Should We Launch an E-Commerce that Isn’t Finished Yet in Development?

Levi
UK agency owners. What is the average spend per month across all clients for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? I find the Uk pay less. See people like Ruan charging minimum of $1500 per month to plumbers seems unrealistic in the uk market.
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should we launch an e commerce that isnt finished yet in development

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Truslow
What's the minimum amount of time you can spend doing research and be effective? Multiply that by your (or a fair) hourly rate (including agency fees/markup). That's how much YOU need to make. Multiply that by 5 and that is the number – with 20% going to you (or the agency) and 80% going to the ad buys.
Philip
Good question. It's going to follow some sort of (probably skewed) version of a normal distribution curve. In other words there's probably a lot of underpaid people at the bottom (who may or may not be doing it well) and as you go up in price range fewer and fewer people with better and better abilities. I suppose the real question is "how do you get to be one of them"?
Levi ✍️
I ask because think you can't do a good job for someone if you are not charging at least 600. That is to get a good distribution of guest posts, authoritative placements and press releases with tier 2 to get them indexed plus citation work. Plus your time. How if your charging 300 can you do that and have a markup. Some people may charge 300 and do little work but that is short sighted and ruins the industry. Wit 600 I can build out 5 location pages and optimise for maybe 10 terms. I know a lot of businesses can't pay £7k per annum on marketing though. I'm not going to try win all my inbound enquiries though I'll have to let a lot go as they don't have budget and I don't think you can provide a good Return on Investment (ROI) on say 300. Without using Private Blog Network (PBN) tactics etc even then they got to be your own in house ones

Holgate » Levi
The more SEO work I do in the UK, the more I realise how tough it is.
I agree that, even for local client's, £500pm at minimum is required but business people in the UK, just don't seem to get that you need to invest to get more work. Either that or they've had their fingers burnt. There's also a lot of SEO companies in the UK that provide dirt cheap services so that doesn't help.
I'm sure somebody will comment that it's easy to get big ticket SEO clients in the UK but I've always found it hard to attract them.
I'm now diversified into one-off and pay monthly web design, white label and starting with affiliate because I find it a hassle attracting SEO clients and also a hassle looking after them too!

Nathan
By charging too little to perform the job you not only are hurting yourself but you are hurting your so-called clients as well. You have to charge what it takes to get the company a return. If that means they pay for 3 months then take a 3 month break so be it but you aren't doing anyone any favors if you charge too little and can't perform the necessary work on that budget.

Levi ✍️ » Nathan
100% agree. It validates my thought process and I just don’t understand how companies I’m competing with offer Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for such little money and can possibly deliver
Nathan » Levi
Black Hat or they have teams they trained in other countries. We offer web design at pricing nobody can compete with but that's because we literally rent the office and have a team in place in a country that costs very little overhead. SEO that is a lot harder to achieve you can't jeopardize the work the language barrier makes things hard in technical aspects so I believe they do very little and from what I have seen that's if they do that.
I mean we have trained them to do web 2.0 and guest posts but they just do the leg work and then we go through and do the publishing and making sure the content etc.. is up to par. But even that only lowers our overhead so much. People have scoffed at my pricing being too low but we have 3 teams one is for small business, medium, and corporate structure. However, you have to make sure they understand the lower the budget the longer it's going to take. Honestly, we have weeded out most of our lower-paying clients to make room for clients who know the benefits of SEO vs trying to sell an idea that a business doesn't want to invest in.
Levi ✍️ » Nathan
I’ve been in this process for the last few months firing clients who are poor quality. That isn’t a reflection on them as individuals but if they match my ideal client profile. It’s a little against the grain as firing clients means loss of profits in the short term until they are replaced but I think as your goals evolve your business model evolves with it and then you realise you need to free up your bandwidth. It’s interesting the changes you have to make as you want to add a zero onto your annual bottom line. I’m enjoying the process it’s exciting

Simon
Many smaller businesses may struggle to pay £500 a month but if and when they do, they will often end up being very demanding. We have clients paying much more, and they are also much less demanding. Depends what your goals are as an agency, but I'd recommend aiming high. There are plenty of businesses with the budget and the need, so as long as you can deliver results, don't undersell.
Absolutely! We have been weeding out these clients for the past 3 months and we haven't been as stressed and work has been great even during this pandemic!

Levi ✍️ » Simon
that’s interesting as I have found the clients who pay less and on a real tight budget are the demanding ones who panic if they see there site dip for a week. The ones earning say 400k a year don’t feel the 500 – 1000 per month. However as mentioned it’s a bit more effort to initially catch this quality of client and I think a solid process and website of high standard with transparent case studies is key. I’m about to launch my new site in the following week so I’m hoping to see more of this. My biggest paying client is also My least demanding. Quality of your client base is key isn’t it. It can make you enjoy or resent your work

Silver
I can tell you from a clients point of view. We paid around 6000-7000 per month for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and it was totally worth it.

Levi ✍️
Great to hear! At the end of the day I feel it doesn't matter what the cost is. People focus on the cost. It is the return on investment. Smaller minded people see it as a cost and not an investment. Does it matter if it is 50k a month if it makes a client 80k profit back… Obviously budget allowing it shouldn't really matter. I think it is more a case of can service provider deliver.

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