Is It Out of Scope? — SEO & marketing
Is creating a style guide after project completion out of scope for an SEO retainer?
Yes. A visual style guide is design documentation with no relationship to an SEO retainer's scoped work.
This is a rare request on an SEO retainer, usually surfacing when a client's brand assets are scattered and they ask whoever they're already paying to "just document it."
Is it out of scope?
Yes. Documenting a visual system is design work, unrelated to the content and technical-optimization deliverables an SEO retainer is scoped around.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Exclusions clause→ — Visual style-guide documentation is excluded from an SEO retainer as an unrelated discipline.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Documenting the visual style guide isn't part of this retainer — that's design work. I can point you to whoever handled the original design if it's still needed.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags style-guide requests outside_scope on SEO contracts, treating them the same as any other unrelated design-discipline ask.