[redorb]

After reading some of the responses its funny, I hear "seo's inflating their vaule" and "Whats canonical issues" ...

1. Some SEO's do inflate their value, honestly most hackers here don't need one; our best clients (mutually beneficial) are the ones who have a site, but its old, out dated and not producing like it should. A lot of people don't have the time to monitor their back links, check their title and alt tags and hunt for more links... If you asked anyone I've ever worked SEO for; they would say I've gave them a great ROI

2. Canonical Issues: AKA Keyword Cannibalization, when you have more than one page focused on one keyword. They compete against each other in google, mostly used in reference to the title tag as most CMS's really mess those up.

(edited: for mistake)

[davidw]

I don't doubt that there is value in some of this stuff, but a problem that seems to be quite frequent is this: the more honest people out there can easily teach most of their clients most of what they need to know in a day or two, so unless you can land clients who really just don't want to get their hands dirty, it's tough to get a recurring revenue stream going.

Anecdote: at the last place I worked, we had a guy come in for an interview. Bright guy, and came across as being straightforward, but he was really insistent about having an 'ongoing' type of deal, whereas the boss already had read a lot of what the guy knew, and so decided against it. I think the boss might have sprung for a day or two of consulting, but certainly wasn't going to go for anything more than a one-off.

[redorb]

here is my business model,

tell me your keywords, I give price for top 5, bottom 5 in G,Y,MSN add all the top 5, bottom 5, together (thats total amount) half down, then half when rankings are achieved for 3 weeks

deliverables

monthly report, (links, on site optimization, off site optimization)

after getting positon the amount due would be the second half of total price, then if you wanted there would be a maintenance package of $x or $X /mo to keep gaining links and thus stay on top.

*if your rankings can't be achieved you get your 1/2 down back. - in this model also includes transparency of links and methods also education of client, no hold barred Q&A anytime phone call etc...

[mrtron]

Sounds like you are one of the 'SEO' folks that most people frown upon.

a) charging a different rate for different keywords you want to hit.

b) not providing a service that is going to work in the long term - doing black hattery to bomb them into the top 5 for a few weeks is going to get them dropped in rankings in the long term.

c) doing 'off site optimization' is not SEO, that's spam.

[rob]

"a) charging a different rate for different keywords you want to hit."

What's wrong with that? Ranking for a very generic keyword such as "widget" would definitely require much more time, effort, and money than ranking for "easy blue widget".

"c) doing 'off site optimization' is not SEO, that's spam."

Where did you come to the conclusion that off-site optimization is spam? Link exchanges, directory submissions, etc, are not "spam".

[redorb]

Not bombing, gaining links (there are good ways to do this; linkbait)

- charging different for different keywords is called capitalism; some keywords are BMW's and others are Kia's now go tell bmw they can't charge more

I don't pretend to know all coding, don't pretend to know all SEO; don't fear other's skill sets.

[mrtron]

It is called variable pricing - and the service you provide shouldn't change based on what keywords are relevant. It is not like BMW vs Kia whatsoever.

I don't claim to know all about SEO, but the basics are incredibly simple. I do know there is an abundance of people offering services like this, and they like to spread a lot of FUDD.

[redorb]

some keywords are harder than others (based on competition) and pretty much based on their value, so yeah you have to charge more