Our agreement to build the new Clay Burnett Group website, and to get it found by the hiring clients you want most.

1 Our goal

Our whole goal is to make you happy. The surest way we know to do that is to be crystal clear from the start, so nothing about this project ever comes as a surprise. That's all this agreement really is: the two of us, on the same page, in writing.

Your goal is specific, and we want it stated plainly here so we are both measured against the same thing: a website that makes employers want to call you about an important hire. Clay Burnett Group has placed executives and professionals in Accounting & Finance, Information Technology, Human Resources and Operations since 2008. The new site has to show that experience to the senior hiring decision-makers you want to work with, not just to job seekers. Candidates still get a clear, separate path to send you a resume. The site's first job is to win new hiring clients.

2 What we're building

A new website for Clay Burnett Group, built by us on a modern, high-performance platform. It loads fast, it stays secure, and you can edit it yourself.

Your existing content and web addresses

Your current site has 48 pages and posts. There are 23 website pages: the home page, the employer and specialty pages, the job seeker pages, the About Us section, the blog listing, Contact Us, Client Access, Privacy, Terms & Conditions, Support and the Site Map. There are also 25 individual blog posts.

How pages and templates are counted

A page is anything you click through to at its own web address. A page template is a page that is genuinely unique in its design and its editing interface. Pages built on top of an existing template don't count as new templates. So a site with a home page and four specialty pages that all share one layout is five pages and two templates.

This build includes 4 unique page templates for your website pages, plus the blog listing and blog post layouts your 25 posts need. As you guessed, most of your pages can share a layout, and every blog post uses the same one.

When additional page charges apply

Moving your existing 48 pages and posts never triggers an extra charge. Extra charges apply only if you ask for something new during the build that goes beyond the above: $25 per new page built on a template we've already made, and $500 per additional unique page template. Nothing gets added without you agreeing to the price first. After launch, new pages and new blog posts are covered by your monthly plan (see section 8).

3 The direction we agreed on

On our call on October 1 you reviewed two design concepts and chose the modern direction: clean layouts with tasteful motion. Here is the direction we are holding to, taken from that call and from the questionnaire you sent us.

• Hiring clients first. The copy speaks to the senior people who make hiring decisions, so the site attracts high-level clients rather than mostly job seekers.
• Easy ways for an employer to reach you from every page, by phone or through a short inquiry form about a hiring need.
• A separate path for candidates to send a resume for future consideration, kept apart from the employer path.
• Your specialties, your process and your people. The roles you fill and how you recruit, plus your team and client testimonials, so a new client trusts you quickly.
• A mature, modern, confident tone. Professional without being stiff.
• Blues as the main colour family, as you chose. Fonts are our recommendation, for your approval.

The page list starts from the 48 pages and posts on your current site. We confirm it with you at the kickoff meeting. Any page we suggest adding, combining or retiring happens only with your agreement, and a retired page's address redirects to its closest match.

4 How the project runs

Kickoff

We start with a kickoff meeting to lock your page list and agree who signs off on what.

Content

We handle the heavy lifting. We pull the content off your current site, including all 25 blog posts. We write and organize the new copy for every page and bring it to you for approval, so you review and correct rather than starting from a blank page. We'll also help source photography. There are excellent free stock libraries, and where a paid image is the right one they typically run $10 to $30 each. You can buy those directly, or we can buy them on your behalf and bill them back to you at cost. Anything you supply yourself, we'll use.

Design

We design the home page first. Once you're happy with it, your fonts, colors, spacing, header, footer and overall look and feel are settled. Then we design the remaining page templates. You give feedback by pointing and clicking directly on the design, and you have unlimited rounds of revision. There is no revision cap on this project. We do ask that you send feedback in consolidated batches rather than one note at a time. That is what keeps the build moving quickly.

Development and launch

We build the site, make every page work properly on phones and tablets, load your content, set up the redirects for any changed addresses, handle the on-page SEO tagging, and run our own quality assurance across browsers and devices before you ever see it. You then review the finished site on a live preview link. We make your final corrections, and once you approve it we launch.

5 Timeline

This process moves in weeks, not months. That's the whole point of how we work now. We'll give you a firm launch date at kickoff, once we know how quickly content approvals and your photography can come back to us. Those two things, not our build time, are what set the pace. Delays on approvals move the launch date, and we'll always tell you when that's happening rather than let it drift quietly.

6 What we need from you

• Your logo source files.
• Team details: names, short bios and photos for anyone you want on the site.
• Client testimonials you are happy for us to publish.
• A yes on the page list: which pages stay as they are, and anything you want combined or added.
• Content approvals: sign-off on copy, and the occasional question only you can answer. We won't need much of your time, but we will need some.

7 Deliverables, goals & guarantees

We agree to deliver the services above. We guarantee the work, and we will keep working on it until it is right. What we don't do is guarantee a business outcome we don't control. Search rankings and AI answers are decided by Google, ChatGPT and the other platforms, and how many enquiries you receive depends on your market as much as on our work. Anyone who promises you a number is guessing. We don't offer a money-back guarantee on services already rendered.

8 Your monthly plan: Market Dominator, Foundation included

Once the site launches, your monthly plan begins. You are not billed for it during the build.

What the Foundation Plan covers

• Hosting, security and monitoring. We keep the site fast, current and online.
• Daily backups.
• Unlimited content updates. Send them to us and we make them. Any page, any time.
• Heat mapping, so you see what visitors actually look at and click on.
• Quarterly redesign requests. Every quarter you can ask for as many design changes as you want, and add as many new pages as you want. If you decide a year in that you want the whole site to look different, that is included.
• A real human. Victor and our support team, throughout.

What Market Dominator adds

• Local SEO: keyword research, Google Business Profile management and review generation, and on-page fixes, so employers in your area find you when they search for a recruiter.
• Monthly content written to win the searches your hiring clients make.
• Structured data, so search engines and AI tools read your site correctly.
• Rank and AI-citation reporting, plus competitor tracking.
• A monthly strategy call.

All of it is built so Clay Burnett Group gets named when someone asks Google or ChatGPT for an executive search firm.

The twelve-month commitment

The Foundation Plan is a twelve-month commitment from launch, billed monthly. The SEO services are not locked in. You can cancel Market Dominator at any time by telling us in writing, and the change takes effect from your next monthly billing date. If you cancel it inside the first twelve months, your plan goes back to the Foundation Plan at $297 a month until the twelve months are up. What happens after the twelve months is entirely your choice. See section 9.

Your current $40 plan

This plan covers the new Clay Burnett Group website. It replaces the $40 a month maintenance plan on your current site. That plan keeps running until the new site launches. Then it stops and your new plan takes over. You are never billed for both in the same month.

9 At twelve months: three doors, all yours

When the twelve months are up, you pick one. There is no automatic lock-in and no penalty in any direction.

If you cancel at any point after the twelve months, you keep the site either way.

10 Ownership & rights

Everything we create for you belongs entirely to you once it is paid for: the design, the code, the content. We retain no rights to it and won't reuse it on another project. If you ever leave, it all goes with you and we will help hand it over cleanly. We do reserve the right to show the finished work in our portfolio and case studies.

We work as an independent contractor, not as your employee, and we're responsible for our own taxes, insurance and equipment. Your domain name stays registered in your name and under your control throughout. We never take ownership of it.

11 Copyright & trademark

For any text, graphics, photographs, logos or trademarks you send us to include, you confirm that you either own them or have permission to use them, and you agree to hold us harmless from any claim arising from materials you provided.

12 Your current site and other systems

Your current site stays online, as it is, until the new site launches. We deliver the new site in good working order and we stand behind it. We are not responsible for infrastructure we don't manage, such as your email service or your domain registrar. If something outside our work breaks, we'll help you sort it out, but it isn't covered by this agreement.