SEO Contract Length For Smaller Websites

I was reviewing a variety of website posts about SEO and came across this article by Chris Boggs.  The gist of the article is that SEO should be performed in an on-going basis throughout the life of a website.  I agree with that wholeheartedly.  Obviously, because of the nature of search engines, if you stop your SEO efforts cold-turkey you will eventually drop down in your SERPs and overall traffic will decrease.

My “huh” arises later on in the article when Chris states that SEO contracts should be a minimum of three years.  I understand the premise.  If you have a client whose website is … say … 300 pages deep, you have some work cutout for you.  But if you have a small business client who has eight pages and doesn’t have an established brand, you’ll have a difficult time convincing them they need to lock into a contract that long.

Half of the SEO battle is trying to educate a client or prospect on the ins-and-outs of SEO methods.  In short, I can’t imagine trying to convince a client they need a three year contract when they still may have questions about whether they even need the service.