SEO & Content Client Onboarding
Business goals, target keywords and audience, site access (CMS, Analytics, Search Console), content guidelines, agreement, and deposit.
SEO engagements have a uniquely painful onboarding problem: you need access to everything — CMS, Google Analytics, Search Console, sometimes hosting — and you need business context that only the client has. Until both arrive, the retainer clock runs on nothing.
This template collects the strategy inputs and the full access checklist in one pass, so the audit can start in week one instead of week four.
Who it's for: SEO consultants, content marketing agencies, and freelance writers running ongoing search or content engagements.
What's inside
The full flow your client walks through, step by step. Everything is editable in the builder before you send it.
Step 1 of 4
Welcome & Contact
Welcome! This onboarding gathers your goals and the site access we need to start the audit. It takes about 20 minutes, and you can save and come back any time.
- TextRequired
Your full name
- EmailRequired
Best email for project updates
- TextRequired
Company / business name
- Phone
Phone number (optional, for quick questions)
Step 2 of 4
Goals & Audience
- Long answerRequired
Which products or services make you the most money — and which do you want to grow?
- Long answerRequired
Who is your ideal customer, and what would they type into Google?
- Long answerRequired
What SEO or content work has been done before? What happened?
- Text
Top 3 competitors in search results
- Single choiceRequired
Who approves content before it's published?
Publish without review · One person reviews (within a week) · Legal/compliance review required
Step 3 of 4
Site & Tool Access
- TextRequired
What platform is your website built on?
- Long answerRequired
Access: Google Analytics, Search Console, and CMS — who manages these, and can you add us as users?
- File upload
Brand or editorial guidelines, past content audits, keyword research
Step 4 of 4
Agreement & Deposit
- E-signatureRequired
Service agreement
- PaymentRequired
Project deposit
Why this template works
- Access checklist covers CMS, Analytics, Search Console, and ad platforms
- Captures what the client actually sells most profitably — not just keywords
- Documents content approval and publishing rights before the first brief
Frequently asked questions
- What access does an SEO agency need from a client?
- At minimum: Google Analytics and Search Console (viewer or higher), CMS access sufficient to edit pages and publish, and any rank-tracking or ads accounts in scope. Prefer being added as a user over shared logins — every platform involved supports it.
- What should an SEO intake form ask besides keywords?
- Which products or services are most profitable (rankings should serve revenue, not vanity), who the ideal customer is and how they search, what's been tried before and what happened, plus compliance constraints — regulated industries change what content can claim.
- Why ask about previous SEO work?
- Past penalties, link-building history, and abandoned migrations shape today's strategy more than anything else. A client who's been burned by a previous agency also needs different communication — better to know on day one.