You want to continuously grow as a local SEO agency, and this may mean you may have to get as many local SEO clients as you can. But this can be a problem because it’s difficult to manage multiple local SEO clients. Your productivity can suffer, and your reputation can tank. It may even come to the point where you are losing clients instead of gaining more. So, how can you manage multiple local SEO clients at once?
1. Use project management tools
Because of the pandemic and the rise of work-from-home setups, project management tools are more accessible than ever. These are systems that will help you manage clients and tasks – all in one place. Some of the most popular project management systems out there are Asana, Basecamp, and Trello.
They all have advantages and disadvantages against each other, like how Basecamp has very limited features compared to the other two but offers a more convenient and intuitive ecosystem.
Staying organized is one of the most important aspects of managing clients for whatever business, not just local SEO. With project management systems, you can create a calendar, prioritize tasks, assign deadlines to team members, and much more. It will become easier to juggle and track multiple clients and tasks at once.
2. Stick to a schedule
If you have local SEO clients, of course, you will have to audit and make a local SEO plan for each of them to cater to their pain points. Things will not always go as planned though. You may find yourself not being able to deliver the desired results on time, especially if the competition is fierce.
But this doesn’t mean you should not stick to your plan and schedule. As much as possible, be loyal to your calendar and accomplish tasks based on it. Sure, some adjustments may be necessary once in a while, but you don’t want to veer away too much from the schedule. The problem with scheduling conflicts is that they tend to put you out of rhythm in many departments, including client management and productivity.
3. Manage client expectations
Another way to stick to a schedule is to learn how to manage client expectations. Different local SEO clients will have different goals. Some may have very specific metrics to achieve, but some may be looser.
As a local SEO agency, you know local SEO better than these local business owners who think ranking is simple. Give them a realistic timeline, so their expectations become grounded. This also helps relieve some pressure off of you.
If you don’t set expectations, you may find it difficult to manage more and more local SEO clients. If you don’t have these expectations on paper, clients may demand more and more, and the tasks just snowball until you can’t juggle the varying tasks from different clients anymore.
4. Focus more on current clients and less on marketing
It’s understandable if you want more and more local SEO clients. The more you have, the more influential you can be, especially if you focus on a specific industry or location. The more you have, the more results and testimonials you can show as well. But there comes a point where it’s actually better to focus more on maintaining the clients you have and less on getting new ones.
The more local SEO clients you have to manage, the more prone you are to error, both in client management and productivity. It all boils down to your flexibility, organizational skills, and overall local SEO expertise.
You should always try pursuing growth, but there is nothing wrong in choosing sustainability as well, at least until you have the proper skills to finally upscale.
5. Communicate regularly with clients
Your local SEO clients want to be somewhat involved in the process, though the level of involvement depends on each individual client. However, they all have one thing in common – they don’t want to be left in the dark. They want to know what is happening, especially because they are paying money for it.
How did the SEO audit go? Tell them. How are you going to use the audit data to optimize their website for local SEO? What about social media? Tell them everything they want and need to know.
Establish how you are going to communicate with clients – what messaging platform to use, what time of the month, and what time of day. Regular communication doesn’t just involve local SEO updates. It also involves building a relationship with your clients and maintaining your reputation as an agency. The better relationship you have, the better the time you will have with each other as an agency-client duo. The better reputation you build, the more the client becomes confident of your expertise.
