experienced this. Are you out of your mind?!

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who offers IT Solutions to companies large and small. He’s been in the industry for years, and has more credibility and expertise in more areas than you can shake a stick at. As him and I were talking about the costing dilemma within both of our industries,  he put it like this:

When I run into those clients who’s jaw hits the floor because of the bottom line, I put it to them like this: So what you’re telling me is…I’m not worth it? My time is a worthless or free commodity to you? You called me to develop a custom strategy to solve your IT needs for now, and in the future, but yet the time it takes me to offer you this service is not worth it? Is that what you are saying to me?

So let’s break this down – if I’m a real estate agent and I make $3,000 on the sale of a home priced around $300,000, you say well that’s about 1% of the sale, no big deal. Right? Now let’s say that agent put a total of 40 hours of hard work into listing the house, showing the house, and doing all necessary paper work to get it sold. Plus they spent $600 in advertising costs. That leaves us a total of $2,400 profit margin. Let’s break that down further. The agent invested 40 hours, bottom line. That’s $60 an hour. Right? Pretty good doe. Was that agents time worth it if you are the one selling the house? I think so.

Here’s another example: I recently took my car in to Brakes Plus to get…you guess it, my brakes replaced. Now, my car was in their bay for about 45 min. and it cost me a little over $100.00 out the door. Lets break it down further…material costs were around $40.00 that leaves a balance of  $60.00. The company essentially made $60.00 dollars in one hour.   Now what if I had gone to the manager and said “sir, your time is not worth it. Even though your add said $99 for brakes, it only took you about 45 min to complete the job and, well that’s around $60 an hour. That’s too much. Not worth it. Could you give it to me for less. Guess what they would say to me?…Yeah, now you see the logic behind some clients.

I realize it’s not the greatest of comparisons, real estate agents, brake technicians, compared to SEOs, but the idea certainly has its validity.  Does it not? If you’ve never read NOSPEC! they have some great insights too.

Put In to More Tangible Terms

Depending on how the SEO firm prices their project, breaking it out into an hourly rate can help for a number of reasons. Whether you price per project by the hour or not. Chances are…

1. You should have a good idea of the actual man hours involved, no matter what.
2. It gives you a real good perspective on whether or not you are being profitable – (if you made $5,000 but you spent 3.75 months on a project working 40hrs/a week you made $8.33 an hr,  just FYI) .
3. Its great for the clients to see the actual time involved.
4. Breaking projects out help you manage time.
5. Time involvement can be used as leverage.

SEO Translates Into – Lots of Time

If I have a client who has a 300 page website, they need a complete SEO strategy, they want to integrate social media, and I have to compile the content, research competition, build keyword lists, establish goals and marketing mediums, perform hands-on-SEO on each page, I have a lot of work on my hands! I basically become their employee for the next 60-90 days! But when I hit them with the five digit cost…I might as well replace my laptop at meetings, with a defibrillator!

The approach I usually end up taking is exactly what my friend did above (maybe a little nicer). It just goes with the territory. SEO is abstract to so many, so many people have been burned, and most businesses don’t full grasp SEO. The most challenging part is helping the client truly realize the value and ROI. Wait, another caveat…to me it doesn’t matter if the client is selling cars or cookies, if they have a 300 page website my work load is about the same. Not withstanding competition is different varies by industry. So, how do you convince the client who makes $2.00 a sell that spending $10,000 grand is worth their investment? After all it would take the sell of 5,000 cookies to pay for it! Can I guarantee their sales will jump by 100% because of SEO and they would sell twice as many cookies? After all, how many people are buying cookies online? You get my point.

In Conclusion

SEO costing is like any other profession. You get what you pay for. There are many levels of SEO expertise out their and some are honest and their prices correlate with their experience. Then there are those who are leading industry experts in high demand and they charge just about whatever they want. Still, there are those who’ve devoted their professional careers to this exciting industry, have an excellent understanding of SEO, and hungrily feed their knowledge with the industries latest changes, techniques and adaptations. I suspect this is where a great number of SEOs fall categorically.

Nevertheless, SEO is a highly specialized industry, you don’t just find them walking down the street. They are less common than your average attorney or dentist and just a specialized, if not more specialized and unique. So, clients, when you sit down with your next SEO, remember you get what you pay for. If he or she is a knowledgeable professional, expect to pay a fair market price for their time and expertise. And SEOs, when you site down with your next client, remember your worth, bring the value to a client level, make sure you realize the time involved and most importantly…don’t sell yourself short! Rand Fishkin wrote a great article about seo pricing. Check it out or read this one about pricing too…but not before you leave a comment : )

What do you think, is SEO over priced, under priced, misrepresented?  Share your thoughts below.

arborseo.com featured in Woo Themes Showcase!

Arbor Search Marketing is excited to announce our website has been accepted into the Woo Themes Showcase!

Woo Themes leads the pack in theme development for the WordPress platform – and they’ll soon be expanding to Drupal, Magento, & ExpressionEngine. Woo Themes are by far the most unique, cleanest and relevant themes on the web. The developers at Woo Themes have spotlighted those custom themes that display advanced customization and creativity in the showcase. Check it out at Woo Themes Showcase.

Never Forget or Underestimate “We The People”

Does anyone else agree?

(Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with the band Talking Heads)

I’m sure we’ve all experienced the websites that have the (like it or not) talking head(s) that pop up and give a cheesy dissertation about why their company is the best. Frankly, when I jump onto a website, I’m not looking for some virtual person, whom I can’t have dialogue with, rave about the reasons I should be their patron. So far I’ve yet to be convinced by one of those annoying “little people”. It’s really shocking, almost dangerous, when you have your speakers cranked up. There should be a law…people could get hurt.

The Problem

You have no choice! Although some do not play upon visit, generally you are forced to listen to the brief until you find that illusive little stop button so you can go on to find what you were looking for originally. Overwhelmingly, people searching the Internet are looking for something very specific. Their on a mission. They’ve made up their mind about what their looking for and don’t need any one convincing them, or distracting them from their search. JUST GIVE THEM THE INFORMATION. Keep it simple. People are majorly de-sensitized to pop-up ads, infomercials, and forced advertising in general. So why, this late in the game, the big push for the talking heads?

Does anyone else feel this way?

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