What Is a Typical SEO Agency Contract?
Businesses skim these because they assume the terms are standard. They are not. The terms are where the difference between one agency and another actually shows. This page describes what to look for and states four things we commit to. It is general information rather than legal advice.
Read This One Properly
Most people skim an agency agreement on the assumption that it is a standard document. It is not standard and the terms vary enormously between firms. That variation is where the actual difference between agencies lives.
Why it gets skimmed. The interesting part felt like the meeting.
By the time an agreement arrives, the decision feels made. The conversation was persuasive, the price is agreed and the document reads as administration. That is precisely when unfavourable terms get accepted.
What differs between firms. More than you would expect.
Minimum terms, notice, renewal, who owns the site, who owns the content and what happens at the end. Two agencies quoting similar fees can offer completely different arrangements underneath.
When the terms actually matter. At the end.
Almost nothing here affects a happy engagement. All of it affects an unhappy one, which is why it gets agreed without attention and discovered under pressure.
What this page is. General information.
It describes what to look for rather than advising on any particular agreement. It makes no claim about what any contract must contain as a matter of law. Block ten covers when to get proper advice.
The Four Things We Commit To
Four commitments that are true of every agreement we issue. They appear here rather than on a sales page because a reader should be able to hold us to them. A business should also expect them from anybody rather than only from us.
No setup charge. Nothing extra for starting.
The early work is part of the engagement rather than a separate purchase. A one-off amount at the beginning is a charge for our own onboarding.
No tie-in that exists to protect us rather than to make the work possible. The careful one.
Note that this is not a blanket promise of no minimum term, because block three explains why a minimum term can be entirely legitimate. The commitment is about whose interest the term serves, which is the harder promise to keep and the more useful one to you.
The client owns the website. Explicitly, in writing.
The site, the domain and the content produced belong to you throughout and afterwards. This is the term that traps businesses when it is left unstated.
Updates every three weeks. A stated cadence.
You always know when you will next hear from somebody. The specific interval matters less than the fact that it is defined rather than left to whoever is least busy.
Why publishing them constrains us. Deliberately.
These are referenced from several other pages and from the panel on every guide in this section. Changing them quietly is not available to us, which is the point of putting them here.
Tie-Ins, Fairly
A minimum term is not automatically unreasonable. The work takes months to show anything, so an agency asked to commit resources has a genuine argument for wanting a period in which to do it.
The legitimate version. Protecting the work.
An agency doing front-loaded work in the early months, on the expectation of a longer engagement, is exposed if a client leaves at week eight. A term covering that is a fair allocation of risk rather than a trap.
The other version. Protecting income.
A term long enough that leaving is impractical regardless of performance, with no relationship to when the work would show. That is a retention device wearing the first version's clothing.
How to tell them apart. Ask why that length.
Somebody protecting the work explains what happens in those months and why a shorter period would not allow it. Somebody protecting income talks about industry standard or about commitment.
The second test. What happens if they fail.
Ask what the term means if they stop producing work. An agreement binding you through non-delivery is protecting income by definition, whatever the justification given.
What to look for instead. An initial period, then rolling.
A defined initial commitment followed by a monthly arrangement is achievable. Firms confident in their work offer it. How long should you commit covers the tension in full.
Who Owns The Website
Some arrangements leave the site, the domain or both with the agency. A business can then find itself unable to leave without abandoning its own website, discovering this at the worst possible moment.
How it happens without malice. Convenience at the start.
An agency registers the domain because it was quicker, else builds the site on its own platform because that is what it uses. Nobody decided to trap anybody. The effect at the end is identical either way.
The platform version. Harder to spot.
A site built on a system the agency owns or resells may be perfectly good and may not be transferable. You are paying for something you cannot take with you, which is a rental arrangement described as a build.
What should be explicit. Three things in writing.
Who owns the domain, who owns the site and what happens to both if the agreement ends. Silence on any of them is not neutral, because at the end the person holding the asset holds the position.
How to check what you already have. Look at the registration.
Domain registrations record who holds them. If yours records the agency, that is worth addressing while the relationship is good rather than while it is ending.
Where this appears again. Two other pages.
Subcontracting adds a layer to this question, covered in what is white label SEO. It becomes the practical obstacle when leaving, covered in when to change your SEO agency.
Who Owns The Content And The Data
Content produced for you should belong to you. Your accounts should be in your name with access granted to the agency rather than the other way round. That single arrangement removes most of what goes wrong at the end.
Why the direction matters so much. Whoever holds the account decides.
If your analytics and profile accounts belong to the agency, then at the end they decide whether you get them. If they belong to you, you simply withdraw access. Same tools, entirely different position.
Which accounts to check. Four.
Your analytics, your search reporting, your business profile and any advertising accounts. Each should be registered to your business with the agency added as a user.
What people lose without it. History.
Years of accumulated data that cannot be recreated. A new arrangement starting with no baseline cannot tell you whether anything is improving, which quietly costs more than the inconvenience does.
Content ownership specifically. Worth stating.
Pages, images and text produced under the engagement should be yours to keep, edit and reuse. It is unusual for this to be disputed and it is worth having written down rather than assumed.
What to do if it is currently wrong. Fix it now.
Moving account ownership is straightforward while everybody is content and considerably harder later. This is the single most useful item on this page for a business already in an arrangement.
Notice And Exit
Two things to look for: how much notice each side gives, then what you receive when the arrangement ends. The second is routinely absent and it is the one that matters.
What a reasonable notice arrangement looks like. Proportionate and mutual.
Enough time for an agency to conclude work in progress, with the same obligation running in both directions. A period far longer than the billing cycle, else one that binds only you, is worth querying.
What a handover should include. Four things.
Access to everything in your name, copies of what was produced, a record of what was done and any documentation of what is in progress. None is unreasonable and none happens automatically.
Why a handover clause is worth more than it seems. Goodwill evaporates.
At signing this feels like planning for a divorce during the wedding. At the end, when the relationship is strained, a written obligation is the only thing that produces cooperation.
What happens without one. A slow exit.
Requests going unanswered, information arriving in pieces and things forgotten. Nobody is necessarily obstructing. There is no obligation, so it drifts to the bottom of somebody's list.
What to ask for at signing. A sentence.
One clause stating what is provided on termination. An agency comfortable with its own retention will not object to it.
What Is Actually Being Promised
A contract should describe work rather than outcomes. That sounds like the agency protecting itself and it is also the only arrangement that can be delivered.
Why outcomes cannot be promised. Nobody controls them.
The results are decided by a system nobody in this trade operates, plus by competitors nobody can constrain. A guarantee of a position is either meaningless or attached to a phrase nobody searches.
What that means for the document. Specify the work.
An agreement should say what will be done, in enough detail to check afterwards. That is a real commitment. It is checkable in a way a promised outcome never is.
The trap in the middle. Vague work descriptions.
Phrases covering unspecified effort, such as ongoing optimisation or continuous improvement, commit to nothing. That is how underdelivery becomes deniable. It is more common than an outright guarantee.
What good specification looks like. Checkable quantities or time.
Either a stated amount of work, else a stated amount of time and how it will be directed. Our retainer page covers which suits you.
What to do about a guarantee. Treat it as disqualifying.
A promised ranking is the clearest single warning available. It is covered first in red flags when hiring an SEO agency.
Automatic Renewal
Many agreements renew for a further period unless notice is given by a stated point. That is not improper and it does mean a date exists that you need to know about.
How it usually works. A window before expiry.
The agreement continues for another term unless you give notice before a deadline, which frequently falls some weeks ahead of the end date. Miss it and you are committed for another full period.
Why businesses miss it. Nobody diarised it.
The date sits in a document filed at signing and nothing reminds anybody. The first time most businesses think about renewal is after it has happened.
What to check. Three things.
Whether renewal is automatic, when notice must be given, then how long the new term runs. All three are usually in one clause and take a minute to find.
What to do about it. Put it in the calendar.
Enter the notice deadline the day you sign, with a reminder well before it. That single action removes the whole problem.
What is unreasonable. Two versions.
A notice window so early that you must decide long before you could judge the work, else renewal into a term longer than the original. Both are worth querying before signing rather than afterwards.
Price Increases
Most agreements say something about the fee changing. Almost nobody reads that clause at signing. It governs what happens for as long as the arrangement continues.
What a reasonable arrangement looks like. Notice and a right to leave.
Advance notice of any change, plus the ability to end the arrangement if you do not accept it. That combination makes an increase a proposal rather than an imposition.
What is worth querying. Increases you cannot refuse.
A term permitting changes without meaningful notice, else one where the notice period for leaving is longer than the notice given for the increase. That second arrangement obliges you to pay the higher fee regardless.
Why increases are legitimate. Costs rise.
Wages, tools and everything else become more expensive. A firm never raising prices is either absorbing that or reducing what it delivers. An increase after several years is ordinary.
What to ask at signing. One question.
Ask how often prices have changed for existing clients and by roughly how much. Somebody with a settled approach answers easily.
The related term. Scope creep in reverse.
Watch for arrangements where the fee stays fixed while what is included quietly narrows. That is an increase expressed differently and it is harder to notice.
Get It Checked If It Is Substantial
Everything above describes what to look for. It is not advice on your agreement. A business entering a significant commitment should take its own.
What this page can do. Tell you where to look.
Point you at the terms that matter, explain what each usually governs and help you ask better questions. That is genuinely useful and it is the whole of what a general guide can offer.
What it cannot do. Read your document.
We have not seen your agreement, we do not know the circumstances and nothing here accounts for either. Any page claiming otherwise is overreaching.
When to get advice. Two situations.
Where the total commitment is substantial relative to your business, else where something in the document concerns you and the explanation has not settled it. Both are worth an hour of somebody qualified.
What to take to them. The specific clauses.
Ownership, term, notice, renewal and what is promised. Arriving with those identified makes the exercise shorter and cheaper than handing over a document cold.
What we would say about our own. The same thing.
If you are signing something substantial with us, have it looked at. An agency discouraging that is telling you something. The full series is on the hiring an SEO agency guide.
Four things,
in every contract
we issue.
No setup charge. No tie-in protecting us rather than the work. You own the website. An update every three weeks. They are published here rather than on a sales page so you can hold us to them. We would still say have a substantial agreement checked.
What we commit to in writing:
Local £350 a month fixed. National £1,550 a month. Published rather than quoted on request.
Every guide.
One practice.
What an agency is, whether to buy at all, which model suits you, how to vet one, what things cost, what should be in a contract and how to work with them afterwards.
