The search engine optimization market is a strange thing. Though it is not the first year existing, it can’t be said the situation here is clear and transparent. There are many types of payments for SEO services alone, and I want to tell you about them in this article – at least, about the most popular payment methods.
I have to say that it is hardly possible to choose the ideal way. Everything depends on a variety of factors and conditions. Therefore, the choice should be based on a specific situation. I will describe them in general somewhat simplifying the picture so that it is clear for clients who order a search engine optimization. Indeed, first of all, the article is addresses to them.
1) Fixed Payment
The most popular method until recently (now it is beginning to be cramped by others). Depending on the workload, customers pay a subscription fee for SEO every month. Some companies deal exclusively with the promotion of the site to the top on this charge. Others offer a more interesting package of services including web analytics, work on the conversion of the site. Naturally, the latter variant is preferable since web marketers do not only deal with the promotion of the website to the top but, in fact, also with the selling of your products. And particularly this is the main goal of any website – the top without sales is useless.
The price tag for user maintenance is different with diverse companies and freelancers. Generally, it is from 200 to 1, 000 USD per month (depending on the workload, company size, various additional services). Some give different sorts of guarantees. For example, with the derivation of the top less than 75% of the requests in the contract by the date, the monthly fee is not taken as long as the threshold of 75% is not achieved. There are different variants of such terms up to the quantity of sales from the website.
The main disadvantage of a fixed payment for the customer is that he has to pay it for several months till there is any result. On the other side, the optimizer can be sure that the customer won’t break the relations with him in the middle of the work.
2) Payment for Traffic
This method may soon become one of the most popular. Its essence is to ensure that customers pay only for click-throughs to the requests he is interested in (well, the campaign budget, of course, is paid). For example, a list of requests is formed in the contract for the promotion and cost for each transition (for each query it is different depending on the complexity).
As a result, the customer pays only for the visitors who are considered to be potential clients of his services based on requests. Naturally, some companies limit the promotion on this, while others lead web analytics and work on the sales of the site.
This scheme is convenient for a customer, yet a bit more complicated in the fulfillment for small studios of internet marketing (at first you won’t get money from the customer yet you have to pay a salary to the optimizer). Yet, there is a kind of a guarantee here, which makes the service stronger and more reliable. Obviously, the payment for the traffic will little by little displace the fixed payments (by the way, in the long term, it is not a fact that SEO optimizer will lose here as in the case of the payment for the traffic and quality promotion you can get even more money than with fixed payments).
3) Payment for Leads
A payment for potential or actual customers. Many major representatives of the search optimization market often say the future belongs right to this scheme. It is quite possible, but meets seldom yet and the price is often more expensive than those of the two previous methods (though certainly not always, if you know, share with the info in the comments).
For a customer the scheme is convenient in the fact it pays only for his clients (surely, sometimes only potential). Anyway, the service is still too new and more difficult to understand for customers. What future waits for it, is difficult to say. At least, the benefits are obvious though this future will hardly come soon. And other methods won’t die out, either. And what do you think?
Perhaps, these are the three main payment methods for search engine optimization.