Legal

Terms of Service

DRAFT FOR ATTORNEY REVIEW. This is not legal advice. A licensed California attorney should review both documents before they are published on rankconvertlocal.com.

Effective date: [DATE]

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) apply to your use of rankconvertlocal.com (the “Site”) and to the services provided by RankConvert Local (“RankConvert Local,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), operated by Paul Peterson, a sole proprietor doing business as RankConvert Local. By using the Site or our services, you agree to these Terms. If you sign a separate written Service Agreement with us, that agreement controls if it conflicts with these Terms.

1. Who we serve

We provide website and local marketing services to local businesses, mainly in the San Diego, California area. You must be at least [18] years old and authorized to act for your business to buy our services.

2. Our services

Our services may include:

  • Website redesign. A WordPress website, self-hosted on infrastructure we control. Typical timelines, counted from when we receive all required materials:
    • 1 to 6 pages: about 1 week
    • 7 to 12 pages: about 10 days, plus $500
    • 13 to 18 pages: about 2 weeks, plus $1,000
  • Local SEO setup. On-page local SEO (such as titles, descriptions, headings, schema markup, and local keywords) and Google Business Profile review and optimization.
  • Introductory package. $1,497 one time, limited to 5 clients at introductory pricing. [INTRODUCTORY PACKAGE CONTENTS]
  • Monthly Maintenance & Growth plan. $197 per month at the introductory rate [STANDARD PRICING]. Includes hosting, security updates, backups, small content updates you request by email, a monthly Google Business Profile post and review-reply check, and a short monthly report. “Small content updates” means minor text, photo, hours, or service changes. Larger work, such as new pages or redesigns, is quoted separately.
  • Step 2: Google Ads setup and management. Setup is $499, or $199 for clients who have completed our Step 1 website service. Setup includes one landing page; extra landing pages are $100 each. Monthly management is a flat fee based on your ad-spend tier [MANAGEMENT TIERS]. Your ad spend is paid directly by you to Google and is not included in our fees. We aim for top-of-page sponsored placement, but placement is not guaranteed.

Timelines are estimates. Delays in receiving content, approvals, or access may delay the schedule.

3. Free mockups

We may prepare a free website mockup for your business, either because you asked for one or as part of our outreach. A mockup is a sample only. It does not create an obligation for either of us, and you may not use the mockup’s design or code without becoming a client. Any of your own business content shown in a mockup remains yours.

4. No guarantee of results

Search rankings, traffic, leads, calls, sales, and ad results depend on many things outside our control, including Google’s algorithms and policies, competition, your market, your budget, and your business itself. We do not guarantee any specific ranking, placement, traffic, leads, revenue, or advertising result.

5. Your responsibilities

You agree to:

  • Provide requested content, images, logins, and approvals promptly
  • Make sure you own or have the right to use everything you give us (text, photos, logos), and give us permission to use it for your project
  • Make sure your business information, offers, and ads are accurate and lawful, and that your business follows the rules that apply to it (for example, licensing or advertising rules for your industry)
  • Keep your own accounts (such as your domain, Google Business Profile, and Google Ads account) in good standing, and pay third parties, including Google, directly
  • Review and approve your site before launch

6. Payments

  • Prices are listed above or in your written quote or Service Agreement. [STANDARD PRICING]
  • One-time project fees: a 50% deposit is due to start the project. The remaining 50% is due before the site goes live on your domain; we launch the site once final payment is received.
  • Monthly plans are billed monthly in advance, starting on your site’s launch date (or the start date in your agreement).
  • Payments are processed through Stripe. We send invoices through Stripe, and you can pay by card or bank transfer. Monthly plans are billed as recurring subscriptions through Stripe.
  • If a payment is more than [10] days late, we may pause services until it is paid.
  • Introductory pricing stays locked while your monthly plan stays continuously active, subject to at least 60 days’ written notice of any change.
  • Refunds: one-time setup fees are not refundable after work has begun, and we do not refund partial months.

7. Revisions and scope

During the initial design build, revisions are unlimited. We will keep making changes to the agreed pages on the staging (preview) version of your site until you approve the design. You have 14 days to review each version we send and reply with your feedback. If you do not respond within that 14-day review window, the design is treated as approved, and you may request one further round of changes only by scheduling new work. A revision is a change to the agreed design or content of the agreed pages, not new features or new pages. Your site goes live after your written approval (an email counts) and once final payment is received (see Section 6).

After launch, we will fix anything on your site that is broken or wrong for 30 days at no charge. After that, small edits are covered by your monthly plan. New pages, redesigns, or other larger changes are outside the included revisions and will be quoted separately before we do the work.

8. Ownership and intellectual property

  • You own your domain name, business name, logo, brand, and all content, text, and photos you provide.
  • Your Google Business Profile and Google Ads account remain yours. We are added as a manager or user only.
  • We own our templates, code, themes, plugins, tools, and methods. While your monthly plan is active, you have the right to use your website and its design for your business.
  • Third-party themes and plugins remain subject to their own licenses. Premium licenses we hold are not transferable.

9. Hosting and access

While your monthly plan is active, your site is hosted on our hosting account (currently Cloudways/DigitalOcean). You can receive Editor-level access on request. Administrator access stays with us to protect the site’s security and stability.

10. Cancellation, termination, and handoff

  • Monthly plans continue month to month. Either of us may cancel with 30 days’ written notice (email counts). [ADS TERM / NOTICE]
  • We may suspend or end services if you do not pay or otherwise break these Terms or your Service Agreement.
  • Handoff: if you request it within 30 days after cancellation, we will hand off your site for a one-time handoff fee, as stated in your Service Agreement, paid before the transfer. The handoff covers a full export of your site (a standard WordPress export plus a migration file), handover of your files (including all content and images you provided) and logins, and one short walkthrough. We complete the handoff within 5 business days after receiving the fee. We will remove ourselves from your Google Business Profile, Google Ads, and other accounts once you confirm.
  • More than 30 days after service ends, we may delete your site and backups from our servers.

11. Third-party platforms

Our services rely on third-party platforms and tools, including Google (Search, Google Business Profile, Google Ads, Google Workspace), WordPress and its plugins and themes, and our hosting providers. These platforms have their own terms and policies, which you may need to accept. They can change features, rules, or prices, suspend accounts, or have outages at any time. We are not responsible for their actions, and changes they make may affect your results or require extra work, which we will quote separately if it is outside your plan.

12. Using the Site

You agree not to misuse the Site, including by trying to break into it, disrupt it, send spam through our forms, or copy its content or design for commercial use without our permission. Site content is provided for general information only.

13. Warranty disclaimer

Except for the 30-day post-launch fixes described in Section 7 and as stated in a written Service Agreement, the Site and our services are provided “as is” and “as available.” To the fullest extent allowed by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not promise the Site or your website will be uninterrupted or error-free.

14. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent allowed by law:

  • Our total liability for any claim related to the Site or our services is limited to the fees you paid us in the [3] months before the claim.
  • We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, or for lost profits, revenue, or data.
  • We are not liable for problems caused by third-party services, such as hosting outages, plugin issues, search engine or Google Ads changes, or account suspensions.

Some laws do not allow certain limits, so some of these may not apply to you.

15. Indemnity

You agree to cover our reasonable losses and costs (including attorney’s fees) from claims arising out of content or materials you provided, your ads or business practices, or your breach of these Terms. [ATTORNEY TO CONFIRM WHETHER TO INCLUDE]

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California. Any dispute will be handled in the state or federal courts located in San Diego County, California. [DISPUTE PROCESS] Before filing a claim, we each agree to try to resolve the issue informally by email first.

17. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will post the updated version on this page and change the effective date. Changes do not affect a signed Service Agreement unless both of us agree in writing.

18. General

If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Our not enforcing a term is not a waiver. These Terms, together with any written quote or Service Agreement, are the entire agreement between us about their subject.

19. Contact

  • RankConvert Local (sole proprietorship)
  • Owner/Operator: Paul Peterson
  • Email: paul@rankconvertlocal.com
  • Phone: (619) 600-5921
  • Mailing address: 1050 University Ave, Suite E107 #782, San Diego, CA 92103
  • Website: rankconvertlocal.com
  • Notices: please send any notices by email to paul@rankconvertlocal.com. Mailing address: 1050 University Ave, Suite E107 #782, San Diego, CA 92103.