Is It Out of Scope? — Web development
Is expanding SEO into a new market or country out of scope for a web development project?
Yes, as strategy — though technical support like hreflang tags or a new locale's URL structure is genuine development work if it's already part of the build.
A client expanding into a new country sometimes routes the SEO conversation through their dev team, since technical elements like URL structure and hreflang tags do sit in development's territory even though the strategy behind them doesn't.
Is it out of scope?
SEO market-entry strategy is out of scope. Implementing specific technical requirements — hreflang tags, a locale-specific URL structure, a new sitemap segment — is legitimate development work, but it needs to come as a defined spec, not "make it ready for the new market."
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Exclusions clause→ — The engagement covers development work; SEO strategy is excluded, while specific technical implementation requests are evaluated against the deliverables list.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Figuring out the SEO strategy for the new market is outside what we do here — an SEO specialist should own that. Once they've defined specific technical needs (hreflang tags, URL structure, etc.), I can quote implementing those.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags open-ended SEO strategy requests outside_scope while treating narrowly-defined technical implementation asks as ordinary change requests to be scoped once specified, rather than declining all market-expansion mentions outright.