The SEO client onboarding checklist for the first 30 days

Split it into four stages so nothing waits on everything else. Stage one is paperwork and scope: the signed agreement, the list of in-scope sites, markets and site sections, and what the agency may change directly versus recommend. Stage two is access. Stage three is the baseline. Stage four is the plan for the first month.

Stages two and three run in parallel with the questionnaire. You can send the intake form the day the contract is signed, request access the same day, and start exporting data as soon as the first read permission arrives. The kickoff call then reviews answers you already have instead of collecting them live.

Keep the checklist specific to the services sold. A technical-audit engagement needs developer access and a release process; a content retainer needs subject experts and an editorial approver; a local SEO engagement needs Business Profile access. A single generic list either asks for access you do not need or misses the one system that blocks the work.

Search Console has owners (verified or delegated), full users, restricted users and associates. A full user can view all data and perform some actions, which covers most day-to-day SEO work. Only an owner can add users, and email groups cannot be added, so send the client the exact Google Account address you want invited.

Ask which property type exists. A domain property covers every subdomain and protocol; a URL-prefix property covers only that prefix. If the client has several overlapping properties, record which one is the reporting source so two people do not quote different numbers.

GA4 lets an administrator grant access at account level (every property inherits it) or at property level. A permission given higher up cannot be reduced lower down, so for a client with several brands, ask for property-level access to the property in scope. Viewer is enough to read reports and build explorations; Marketer is needed to create key events and audiences.

Tag Manager splits account permissions (User or Administrator) from container permissions (No access, Read, Edit, Approve, Publish). Read is enough to audit what fires. If you will implement tracking, agree whether the agency publishes or hands a version to the client's developer to publish, and write that into the scope.

Create a named user for each person on the agency side. A shared agency login makes it impossible to tell who changed what, and removing one departing employee means resetting access for everyone. In WordPress, Editor covers publishing and editing other users' posts; plugin and theme changes need Administrator, so request that only when the scope includes them.

Most SEO work never needs registrar or hosting logins. What you need is a person: who can add a DNS TXT record for verification, who can deploy redirects, and how fast they respond. Record their name and expected turnaround in the onboarding sheet. Never collect passwords, recovery codes or API tokens in a questionnaire or an email thread.

Standard GA4 properties can keep user-level and event-level data for 2 or 14 months. That setting affects explorations and funnel reports, not standard aggregated reports. If a client's property is on 2 months and you plan year-over-year explorations later, ask the administrator to change it now; the change does not bring back data that has already expired.

Questions 2 and 5 do the most work. Question 2 tells you whether the baseline will include outcomes or only traffic. Question 5 explains anomalies in the 16-month export before you misread them as your own results. Question 6 changes the order of work: if a redesign is planned, URL preservation and redirect mapping come before new content.

Keep keyword wish lists out of the required set. A client's keyword list is useful input, but the research should come from the data you are about to export, not from the form.

Zunoform handles the questionnaire part. The SEO Client Onboarding Questionnaire template asks for the site URL, priority services and markets, the customer actions search should produce, who can arrange access, planned migrations and approvers, and it reminds clients not to paste passwords. Responses can go to Google Sheets on the free plan, which gives you a live onboarding tracker. Free includes 500 responses a month, which is plenty for onboarding volumes; Tally and Google Forms offer unlimited free responses if that matters more to you.

It does not grant or test platform access, run crawls or export Search Console data. Those stay in each vendor's own tools. If you want access requests handled in one guided flow, dedicated access-request tools exist for that; a form is the right tool for context and ownership, not for permissions.