Is It Out of Scope? — SEO & marketing
Is building a custom form beyond the template library out of scope for an SEO retainer?
Yes. Form design and build work has no overlap with search strategy or optimization.
This one occasionally surfaces when a conversion-focused SEO recommendation ("a lead form would help capture this traffic") gets read by the client as an offer to build the form too.
Is it out of scope?
Yes. Recommending a form as part of a conversion strategy is analysis; designing and building the form itself is a different discipline entirely.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Exclusions clause→ — Form design and build work is excluded from an SEO retainer even when recommended as part of a conversion strategy.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
We recommended a form to help capture that traffic, but actually designing and building it is outside this retainer — that'd need to go to your design or dev team, or I can point you toward a separate scope for it.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags form-build requests outside_scope on SEO contracts, keeping the distinction between recommending a conversion element and building it.