Unpopular opinion: 12-18 month contracts are optimal, maybe even essential for successful full service SEO retainers.
Why?
Securing the future income means you can frontload the content resource and get the results faster.
25-50 revenue and search focused articles in month 1 is better than spread out over 12 months or longer.
You can start the ranking countdown timer quicker, and by month 6 (when rankings have kicked in) you can show your client some ROI.
The development of linkable assets can all be done month 1 with enough resource, the rest of the months can focus on promotion.
The Alternative?
Budget is squeezed month by month, because “no contracts!” as if it’s a good thing. Only a certain amount of content can be published each month because of this, and it limits growth.
This is what can cause high turnover of impatient clients that haven’t fully ‘bought in’ to SEO.
How to get long term contract retainers?
Can’t get retainers with a contract just like that. Going to market to a business owner that doesn’t know you, asking them to sign a 12 month contract won’t end well.
Earn trust with a productised one off irresistible offer.
Start by creating a one off service. A service with an end date, and no commitment. Here’s a guide I created on how to come up with such a service.
After you have worked with them successfully on your productised service, think upsell the retainers on the backed.
QUERY HUNTER- 7 day free trial with this link.
FATJOE - need SEO deliverables for your agency? Give FATJOE a try, complete money back guarantee.
And that’s a wrap for this week.
Enjoyed this weeks newsletter? Any suggestions?
Let me know, hit reply, I read every email.
Thanks
Joe Davies