As your SEO agency grows and acquires more clients, you get excited at the idea of scaling SEO agency operations to take your agency to new heights. Scaling may be an exciting idea, but it can be very challenging because of the complexities involved.
Scaling SEO agency operations is not just about expanding in size. It’s also about managing a growing workload, juggling effective communication between an increasing number of clients, and much more.
Table of contents
- Managing a growing workload
- Developing scalable processes
- Maintaining SEO service quality
- Communicating with an increasing number of clients
- Managing finances
- Integrating new processes and technologies
- Building a company culture
1. Managing a growing workload
The more SEO clients you acquire, the bigger the workload your team needs to carry. This can easily lead to burnout and mismanagement, affecting not just your SEO productivity, but also your SEO output, client relations, and credibility in the digital marketing industry. Project management tools, specialized teams, and a streamlined client onboarding process are a great start in reducing the pressure of a growing workload and making your internal processes more efficient.
- Invest in advanced project management tools. When you are a new SEO agency, you may be able to work on SEO projects with simple project management tools like the Google Workspace. Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Meet may be enough for your operations. But when you are trying to scale your SEO operations and agency, you should invest in more powerful project management tools like Asana, Basecamp, and Trello.
- Create specialized teams and roles. Many SEO professionals are generalists. They can do practically anything, from content creation and link building to email marketing and social media. But when your agency is growing, you may want to consider hiring professionals in specialized roles. When you have specialized SEO professionals, you get output much quicker, not to mention that their output may be just outright better than generalist SEO professionals. Quick turnarounds can help you scale your operations.
- Streamline your client onboarding process. Standardizing your operations is a must. This applies not just to your SEO operations, from auditing to reporting. It also applies to the client side of things. Develop a standardized onboarding process to integrate new clients. This can be crucial, especially if you have new processes and tools to accommodate your growing operations.
2. Developing scalable processes
You can still pull off having inefficient and time-consuming processes when you are just a small SEO agency. For example, when you are looking for prospects for your link building and guest posting campaigns, you can do it manually and visit websites on your own. You can pull it off because you only have a handful of clients. But when you have tens or hundreds of clients, you won’t be able to do this anymore, and the more you delay developing more scalable solutions, the more damage your SEO agency will suffer.
- Embrace automation tools. Certain SEO processes become unsustainable when you keep doing them manually. Automating them may be the way to go, and no, this is not considered cheating. Automating processes is just efficient and practically essential if you want to scale your SEO operations. Routine and repetitive tasks, such as data analysis, gathering, and reporting, are some of the first SEO processes you should consider automating.
- Develop standard operating procedures. Write clear SOPs on how each SEO procedure needs to be done. Compile these well-defined procedures and you will have an efficient SEO process. Having a standardized workflow contributes not just to scalability, but also to consistency. It also allows for easier replication, which is essential when the procedures are routine, like content creation, keyword research, and link building.
- Periodically review your existing processes. Document your procedures and your entire SEO process. Make sure that every member of your team is following your standardized workflow. And then periodically review this documentation to see lapses and rooms for improvement. This way, you are constantly looking to make your SEO process more efficient and scalable. Ultimately, you should have a dynamic SEO process.
3. Maintaining SEO service quality
Providing high-quality SEO services is easy if you just have a handful of clients. But try juggling multiple clients at the same time. When you don’t have proper scaling solutions, your SEO agency operations will suffer, resulting in poor SEO results, unhappy clients, and a tarnished agency brand. Maintain the quality of your SEO services no matter how many clients you work with by following these tips.
- Segment clients based on their needs and expectations. As an SEO agency, even if you specialize in niche services, you will have different clients with different expectations and objectives. Categorize your client base, so it becomes easier to deal with diverse SEO campaigns, executions, and strategies. When you segment your clients properly and have standard operating procedures for each, you can scale your SEO operations and make them more efficient and streamlined.
- Create quality assurance protocols. Ensure that each deliverable and procedure meets your SEO agency’s standards. Of course, you have to set standards first, with considerations like your company’s branding and your client’s realistic expectations and objectives. Feedback loops, peer reviews, and regular audits also contribute here.
- Use monitoring and reporting tools. Automation tools that make your procedures efficient are not the only tools you should invest in. Monitoring and reporting tools are particularly crucial if you want to maintain the quality of your SEO services. They help track the performance of your SEO campaigns and executions, so you can make adjustments and address issues that may be reducing their quality. Your clients will thank you for the reports too.
4. Communicating with an increasing number of clients
While your SEO agency is growing rapidly, you will have problems with client communications. The problems occur not just because of the increasing volume of exchanges from the increasing number of clients. They also occur because of diverse client needs. Your SEO clients will have diverse communication preferences, unique goals, and other specifications that you need to address.
- Assign dedicated account managers to specific client accounts. Account managers are great because they are a single point of contact for clients. They streamline the communication process and enhance personalization in client relations. Having account managers also prevents micro management, but at the same time, ensures that at least one person is familiar with the specifics of each client.
- Invest in communication tools. There are many communication platforms and tools out there that can make agency-client communications more efficient. The obvious platforms are of course emails, social media profiles, and websites. And the obvious tools are computers and mobile phones. Make communications more efficient with more specialized tools like communication platforms such as Slack and video call platforms such as Zoom.
- Schedule regular check-ins. A scaling SEO agency may find it difficult to track client communication needs. Aside from having dedicated account managers, you should also have regular check-ins to ensure that all of your SEO clients are receiving important follow-ups and updates. Regular check-ins also make your clients feel engaged and involved in their SEO.
5. Managing finances
With more SEO clients and projects, cash flow becomes more difficult to manage. You will be hiring more staff, investing in more advanced technologies, and even expanding your marketing efforts to scale even further. There is an art in balancing income from clients, expenses from operations, and investments in your growth initiative. It requires careful budgeting and financial planning.
- Implement efficient invoicing and collecting processes. If you have trouble with collections and invoices, you have trouble with cash flow as well, since these are the areas where you are getting your budget for everything. When you have efficient processes in place, you don’t just make cash inflow consistent but also reduce the risk of late payments.
- Monitor expenses and develop a financial plan. You have to track your cash outflow as well. When you monitor your cash outflow, you may find areas that can be optimized. Maybe there are processes where digital marketing freelancers are better than in-house teams. Maybe there are others that you can completely cut because they are unnecessary. When you finally understand your cash inflow and outflow, you can develop a financial plan to allocate budgets, expect revenues, and manage investments.
- Practice strategic pricing. Strategic pricing is not about being the cheapest option out there. It’s about providing incredible value to your SEO clients at the best prices. Sure, this can also mean lowering your prices, but not always. You can make specific packages for specific client needs and wants. Strategic pricing can also be a good opportunity to upsell SEO products and services to existing clients since you can make specific packages that can find to be cost-efficient.
6. Integrating new processes and technologies
You need new processes and technologies in your SEO agency to keep up with increasing demand in all faucets, from internal operations to client communications and SEO executions. But it can be challenging to integrate these because of their complexities and your lack of expertise and training, not to mention that they can cause issues in your current operations, like in data migration.
- Assess existing workflows and pain points. Take a look at all your processes and see if there are delays, obstructions, and other inefficiencies in the workflow. Identify the solutions to these inefficiencies, including new processes and technologies. When you know your problem and the available tools to solve it, your problem is already half-solved.
- Consider hiring experts. New processes and technologies can be too complex to the point where you can’t use them by yourself and not risk crucial aspects of your SEO agency, such as your data and operations. Consider hiring experts full-time or maybe even just contractually if the processes and technologies only involve limited procedures, like data backup and migration.
- Provide training to your employees. Some team members may be already too accustomed to your current workflow that they will oppose change. It’s important to clearly communicate the importance of new processes and technologies to them. You should also provide training and support. Give them time to adjust. Also, consider implementing the integration on smaller scales instead of doing a full-scale rollout.
7. Building a company culture
When you are a very small SEO agency, you may be able to pull off not having clear brand and messaging guidelines and disregarding company culture. But if you want to play with the big boys, you want to position your SEO agency as a real company with a real brand, and you have the employees to support it well.
- Define your branding, core values, and unique value proposition. Branding is not just about colors and logos. It’s also about your story. Who are you, and why did you make this company? What are your values, and why do you care so much about them? What are your unique traits that set you apart from the competition? Answer these properly, so you know how to position your SEO agency in the very competitive field of digital marketing and SEO.
- Establish strong communication channels. There are a lot of communication challenges as you scale your SEO agency. Branding misalignment, ineffective internal communication, poor onboarding and integration, and toxic leadership are some of the biggest ones you should look into. To establish strong communication channels, invest in communication and project management tools, try creating events for your employees, and reward good behaviors.
- Invest in professional development. Even when you are in a small SEO agency, you will notice that SEO professionals come and go. There are many reasons for this, from professional reasons like finding new opportunities in bigger agencies or personal reasons. And the problem becomes noticeable when your SEO agency is starting to scale. Employees resigning left and right can even affect your operations. To minimize your risk, you should invest in professional development. It’s not a surefire way to make employees stay, but it’s a start.
Scaling SEO agency operations can be challenging
There are many complexities involved in scaling SEO agency operations. You should see them not just as challenges but also as opportunities for growth and refinement. In the competitive field of digital marketing and SEO, you will need these to even make a mark.
The path to scaling SEO agency operations demands adaptability, strategic foresight, and most of all, commitment to continuous improvement.
