Five Elements of a Perfect SEO Contract

Are you going to sign the deal with any well known SEO Company? But before signing the contract, I think you should at least once take a look at some of the elements that are must for a Perfect SEO contract.

So, let’s understand them in detail and make your task easy and then you can freely fix the deal? Let’s move on…

These five elements will make SEO contract Accurate:

1. Keep it Flexible: SEO is the field that keeps on updating and so instead of including some specific tasks make sure to include large category approaches like as “On Page SEO” instead of writing tasks in particular like as “Reframing the site URL”.

   Always keep in mind that contract is prepared for mutual understanding and describe the work that is to be accomplished. So, don’t be too vague as this can create confusions.

2. Take the note of Contract Term Length: Two types of contract term length can be considered: One is fixed and another is auto renewal. Fixed contracts have a start and end date where as auto renewals don’t. It is advisable to have auto renewal contracts for SEO, reasons are as follows:
   • SEO is not a project. It’s an ongoing activity which never ends.
   • Further, auto renewal contracts need less paper work. So, instead of wasting time writing contracts prefer auto renewal contracts so that you can concentrate more on SEO work.
   • With Auto renewal contracts, you can include the price change because as time passes, business will grow and simultaneously cost will also increase thus ultimately you will increase your price.

     Yes, for old clients you can keep the same pricing if you can afford but if not then you need to cancel the price and provide the new one.

3. Contract Length should be less if possible: SEO clients generally tend to switch to other SEO agencies if they don’t get satisfied results from your end. Certain SEO firms sign 6 or 12 month SEO contract. Ideal, contract length is 6 months.
4. Include Annual Automatic Price Increase: Every year the business costs increase and hence the operational costs also increase irrespective of the economy being in inflation or recession.
   

   Few examples of ever rising costs:

   • Annually salary increment for employees which means that every year you need to pay more salary compared to the current one.
   • If your office is on lease then you might have a clause where your rent will increase up to a certain percentage every year. Normally, every year upto 3% rent increase is allowed.
   • Cost of softwares also increases every year.

   So, you are definitely entitled to get a raise every year. Hence, in an auto renewal contract you must add a clause that your costs will increase after every year by certain percentage.

5. Include Penalty for Late Payments: Yes, we all know that advance payments are considered a good idea in order to save ourselves from getting into loss. But what about late payments? Are you here to keep collecting payments instead of focusing on work?

   To keep the business running smoothly, it’s necessary to have proper cash flow. So, you must keep penalty for any late payment. It may financially or service related. For every bill, you pay late; you are supposed to pay penalty.

   And hence this should be the rule followed by you as well.

Wind Up

This is not the end. There are several other elements that are to be considered while creating a contract. So, make sure you refer these and then develop a perfect SEO agreement so that you and client are safe in every manner.

Do you have some more tips? We would love to hear that too.