If you have bit the bullet and are offering any SEO or Webmaster services to offline or on-line clients there are a few things you MUST do to protect yourself.  With the influx of all these dumb “GURU’S” releasing all these products on how to do off-line seo’s there are hundreds of brand new webmasters who have never really done this before out there trying to sell their services that ARE NOT protected.

(do them a favor if you see them talking about it in forums and send them here)

You aren’t just building someone’s website, or building links – you are directly affecting their business and if you screw up (contract or not) they will sue you.

1.) Form a LLC to limit your liability.  It’s very affordable to do and for the most part if you are a sole proprietorship the taxes don’t change much and the “reporting” is easier.  You might save some tax money with a s-corp but the amount of paperwork is insane.

If you can’t afford to do so you have no business doing seo for someone else as you don’t have the cash reserves or the experience to do it.

2.) Get liability insurance and get your LLC/Yourself  bonded.

If you can’t afford to do so you have no business doing seo for someone else as you don’t have the cash reserves or the experience to do it.

3.) If you are marketing for them make sure you understand the laws that apply to you.  You can’t send out coupons that make false claims for example.  If you are doing signage the town/city/state will have rules that apply.  Make sure you back up their list.

4.) A contract no matter how good does not protect you from negligence.

5.) Back Ups are your friend.  Make sure you are charging for doing so and then use any solution to make sure you are doing it.  Weekly, monthly, etc….

And most importantly…………

Make sure you have the skills to do the job.  If you have to ask for advice at every step of the way on a forum you aren’t ready.  You will probably screw up…….. and since it’s local seo when you mess with their income/money it may very well come down to a real problem.  Let’s say you mess up the website (that you probably didn’t build) they paid 5k for…. think that’s o.k.? It’s not.  It’s their property and you have just been hired to maintain or improve it.

If you doubt your abilities make some fake websites and get them to rank for the terms you want.  Start collecting leads and mailing to them, go through the whole process you “THINK” you would be doing for a client.  Come back and add new features, make changes to the sites months later and see how they are affected, etc…

Do it to yourself before you do it to someone else’s money.