Reading an SEO proposal

Read an SEO proposal for four things: exactly what work will be done, what you’ll receive and when, how results will be reported, and how the arrangement ends. business.gov.au’s guide to contracting with a consultant covers the same ground: the work or results, the conditions for it to count as finished, payment, intellectual property, disputes and changes.

Below is a sample proposal written for this guide, then read with a red pencil. It’s fictional throughout: there’s no real agency, client or price in it.

General information, not legal or business advice. For your own agreement, a lawyer can tell you what a clause means for you; business.gov.au explains the basics of contracts with consultants.

The sample, marked up

[Agency name]

Search engine optimisation proposalPrepared for [your business]

ScopeWe will audit your website and improve your rankings.

Which pages? What work? business.gov.au’s contract guide shows a clear description of work beside a vague one. This is the vague one.
DeliverablesA written technical audit; keyword research; changes to page titles and copy on [number] agreed pages; [number] new articles each month, reviewed by you before publishing.

Good: specific and checkable. Each item maps to a service on Google’s own list.
Results~~We guarantee page one for your top keywords within [number] months.~~

“Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings,” says Google. An audit should give realistic estimates instead.
Links~~Includes link building through our partner network.~~

Ask what this means, exactly. Buying links, excessive link exchanges and automated link building are all examples of link spam in Google’s policies.
ReportingA monthly report covering work completed, every change made to the site and why, and search performance taken from your Google Search Console account.

Yes. Google suggests asking an SEO to share all changes and the reasoning behind them, and calls Search Console its first-party source of data from Google Search.
AccessThe client will grant owner access to Search Console and Administrator access to Google Analytics.

For an audit, Google says read access to Search Console only. In Analytics, an Administrator can add and delete users; a Viewer can see settings and data.
FeesA monthly fee of [amount], invoiced in advance and payable within [number] days.

Does the fee include GST? When is it due, and how is it paid? business.gov.au lists all three as things a contract should say.
TermA minimum term of [number] months, renewing automatically unless cancelled in writing before the renewal date.

Who can renew, and who can end it? business.gov.au gives a term that lets only one party decide whether to renew as an example of an unfair term in a standard form contract.
Changes~~We may vary the fee and scope at any time on notice.~~

Only one side able to vary terms such as the price is another of business.gov.au’s examples of an unfair term. Its contract guide suggests documenting any variation.
OwnershipAll content, reports and accounts created during the engagement remain the property of [agency name].

Under IP laws the contractor automatically owns what it creates. If you want to own it, business.gov.au says the contract must state this. See contracts and ownership.
DisputesEither party may give written notice of a dispute; the parties will meet to discuss it, then may refer it to mediation.

A clause like the one business.gov.au suggests: written notice, a set time to talk, then alternative dispute resolution.

A sample written for this guide. No real agency, client or fee. Square brackets mark the blanks a real proposal would fill.

Reading the scope

Scope is where most proposals are thinnest. business.gov.au’s guide to preparing a contract says it should describe the work to be done or the result to be achieved, and set out the conditions the contractor must meet for the work to be considered finished. Its own example contrasts a training contract that names the software, the number of staff, the dates, the length of each session and the materials, with one that just says the contractor “will train” the staff.

Applied to SEO, the same test asks which pages, which changes, how many articles, written by whom and approved by whom. Google’s list of services is a useful checklist for what might be in scope: a content or structure review, technical advice, content development, campaign management, keyword research, training, local or market expertise, and work on generative AI features.

If you can’t tell when the work is finished, neither can they.

Reading the reporting

A report is how you see the work, so it’s worth agreeing what goes in it before you sign. Google suggests asking an SEO how they measure success, and whether they’ll share every change they make to your site with the reasoning behind it. For the numbers, Google strongly encourages Search Console, and warns that some third-party tools provide data that users misread as coming from Google.

Timing matters too. Google says some changes take effect in a few hours and others take several months, so a report that judges this month’s work by this month’s rankings may be reading too early. More in how long SEO takes.

Reading the term

Look for how the agreement ends as well as how it starts. business.gov.au describes contracts ending by performance, by agreement, through frustration, by convenience or for a serious breach. If there’s an “end for convenience” clause, it suggests checking how much notice each side must give and what money is payable when the contract ends.

An SEO proposal offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis may be a standard form contract. business.gov.au explains that the Australian Consumer Law protects small businesses from unfair terms in these contracts. Only a court can find a contract term unfair; if it does, the term is void. Which businesses qualify, and from when, is set out on that page.

Before you sign

The work is described well enough that you could tell when it’s done
No guaranteed rankings, and no unexplained link building
Reports show the changes made and use data from your own Search Console
Access matches the stage of the work, starting with read access
The fee states whether GST is included, when it’s due and how it’s paid
You can see how the agreement renews, changes and ends
The contract says who owns the content and the accounts

Each line repeats a note from the sample above, where its source sits beside it.