Search Engine Optimization has been described as an art, a science, a practice, an abomination and a career by those in and around the industry. But, to most outsiders learning about the practice for the first time, SEO is primarily seen as a service that professionals provide to clients. Although I'm often in the professional seat, I have become a client of many well known SEOs and secondary providers of services like link building, promotion, press releases and the like. I've also become familiar with how many SEOs ply their trade and what constitutes a "typical" contract in the business.

The focus of direct SEO work is to raise a sites's overall rankings in the major search engines for search terms and phrases that will bring them targeted visitors they can then convert into customers (whether customers actually means buyers or simply statistics to show to advertisers is beside the point). This brings to mind many questions that folks searching for a provider are sure to ask:

1. What services should I request from a professional SEO?
2. When I buy SEO consultation, what difference will I see between a $1000 spend and a $10,000 spend?
3. Are the big names in the industry really worth extra money?
4. How do I know if I need a "hands-on" SEO or just a consultant?

I'm going to attempt to answer each of these, one at a time.

What services should I request from a professional SEO?

The first thing you should request if you're not an SEO yourself (and therefore familiar with exactly what you need) is a review of your existing site. This review should be comprehensive and touch on items such as the coding of your pages, the site's URLs, the link structure and the current promotional/marketing efforts. A competent SEO may charge quite a bit for this service (between $300 - at the low end of the spectrum - up to $5000 or even $10,000 from a high profile SEO or a very large, complex site).

After this initial report has landed on your desk, you can decide if you or your staff can handle all the elements recommended for improvement or whether you need the professional's help to accomplish these tasks. The rates you can expect to pay by the hour range from $50 to $350. A very high quality SEO typically charges a high hourly rate because their ability to make money working on their own sites is so high. It's natural to think of SEO consulting or work time as an opportunity cost - any paid work for a client is going to pull away time that could be spent in other areas. If the professional can make $100-$1000 per hour working for themselves, that opportunity cost will be high.

An excellent way to think of an SEO professional's time is to think of them as a professional service provider similiar to a lawyer or an accountant. The obtuse rules and regulations surrounding case law or financial document preparation are actually quite similiar to the confines of the web search space, and while formal education in SEO doesn't exist yet, it is no less neccessary to the success of a business (and may, in fact, be much greater in terms of ROI than attorney or accountant fees).

When I buy SEO consultation, what difference will I see between a $1000 spend and a $10,000 spend?

SEO consultation is the most visible way to see the price difference between SEOs. While a newbie SEO might charge you $50 an hour for 20 hours of work, an experienced, well-known professional (like those I've mentioned before) might cost upwards of $200 or $300 for the same 20 hours. The difference between the two is primarily value. The value of 20 hours of someone who's worked in SEO for several years and has produced high-performing campaigns, spoken at SEO/M conferences and is respected by peers and clients for their abilities has a clear edge.

Specifically, the types of things covered by a $300/hr SEO that might be missed by a $50/hr SEO include:

• Highly accurate prognostications on the site's performance over the short and long term based on the content, links and work performed
• An almost "unnatural" sense of the best links to buy, cajole, rent or attain and how to do it (with money, content, e-mails, phone calls, trades, press, etc.)
• A deep understanding of issues outside of SEO that are exceptionally important to your website's performance - professional design (and presentation), usability, marketing, legal issues, etc.
• Relationships with websites, content providers and other industry professionals who can provide services (links + content) that can help the site succeed in the SERPs
• Experience with technical, spidering, canonical, penalty and other issues that may be affecting performance

There are certainly bargains to be had in the field of SEO consulting and work, but if you run a large website, the pricing you should expect is commensurate with the value you receive. And, luckily, the community is open and public enough (through the forums, blogs and conferences) that karmic retribution for deeds good or bad are bound to come out.

Are the big names in the industry really worth extra money?

The "big names" typically include a list of several dozen well-known, well-respected companies and individuals. At the current time, it's happily rare to hear a horror story from a client of any of these companies, largely due to transparency of work, trust in SEO relationships and the pride these "big names" take in their work and their reputation. SEO is also such a high ROI field for most companies that even a mediocre job can bring stellar results.

If you contract a "big name" SEO to do work for your site, you can expect consistently high quality and generally exceptional work. There are certainly exceptions to the rule, and you should certainly pursue investigation on whomever you're thinking about hiring. This is easily accomplished by searching for the persons name and SEO - for example, in this search for Rand Fishkin and SEO.

How do I know if I need a "hands-on" SEO or just a consultant?

You will know by looking at the recommendations made a professional SEO consultant and walking through each of the items suggested. If your IT or webdev team can handle the work, you can probably operate with a consultant on retainer, providing advice over e-mail and phone as neccessary. If, however, the list of recommendations includes work outside the scope of your internal team's abilities (most often in the fields of link building, marketing, promotion and even link-attracting content creation), it is almost certainly well worth your while to add outsource the work. Your SEO consultant should be able to do this for you, or refer you to high quality providers to help (they'll often manage these providers privately, making the contract much smoother for you).

I hope that all this advice has been helpful to those seeking SEO work, as well as those starting work in the field who may have questions about its operations. Please leave comments or questions below. I'd enjoy hearing whether folks consider my figures, in particular, to be accurate.