What Is an SEO Statement of Work, and What Does It Include?

You’ve finally decided to hire an agency to help you with your search engine optimization (SEO). You’re hearing a lot of great ideas from different agencies, and some sound better than others. 

Ready to commit? Before you do, you need to ask for an SEO Statement of Work.

But what exactly is that?

Keep reading to get all the answers you need, like:

What is an SEO Statement of Work?

An SEO SOW is a detailed document that provides an overview of your SEO project. It outlines everything that your marketing agency agrees to do for you before starting on your SEO strategy. Think of it like the game plan against a rival team — it lays out exactly what your agency will do to help you win in the search engine results.

What’s included in an SEO statement of work?

When you ask for an SEO Statement of Work, what can you expect to see in it? Here are a few things that you want to see in your document:

1. Goals

First and foremost, your SEO Statement of Work should directly address your goals. When you invest in SEO, you have specific goals you want to achieve — that could be smaller goals like increasing traffic and leads or bigger goals like increasing revenue and bottom-line business growth.

Think about why you’re hiring an SEO agency in the first place — what do you want them to help you accomplish? The answer to that question should be laid out in the goals section of your SEO Statement of Work.

Keep in mind, too, that your agency may lay out your larger goals and then set smaller goals to help you achieve those big goals. If you want to increase revenue, for example, your agency might set smaller goals to increase brand visibility or boost search rankings to help you meet those larger goals.

2. Summary of how the work will be completed

This section is a key component of the SEO SOW — it should detail your campaign strategy and timeline for completing the tasks at hand.

You should see information like:

• What tasks your SEO agency will complete for your business
• What processes will be used to complete tasks (keyword research, content creation, etc.)
• Timeline for completing projects
• How your SEO agency plans to report results

Basically, this section details what tactics your agency will use to help you with your SEO and when they expect to complete different projects.

3. Deliverables

Another key component of an SEO SOW is the deliverables section. This section provides the nitty-gritty details of what your SEO company will actually be doing for your campaigns.

Some common deliverables include things like:

• Conducting a competitor analysis
• Auditing your current SEO strategy
• Producing industry-relevant, targeted content
• Optimizing your title tags and meta descriptions 
• Delivering monthly reports on marketing performance

Basically, the deliverables highlight exactly what tasks your agency plans to do to help you achieve your SEO goals.

So, with keyword research as an example, the process is to conduct keyword research to identify high value keywords. The deliverable is the industry-relevant, keyword-targeted content you get for your website.

4. Who’s working on your strategy

A good SEO Statement of Work will include details about who’s working on your strategy. The details of this will depend upon the agency.

Some agencies will detail the types of people working on your campaign, like an SEO strategist, content writer, and conversion specialist. Other agencies will detail exactly who you’re working with so you can put a name to the position.

Generally, you want to see multiple people working on your strategy. A typical team might include:

• An account manager who coordinates with you on your campaigns and keeps you up to date
• An SEO strategist that’s skilled in the strategy and manages most of your tactics
• A content writer who helps create content for your business
• A content editor that polishes content before it’s published on your website
• A conversion specialist who helps identify opportunities to earn more revenue with SEO

How your team looks depends on the agency and the scope of SEO work you need for your strategy. Regardless, your SEO SOW should provide details on what kinds of specialists are working on your campaign.

What shouldn’t be in an SEO Statement of Work?

An SEO Statement of Work can look different depending on the company and level of detail they provide. So, it’s important to understand what you don’t want to see in your statement.

Here are a few red flags to look out for:

• Guaranteed specific rankings: If you see the agency guaranteeing specific rankings anywhere (“We’ll get you ranking #1!”) in your statement — run. No agency can guarantee positioning in the search results, so any agency that does is likely using black-hat SEO techniques that will ultimately hurt your business.
• An emphasis on quantity over quality: Another red flag is if your agency’s statement focuses heavily on the quantity of leads over the quality. This emphasis could indicate they’re using less-than-ethical strategies to inflate performance numbers, without actually delivering results. Ideally, you want a balance of both quantity and quality, but at the very least, quality should be the focus.
• Cookie-cutter approaches: It’s a common problem in SEO, so you need to look out for it. If your SEO Statement of Work doesn’t show an approach tailored to your business, that agency won’t be a good fit for you. Don’t settle for cookie-cutter plans — make sure your campaign approach is tailored to you.
• Lack of pricing detail: If you’re at the point where you’re ready to hire a certain agency, you should know how much it costs. Your SEO SOW should include some details about the cost of your strategy. Keep a lookout for hidden fees — some agencies might try to slide them in without you seeing (and that’s not an agency you want to work with!)
• No clear plan of communication: If you’re going to hire an SEO agency, you want to ensure they’ll keep you updated on what they’re doing. If your SEO statement doesn’t include a clear plan of communication, it may not be the right agency for you.

Get an SEO SOW built for you

If you’re looking at other agencies and finding their SEO Statement of Work isn’t what you expected, you may have to go back to the drawing board to find the right agency. Luckily, you’re in the right place.

WebFX has won over 58 SEO awards for the work we’ve done for our clients. We deliver custom SEO strategies that help businesses like yours drive a better return on investment with your marketing and boost your company’s bottom line.

Want to get a proposal and SOW built to help you succeed? Contact us today or call us at 888-601-5359 to get the process started!