If you’re about to embark on a freelance career in SEO, you must decide how you want to set up contracts with clients. Many SEO professionals start with a six-month contract since it can take this long for the client’s website to move up in the rankings because of your efforts. Be very specific about what you’ll do, for example, performing a competitive analysis or optimizing meta tags. After six months, on-page SEO is complete, except for creating new content. Many professionals switch clients to month-to-month contracts that call for content creation and content marketing. Clients in highly competitive markets may need more than content creation; they will need ongoing link building and other services. You can also switch your focus to optimizing conversions since more traffic isn't beneficial unless it earns the client more money. Savvy SEO professionals offer custom quotes based on the size on the client's website, the industry and whether the client had previous SEO work done by a firm engaging in black hat practices. It can be very time consuming cleaning up a website that suffered a Google penalty. Educate your client about what needs to be done to justify your extra fee. Avoid tying your payment to specific outcomes. You cannot guarantee what search engines will do and you can never promise a client that they will rank higher for a specific keyword within a specific time frame. Make sure your fee is non-refundable if you do the work you promised to do. You cannot control the client's competition and their SEO efforts. Have a lawyer that understands SEO go over the contract and suggest disclaimers that you may not have thought of yourself. For example, if you supply monthly reports, the client gets a one-hour call each month to go over questions and concerns. Otherwise, you'll have at least one client that checks their ranking daily and feels he or she deserves an explanation on their current ranking. For more information click here https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/afsf1q/howlongdoyouretainaclientonaveragedoyou/.