What is the normal timeframe to complete these tasks?

[test135]

How long would it take an SEO specialist to complete these tasks if they were working at an efficient rate and completing the tasks with quality in mind?

• 10 Social Bookmarks (10 individual bookmarks linking to a page)
• 11 Keyword Linkings (11 individual links to a keyword)
• 10 Listings within Online Directories (10 individual directory listings)

[EGOL]

I have to disagree that an "SEO specialist" would complete any of these tasks, to be honest.

Lots of this stuff is done by robots and the "SEO specialist" (ahem) takes credit for it.  

... and the webmasters who want their site to receive genuine "bookmarks" or "shares" or "listings" have content that is either so skimpy or so bad that they don't need an SEO specialist.... they need a magician.

• Create ten pieces of unique content for specific audiences .... with the intention of having that content appeal to the user-base of those audiences.

If you do what Jane suggests, and do it exceptionally well, you will not need an SEO specialist or a magician because your visitors will do the bookmarking, sharing and listing for you.  Visitors to websites love to tell their friends when they find fantastic stuff.  It makes them feel like Christopher Columbus or Indiana Jones and they wanna tell their friends about their discoveries.  Also, a busybody or a gossip can be better than lots of SEO specialists.  They tell everybody everything - but this works best when you have juicy stuff to talk about.

[JaneCopland]

I have to disagree that an "SEO specialist" would complete any of these tasks, to be honest. They are all very outdated techniques that are no longer likely to result in any improvement in rankings. You could complete each all of these tasks in one or two days if you went for easy enough resources.

That said, it takes a lot longer and has many times more benefits if you do the following, which could be the modern version:

• Create ten pieces of unique content for specific audiences and promote them on five or six different social networks with the intention of having that content appeal to the user-base of those audiences.
• Contact eleven different bloggers or reporters about the unique pieces of content you've created with the intention of having them feature that content, write about it or otherwise mention / link to it.
• Identify ten different high quality local or niche review or directory sites in the target industry, audit them for quality and relevancy and work out the best place to submit or request a listing.

Content creation on this scale alone could take months. Outreach can take a few weeks with follow-ups, negotiation and discussion. The audit / review process of relevant listing websites might take a week or two given that most directories / review sites are not great in quality and you'd want to find the absolute best resources for your niche and site.

[KeriMorgret]

There's also a point of diminishing returns and a point where you're going to look spammy.

Getting a handful of social bookmarks and links (internal or external?) and some directory listings for my home page or one particular page may be fine, but I wouldn't want this done to 100 pages on my site, and you're going to run into problems when you try to do a bunch of pages from the same site under the above tasks.

Are you trying to figure out if someone doing this for you is doing a good job, or trying to judge how much time it might take you to do it as a service?

[test135]

Please see the updated question.  I think that I was a bit too vague in my bullet points.  I am not validating a price, but am more so just trying to get a ballpark as to where the bar should be set quality-wise for this array of work.  Thank you so much for your help!

[EGOL]

I think that you should be negotiating quality rather than price.

Some people spend $5 for an article.  I spend about a week.

[David-Kley]

• 10 Social Bookmarks:

If you are meaning setting up new profiles, perhaps a few hours. A full 8-10 hours if they are taking advantage of all the features from that social platform. Setting them up is fast and easy. Making them stand out and being creative is what takes the extra time. You get what you pay for.

• 11 Keyword Linkings

If you are meaning backlinks, it really depends. Backlinks you actually want and canthe authority help your site will take time. Backlinks you don't and won't can take minutes lol. Quality backlinking is in my opinion the most time cosuming part of SEO, and often the most worthwhile. I would estimate between 20-40 hours for a good head start into getting quality backlinks for 11 keywords.

• 10 Directory Listings

Again, it comes down to quality. If you are referring to ciatation sites as a directory, then I would estimate between 8-10 hours, with spending about an hour on each. If you are referring to paid directories, I would avoid that approach unless it's a trusted source such as BBB or Chamber of Commerce. Google is on a rampage against paid directory listings right now. Matt Cutts even blogged about a way of submitting paid links directly. Blog Post

Are you asking to validate a price you were given by an SEO? I wouldn't focus on any given number of items, or pay for any SEO "package" from a provider. All the items above can help you, but usually it's an ongoing process to improve rank and authority. How accurate is the back end SEO? How good is the content? Make sure to look at all areas of your site.