Is It Out of Scope? — SEO & marketing
Is translating the site into another language out of scope for an SEO / marketing project?
Yes for the translation and international SEO setup itself — international/multilingual SEO (hreflang, locale targeting) is a distinct specialty most single-market retainers don't include.
The retainer was scoped around ranking in one language/market — keyword research, content, and technical SEO all built around that market's search behavior. A request to "do SEO for the Spanish version too" bundles together several distinct things: translating existing content, doing separate keyword research for the new market (direct translation of keywords rarely matches actual local search behavior), and implementing hreflang tags and locale-specific technical SEO — none of which the original retainer scoped or priced for.
Is it out of scope?
Yes. International SEO is close to a second engagement layered on the first — separate keyword research, separate content strategy, and technical implementation (hreflang, locale sitemaps) the single-market retainer didn't include. Even where the agency is well-positioned to do this work, it's additional scope, not an extension of the current deliverables.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Assumptions clause→ — States the market/language the retainer's strategy and reporting are built around — expanding to a new market invalidates that assumption.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Our current retainer is scoped around [market/language] search behavior — expanding to [new language] means separate keyword research (direct translation rarely maps to how people actually search there) plus hreflang and locale technical setup. I'd recommend scoping this as its own engagement so it gets the dedicated research it needs — happy to put together a proposal.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags a new-market/language expansion request outside_scope against the contract's extracted market scope, and the explanation is specific about why — separate keyword research and technical implementation, not just "more work" — which is useful for the account manager pitching the expansion as its own proposal rather than something to squeeze into the existing retainer for free.