There are many schemes of work with clients in the promotion of sites, but in many of them there are so many nuances that customers stumble upon a rake in any of the options. Compare the existing methods of promotion of sites / clients.

Let's look at the pros and cons of the basic schemes, which work as freelancers, and many companies. We will not create "combined" tariffs, we will analyze only the basis.
I think it will be interesting to learn the "inside out" of the process not only for SEOs, but also for direct customers of services.

Although it is worth making a reservation - I set out my point of view, knowing the situation in many ways from the inside.

Website promotion by word count

Pros: a clear list of keywords for which the artist works, as well as clear reporting to the customer.
Disadvantages: selection of low-competitive, often unused or low-frequency queries, to create the effect of "great work".
Warranties: the withdrawal of a certain percentage of keywords in the agreed TOP.
Implementation in practice: in this scheme of work, everything will depend only on the contractor and his methods of work, since the compilation of the semantic core may not be done professionally, as a result of which the desired result will not be achieved. In addition, in this scheme of work there is a legal trick, according to the contract, the contractor undertakes to withdraw 80% of requests (or other quantity) to the TOP within the stipulated time, but the majority of requests are low-frequency, thereby formally - the contract is fulfilled, the contractor is legally clean, and the customer not satisfied with the work, because he hoped that in the cherished 80% of requests in the TOP in 3 months will be competitive words.
Recommendation to the customer: read the contract, find out in advance all the conditions of work. No need to believe what the sales person or manager says, believe only what is written on the paper called the contract.

Website promotion for traffic

Pros: the possibility of targeted traffic, and hence profits only a couple of weeks after the start of work.
Cons: difficulty predicting targeted traffic.
Warranties: receiving traffic with payment for each target visit.
Realization in practice: this version of the work is one of the most difficult, but on the other hand it is able to be simultaneously useful to both the performer and the customer. It happens on one condition - the work of professionals.
Recommendation to the customer: traffic is different, so you need to clearly understand what will be paid for. Choose not general indicators of attendance, as an assessment of the work of the contractor, namely, targeted search traffic containing certain keywords, otherwise there is a risk to run into cheat or non-targeted traffic and pay for it. Oh yeah, most importantly - read the contract. Require an explanation of all the incomprehensible moments, if you are reading one thing, and the manager explains it differently - ask him to insert his wording in the contract.

Promoting the site after payment

Pluses: payment directly for already demanded requests.
Cons: lack of clear timelines and forecasts for the withdrawal of requests. Overcharge.
Warranties: the lack of guarantees as such, because the payment "in fact."
Implementation in practice: this scheme has a lot of advantages and a lot of minuses. Fun things happen. Once the fee is charged only for the withdrawn requests, there is no time limit and you can move the site for at least a year, at least two, while the customer can wait patiently, and at this very time, links to other resources (promoted by the company or simply corrupt), not a ubiquitous phenomenon, but often met. Either the site will simply be the “next” donor for the company, which will contain the link “website promotion is such a company”.

Also, payment "in fact" implies an increased cost of each of the requests, because you need to compensate the initial costs. Sometimes the cost increases several times, but this is the cost of this work scheme. You pay a lot, but only for the result. Also, the “after the fact” payment has a safety element in the form of an advance payment, which is paid by the customer, so that the beginning of the work is not entirely without investments. Of course - read the contract, the devil is in the details.

Website promotion with bonuses

Pros: there is an incentive to pull the site higher and higher, because on what range is the site - depends on the payment. Beneficial for both the performer and the customer.
Cons: there are no initial profits in the first months of work - from the performer.
Warranties: at the discretion of the parties.
Realization in practice: this scheme differs from “Website promotion in the number of words” only by introducing certain coefficients for the contractor. The site in the TOP-10 - one amount is paid, came out in the TOP-5 - there is a bonus in the form of a certain percentage or a fixed amount. Bonus ranges are negotiated individually.

Website promotion with pay for work

Pros: full control of the expenditure part of the customer. In the case of the "care" of the performer - the reference base remains at the customer.
Cons: Fixed profit at the artist, you can’t say “link” and put it in your pocket.
Warranties: at the discretion of the parties.
Realization in practice: in my opinion the most transparent scheme of work from a financial point of view. The contractor is paid a fixed cost of his work, while the cost part of the links is under the control of the customer. If necessary, he himself can either lower or raise the cost price of promotion. In essence, the total budget is divided by the cost of the optimizer, as well as reference and other expenses (at the same time, accounts on exchanges are under the complete control of the customer).

It is a little about the scheme under which I worked earlier and under which I try to work now.

Until 2008, there was only one scheme of work - for specific words, it was possible to quite clearly predict and output the required number of requests in a specified time frame. Since 2008, it has become more difficult to predict the dates, so the scheme went into working with putting a certain percentage of queries into the top, thus it was possible to completely insure yourself against the risks associated with glitches or the lack of updates from Yandex, as the main search engine for Runet.

Periodically, traffic schemes and bonus supplements were applied and applied now, but for the vast majority of clients, from February 2010, began to use a different scheme, which is called “ pay for work ”.

Yes, at the beginning of the profits decreased . After all, previously it was possible to take 20 thousand (the estimated cost by competitors is the average for the market), bring the project to the TOP for 10-30% of this amount and put the rest in the pocket, while the customer is satisfied and the performer.

When you pay for the work, the customer sees the entire expenditure part , so at the beginning of the profit they really fell, because the cost price for many requests with a good and old website at the customer is not great, which means there will be no "bonuses" in your pocket.

But since February 2010, 4 months have passed and this scheme has borne fruit, namely, an increase in the number of clients who agree to work in this version (as a rule, as recommended).

Why increase went - because it is the most honest scheme of work , when both parties do not hide anything.

If the work of the performer, suddenly, does not stand the customer - he will leave retaining the reference mass, and this is a very important point, because there is no element of dependence and there is no reason for “blackmail”.

On the other hand, if the customer has a problem with payment (does not contact, no money), then the problem does not fall on the shoulders of the contractor, because the customer replenishes the account in the same SAPE. By the way, this is a frequent phenomenon, at the moment there is a line of credit for customers in the amount of 80 thousand rubles (yes, it has accumulated), and this is monthly, due to the fact that someone just forgets to pay for services in time or not to get through.

It also occasionally happened that customers (seasonal subjects) could say at the end of the reporting period, “ but we could give more links, then our positions would be better, ” but with the scheme that I work with now, this does not happen anymore. because only the customer himself limits the link budget to the amount that he considers possible at the moment, I only recommend.

Gradually, I transfer everyone to the new scheme of work and I can say that I am satisfied with both the influx of new clients for this scheme of website promotion and the process itself, which has become more transparent and also more flexible.

  • The amount for the work - fixed.
  • Budget - floating, at the discretion of the customer.
  • Control over the project - for the paying party.
  • Honesty (no need to hide real costs).

As for the word " guarantee ", I never recognized it, except perhaps until 2007 partially. In the contract I do not prescribe " by such a date such requests will be in the TOP ", since I clearly understand that in addition to the customer and the contractor, there is a third party whose actions are not controlled by any of the parties involved in the contract.

If the customer does not understand that any guarantee of the result on the positions is a fiction , then he has a direct road to direct and is clearly not on the way with me. I do not work at all with customers who do not understand or do not want to understand the mechanism of my work and the work of search engines (at least at the elementary level).

Probably, by virtue of legal education, I cannot give a guarantee that it does not depend on me 100%, but it is not good to give a guarantee and not to fulfill it. Yes, you can make a "correct" contract for website promotion and avoid liability, but this is not the way out.

I believe that the real earnings begin after the project is withdrawn in the TOP , when you support it and you only spend a little time on maintaining positions or traffic, while stably (for years) you get money for work.

But to promise, to derail the money for the first time, not to fulfill, otmazatsya contract and play on the customer's inexperience - this is not an option, spoils the reputation, will not allow to work in the market for a long time.

In practice, quite a lot of scenarios happened, not always and not all 100% of projects are successful, it happens with any company or freelancer.

If someone declares that he has all 100% of projects in the TOP and everything is good, then this someone has few projects, or all of them are low competitive. For all the time, I have not met a single SEO (with the number of projects at least at the level of 10 pieces), so that he has everything in perfect harmony with the customer and all the requests in TOP. Although people who claim that everything is good, they met quite a few. You can say anything, the main thing is to be honest with yourself.

These are the schemes of work I see in the market at the moment as the main ones, and what options do you use? What do you promise customers? If you have questions about the schemes - ask.