Paid by the hour, or paid by commission?

[webgem]

So I have a friend who has been hounding me to do some SEO work. He runs a storefront business with an eCommerce website. The storefront has been good, but his online presence has been a complete mess. He constantly changes his inventory so products can't rank, his business doesn't even rank in the local SERPS.
Anyhoo, he wants me to fix up his SEO and I'm just not sure how to charge him.

Ideally i would love to be an SEO affiliate and make money based on my work. I find it much more gratifying than a blanket fee. The issue is at this point he isn't even selling anything online, and even if we had a set inventory, I would have to spend a ton of time manually putting everything up.

The other option is to just charge him a regular fee, but he's a friend and he's been in business for over 20 years, so i know he is someone who could really be a valuable affiliate asset.

Any thoughts?

 

[stackcash]

If he isn't fully committed to doing what needs to be done (aka, leaving products online longer than a week) to see SEO success, then don't get involved with him. The SEO campaign will never work and he'll blame you.

 

[Ryuzaki]

You could forget about ranking products and go the route of local citations to at least get him in the local pack for related terms.

You could outsource that and then something like 5-10 do-follow blog comments each with brand anchors to help get them indexed. You could do no actual work and give him progress and charge him double, with your half being the payment it costs to have access to your knowledge.

There's plenty that can be done to at least give him a presence online and in the SERPs.

 

[miketpowell]

How would his prices compare to the big online stores in his niche? Or what is the niche?

In my experience most single store local business owners have no appetite for what it takes to be competitive online. The margins they insist on simply do not work.

It's most likely the best SEO you will be able to do for him is so local people that want to drive to his store can find the the address/hours as easily as possible.