As I visit the SEO forums around the web, I notice a pattern that can be counted on to repeat itself each week. At least 3 different individuals will come to each forum every seven days with the exact same request:
How much will it cost for SEO?
These individuals are hoping that members will casually chime in and offer them quotes and pricing models to answer their inquiries, and if it was a once-per-year or even bi-monthly occurrence, that might very well happen. But, as we know, this relentless question occurs dozens of times each month across the forums.
In order to respond, I jokingly created the artificial answer of $19. This, I said, was the exact, perfect amount to charge for SEO. Obviously, there is no such thing as SEO - there's contracts and processes and different amounts for every client, every project and every firm, making it as ridiculous of a question as $19 is for an answer.
To me, asking how much SEO costs is liking asking how much it costs for happiness - if only the answer were $19.
Well, if you take what information is freely available on SEO sites, $19 is pretty steep... :)
Hilariously, SEOmoz is actually on the verge of launching an automated service for SEOs - price point? $19... :)
It'll be a very big, very reliable combination of many of our tools that does lots of killer cool analysis and uses some nifty systems to make sure all the data actually does get retrieved.
More to come...
$19 SEO works well, give people $19 worth of SEO advice (time-based rate) and they'll be able to do the remaining $1999-worth themselves.
Well, I hope.
I believe the answer to this (as well as to the meaning of life, the universe and everything) is "42"