Billing for SEO – subscription or success fee?
The form of billing, for such services as positioning, is sometimes the subject of an exciting discussion with clients. It boils down to the questions: does payment strictly for results still make sense, and whether billing in the model of a fixed monthly fee is fair from the perspective of the Client? These questions are not trivial, and the answer to them is not so easy either. Therefore, in this post I will try to outline concretely how it looks in practice.
Sucess fee means , “I will not pay for lack of results”.
When we order a dish at a restaurant (let’s hope again as soon as possible :)) or ask a plumber to replace valves, we know exactly what we’re paying for. Things are a little different with digital marketing services for several reasons:
- The service is long-term in nature – you usually have to wait in terms of months or even years for the results
- It is difficult to define clearly what is meant by , “result”.– for one it may be a position in TOP10, for another it may be a certain number of hits or an increase in sales or inquiries
- The way to implement the service is not obvious – each agency has its own know-how
- The client’s level of knowledge about SEO is low – often equates SEO with advertising campaigns, thus approaching it more like an advertising campaign (e.g., , “on a trial basis for 2-3 months”) than a systematic building of site authority.
Everyone would like to make sure they get what they pay for. However, SEO is a specific field of marketing in which it is difficult to guarantee anything. Why? This is if only because of regular updates to Google’s search engine algorithm; aspects such as the introduction of recommendations from an SEO audit, the content on the site, or its industry competition also affect the results. For more on what SEO is and when you need it, see our previous article: What is SEO and why do you need it?
All this influences clients’ apprehension about investing in SEO for the long term. This results in choosing the cheapest possible forms of SEO support and this, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, usually ends in a lack of satisfaction with the service. In other words, when thinking about SEO we shortsightedly make decisions that further reinforce the belief that , “it wasn’t worth it.
Why do you come out of the success fee like Zablocki on a soap?
Nowadays, billing for effect is in the digital marketing industry almost as if it were a species threatened with extinction in the wild. Agencies over the past few years have been gradually getting out of this kind of proposal, because in practice such a model of cooperation was ineffective.
First of all, it prevents you from incurring adequate financial expenses for effective link building and developing quality content on your site. No agency is going to be willing to invest a few thousand or so a year, just to keep their fingers crossed that the budget balances out in the second year and perhaps comes out ahead.
SEO in a success fee model most often means no spending on the part of the agency and being limited to optimizing the site. In such a situation, activities are not carried out at full steam, and after all, this is not the point. Settling exclusively in the sucess fee model is somewhat reminiscent of a toxic relationship, where both parties are not entirely sincere – the client saying he is serious about the subject, and the agency applying the philosophy of “somehow it will be done” and “maybe it will work out”.
However, there is one situation in which it is worth being tempted to pay for the result
Sometimes it’s worth billing on a success fee model for local positioning, where competition is sometimes less, and a very important element is the company profile in Google Maps.
In the case of larger centers, it is even about positioning at the level of specific city districts. Chances of effect are then higher, and so the model of billing activities based on results, itself, can work. An interesting solution in this context are mixed models – that is, sucess fee pricing with a monthly base. However, it all depends on the amount of this base and the extent to which the agency will be willing to allocate it to the necessary expenses for effective positioning.
Why learn what SEO is all about?
The topic of the billing model is much easier to address if both parties have adequate knowledge of SEO. In my opinion, one of the most important tasks of the agency is to educate clients, which is an additional value, very rarely or not at all indicated at the level of bids.
Positioning is an issue from which no one who runs a business and has a website can escape. Learning the basic concepts and mechanisms of this area is a great benefit that stays for good and comes in handy in the future.
Website positioning today resembles more like a complex marketing consultancy than a magical activity done by an “IT guy” somewhere on the web, and the numbers in the tables are getting better and better. Below I will point out just a few of the most important elements, projecting the ranking position of the site:
- Responsiveness and speed of the site – insurmountable factors that sooner or later will be an additional cost
- Content on the site – Useful information, how-to articles, product descriptions, real engaging content; it takes a huge commitment to prepare this
- Link Building – i.e. acquiring links leading to our site, usually in the form of an attractive article with a link; the cost of a single publication may amount to several hundred or even several thousand zlotys
It is worth noting that the moment you decide on SEO activities, there is a need to perform addtional activities, without which effective positioning is bound to fail.
- Administration of the website and server – strangely enough, once you are positioning, in the eyes of the client you become the subject of everything related to the website
- Google Maps and Youtube optimization – Youtube video positioning is a potential source of valuable website hits
- SEO audit and its implementation – A site audit should be the first step during cooperation, but what does this audit look like? This is already a river topic. Documents with guidelines for a site can run into dozens of pages, so it is worth considering whether the audit carried out by the agency was done in a meticulous and professional manner. Then there is the question of implementing the recommendations, which often also involves programming work on the site.
- Analytics and reports – A source of useful knowledge that is also worth sparing no time for
Generally speaking, “it takes two to tango,” so a client interested in understanding what the agency does and for what purpose it does it is a condition for fruitful cooperation. The key to success is to conduct comprehensive activities, supporting the business in many online fields. Search engine optimization of a website today is a bit like a crossroads, where all issues related to a company’s online presence are intertwined: its image, visibility, social media, advertising campaigns and so on.
Finding a reliable partner, an agency that will become a support for the whole company, is the key to achieving the set goals. It is difficult to imagine such cooperation in a model other than providing fixed remuneration for the agency. We should add at the same time that on behalf of the agency, even a team of several people can be assigned to the project.
Wondering what model of cooperation with an SEO specialist will be most beneficial for you? I hope that my short argument has cleared up some doubts here, and if -. then I invite you to contact me and talk!
