SEO cost?

Hey everyone, I have recently found myself in an odd position regarding SEO, and I figured you guys on here might have the answer. The situation I have found myself in, is that a potential client wants me to do some SEO work for him, before I can get around to the SEO work, I must first gather data on his site, competitors, etc (all which takes time and effort). The client has offered to pay me for the effort I put in gathering the data, but I have no clue what to charge. So what would you say you usually charge for this kind of work (an hourly rate, or a flat fee?).

The kinds of research I am doing:

Search engine ranking (Most fundamental step)
Link research (to and from, competitors, etc)
Search engine simulation (It's fairly up-to-date algorithm)
Keyword density (comparing to top competitors)
Search engine submission report(Also fairly fundamental)
Site layout SEO(meta, <h1> - <h5>, etc.)

All of this data is gathered and compared to the top 10 - 25 competitors. The data is then gathered and plugged into various scripts to create very pleasant graphs, sections, and subsections.

Any idea on what you might charge?

A fair bit of googling answered my question, it seems as though $700 will soon be in my pocket !

I would check how much is OK with him first. Then I would look around for some forum posters maybe, as you're not a professional SEO person and probably won't be making $700. 9sorry!)

Sidorak is really telling the truth, its very hard to get paid $700 for SEO if you aren't a professional. And if the website isn't that big/rich. Anyways start low like around $100.

Yea. No one spends so much on SEO mate. I mean not normal websites and big websites dont trust newbi's... But anyways wish u luck

I do hope it works out for you, mate.

Just be sure to do the guy a solid and give him good service and support. Making a name can be far harder than making a dollar, and is much, much more desirable in any industry.