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A Somewhat Legal Question to Anyone Who Charges for SEO Work

by trentonlaura
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey, I've been doing SEO on my own sites for a few years now and am interested in doing small amounts of contractual based SEO work for other webmasters.

I know there are some people who do that, people who at the very least just build links for other people. My question is do you have a contract which clients need to sign, or do you just have them pay up front then you do the link building, and that's that?

Interested to hear about the contract bit specifically as well as how you handle payments considering outsourced SEO seems like it might be an incentive based work system (IE you get paid based on the rankings you achieve for your client).

Any info on how you handle this would be greatly appreciated.
#charges #legal #question #seo #work
  • Profile picture of the author awddude
    For anything under $300 I don't care about a contract. But that's just me - and that's dealing with people I've had previous relations with. If I were to pay more for link-building or other services I would get a contract.

    If you want to run a guaranteed ranking service, the client tells you whether they want #1, o first page, or what, and you quote them. Do a bit of negotiating until you are both comfortable.

    If it's an extremely hard search term I can understand why the contract might be based on achievement because you're not sure what results you'll achieve. But as a seller, you should stay away from that kind of deal because it means you don't really know what you're doing.

    The people I talk to give me a time-frame, and a quote, and the service is usually delivered plus or minus a few weeks of the deadline we agreed on.

    Payment is upfront. That's because the guys we hire, need to pay the outsourcers without risk. If it's over a couple hundred dollars half now, half later can work.

    Most of this SEO stuff is personal business though, and about building a relationship and negotiating a good number. Realize that most link builders are in Asia - where the price of anything can be negotiated. So keep that in mind depending on who you deal with.

    good luck
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    • Profile picture of the author mosthost
      I urge you to work with a contract, no matter the order size. Definitely have give the client a disclaimer and basic terms.

      You can get this type of work done at LegalZoom easily. After being in business for over 20 years I can tell you that it all comes down to the legal if 'sh*t hits the fan' with clients.
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  • Profile picture of the author awddude
    You can get this type of work done at LegalZoom easily. After being in business for over 20 years I can tell you that it all comes down to the legal if 'sh*t hits the fan' with clients.
    haha yup. Everyone had a moment where they said 'damn I argh I should have put that in the contract! what was I thinking?"

    And to not have a contract at all with a long term business plan is like running a marathon through the desert w/o water.
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  • Profile picture of the author JOSourcing
    Banned
    A flat-fee or milestone-based payment system that pays for the process of SEO sounds better than what you've described. SEO results can't be guaranteed, so using rankings as payment incentive is a risk for non-payment. (Unless you've discovered the secret-sauce of cooking up #1 positions.)
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  • Profile picture of the author bigcat1967
    I do this from time to time. What I do is offer no contract at all - since most seo companies do have contracts that hold their clients for at least six months to a year. I tell my customers that they can leave anytime. This is the attractive part of my package.

    I do NOT promise them to get them on the first page - but there are other avenues than Google, such as social networking. So one of my things is to create a buzz and check on the analytics to see if it is working.
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  • Profile picture of the author trentonlaura
    Thanks for all of the input. Seems the biggest takeaway is how I structure/offer my packages in that guaranteeing any kind of #1 results would be foolish. I should stick to advertising the number and kind of links which I'd build.

    I'll have to check out LegalZoom. I assume I'll have to write up the majority of the contract myself given that it's a specific type of service I'm rendering. What does LZ add to the mix in that case?

    thanks for the feedback.
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  • Profile picture of the author TZ
    Our lowest fee is $600 per month;

    Home - clients happy at that rate.
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