The Complete Strategy Guide to Reducing Churn & Increasing Client Retention For SEO Agencies
The Complete Strategy Guide to Reducing Churn & Increasing Client Retention For SEO Agencies
James Finlayson
February 21st, 2025
The life of an agency-side SEO is frantic, rewarding and filled with ups and downs. In the background, agency leaders, like you, play a balancing act between spending time on training, new business and retention. Most agencies will talk of ‘leaky bucket syndrome’ where their new business is said to be working, but they’re losing clients as fast or faster than they’re getting new ones on board. That’s why understanding what makes clients churn, things to do to avoid it and ultimately how to retain clients is key to agency growth. In this comprehensive guide we’ll explore proven strategies for SEO client retention, interview leaders at top agencies along the way, and help you build lasting partnerships with your clients.
Understanding the Importance of SEO Client Retention
Client retention in the SEO industry goes beyond simply keeping clients on board; it’s about fostering lasting relationships that drive mutual growth and success. While some level of churn is inevitable as client needs evolve, strategic retention efforts can significantly minimise the cost gap between client acquisition and retention.
The Financial Impact of Client Retention
Research consistently shows that retaining clients is significantly more cost-effective than acquiring new ones:
It costs 5-7 times less to retain an existing client than to acquire a new one
Increasing client retention rates by just 5% can boost profits by 25-95%
The success rate of selling to an existing client is 60-70%, compared to 5-20% for new prospects
These statistics highlight the substantial financial benefits of prioritising client retention in your SEO agency.
Building Trust and Long-Term Value
Beyond the immediate financial impact, client retention offers several strategic advantages. Long-term clients allow you to develop a better understanding of their business, industry, and goals, enabling you to provide increasingly tailored and effective SEO strategies. That leads to the client growing and, as they do, clients are more likely to expand their services, leading to higher lifetime value. Those satisfied long-term clients become powerful advocates for your agency, providing valuable referrals and testimonials that can attract new business.
A Client Retention Mindset
We find that agencies that have the lowest client churn focus on relationships rather than pure service delivery:
Proactive Communication: Regularly update clients on progress, industry changes, and new opportunities.
Continuous Value Addition: Look for ways to provide value beyond the agreed-upon services, such as sharing industry insights or offering complementary SEO services.
Personalised Attention: Treat each client as a partner, tailoring your approach to their specific needs and goals.
Feedback Loop: Regularly solicit and act on client feedback to continuously improve your services and relationship.
By understanding and prioritising the importance of SEO client retention, agencies can build a more stable, profitable, and growth-oriented business model. Implementing proven tools and strategies for client retention can significantly improve your agency’s ability to deliver consistent results, track ROI, and provide transparent reporting, keeping clients engaged and satisfied. The following sections will delve deeper into specific strategies and tactics to enhance your client retention efforts and maximise the long-term success of your SEO agency.
Calculating and Benchmarking Your Client Retention Rate
If we’re to meaningfully improve client retention, we need to quantify and measure historic performance. Calculating your client retention rate provides a concrete metric to track progress and identify areas for improvement in your SEO services.
The Client Retention Rate Formula
To calculate your SEO client retention rate, use the following formula:
Client Retention Rate = ((E - N) / S) x 100
Where:
E = Number of SEO clients at the end of the period
N = Number of new SEO clients acquired during the period
S = Number of SEO clients at the start of the period
For example, if you started the year with 100 SEO clients, gained 20 new ones, and ended with 110, your retention rate would be:
((110 - 20) / 100) x 100 = 90%
Benchmarking Your Churn
While retention rates can vary by country and agency size, here are some general benchmarks for SEO agencies:
Excellent: 90% or higher
Good: 75-90%
Average: 60-75%
Poor: Below 60%
It’s important to note that these are general guidelines. Your specific circumstances, such as contract length, and SEO service offerings, can impact what constitutes a “good” retention rate for your agency. Ultimately, it needs to be a number that you’re happy with.
Tracking Churn Patterns
Beyond the overall retention rate, it’s valuable to analyse the pattern of that churn including:
When clients typically leave (after 6 months, 12 months, 2 years of SEO services). This could speak to whether strategies are becoming stale vs some overselling.
Common reasons for churn (budget constraints, lack of perceived SEO value, competitor offers). This speaks to competitive positioning.
Characteristics of churned clients (industry, size, initial SEO contract value). This speaks to product-market fit.
Understanding these patterns can help you identify key points in the SEO client lifecycle where retention efforts could be most valuable.
Qualitative Data – Implementing Exit Interviews
Exit interviews are a way to understand the reasons SEO clients give for leaving. The answers should always be taken with a pinch of salt – often there’s more going on behind the scenes than they’d care to talk about – but with some clients they’re a raw firehose of difficult to hear, but valuable feedback. They also give you an opportunity to leave on a good note with that client to keep the door open for the future. When conducting exit interviews:
Ask open-ended questions to encourage detailed responses about their experience with your SEO team
Seek specific feedback on areas for improvement in your services
Inquire about what factors could have prevented their departure
Ask as much about how all of these made them feel as you do questions about how business effects.
If you don’t just provide SEO (perhaps you’re a media agency or also provide PPC), ask about any interactions they may have had with other teams.
Use the information gathered to refine your SEO retention strategies
I’ve seen agencies only implement these with clients they have good relationships with. That is putting your finger too much on the scales and invalidates the exercise. I’ve also seen agencies hire expensive consultancies to do these interviews for them. You’d be surprised as to how much it costs and I do believe that sometimes founders need to hear the feedback personally. Make time for this, it’s one of the most important things a founder can do.
Monitoring Internal Churn
Risk Management: Never let a single person be the only connection between your agency and the client.
We’ve all had accounts where, for whatever reason, the agency team you’ve put on an account have had a high amount of internal churn. Whether you’ve had to redeploy them to other projects, they’ve received a promotion out of the day-to-day client admin or they’ve left the agency in a blaze of glory, clients notice when the team changes. Sometimes clients build seemingly strong agency relationships, which are actually personal relationships and, when that account manager leaves, you’re left building a relationship from scratch. Sometimes they just lose trust when they’re having to get a constant stream of new people up to speed on how they like the agency to provide deliverables. To mitigate this:
Make sure there’s a strong culture of knowledge sharing across the agency. This should include SEO strategies, case studies of things that have worked (and things that haven’t!) as well as sharing when you get stuck.
Foster strong team relationships and team, not a single-point-of-contact, relationships with clients to reduce single points of failure in client SEO management
Develop clear processes for client handovers when team changes occur.
Keep a track of who’s been on an account and how often that’s changed. If you’re seeing high internal churn on an account take that into account when you decide who to put on it next. Maybe this particular account needs a reliable pair of hands rather than your prodigy who’s being fast-tracked through the agency.
Setting Retention Goals
With a clear understanding of your current retention rate and industry benchmarks, set specific, measurable goals for improvement in your SEO client retention. These goals should be:
Realistic based on your current SEO team’s performance. Take into account what you already know about upcoming churn. If you’ve already received notice from a handful of clients then that is likely to be your minimum level of churn during that time period however successful you are.
Tied to specific timeframes (e.g., improve SEO client retention by 5% over the next 6 months)
Aligned with overall business objectives for your agency
Building Churn Reduction Strategies Into Client Relationships From the Start
The early stages of client engagement are key for setting expectations, building trust, and demonstrating value in your SEO team. By consistently following some simple strategies from the outset, you can lay a strong foundation for long-lasting client relationships.
Improving Your SEO Client Onboarding Process
Onboarding Checklist:
Welcome packet
Kick-off meeting (first 2 weeks)
90-day roadmap
Escalation contacts
Communication preferences
Clients need to understand exactly what they’ve been sold, what to expect in the short, medium and long term and generally receive as smooth a service as makes sense considering their spend. Here are some items to concentrate on:
Create a detailed welcome packet that outlines your SEO processes, timelines, and communication channels
Conduct a thorough kick-off meeting to align on SEO goals, KPIs, and expectations. Make sure this occurs within the first two weeks of the contract starting.
Provide a roadmap of the first 30, 60, and 90 days of the SEO engagement, including specific deliverables and milestones.
Have and share an escalation policy. Make clear that this can be used at any time and if they’re using it only when things are absolutely on fire they’re using it too late. Make it clear that escalation, at your agency, is about accessing additional resource rather than putting in place a formal complaint. We want to encourage them to feel comfortable escalating in the unlikely event the client’s concerned about anything.
Assign a dedicated point of contact to guide the client through the initial stages of their SEO campaign
Setting Clear SEO Goals and Forecasts
Critical Risk Point: Unrealistic expectations are the #1 cause of client churn.
A lack of realistic expectations is the single most common reason that SEO client’s churn. As a result, these should be in place early and should be subject to vigorous agreement with the client, not just emailed over. You’ll want to:
Use a framework – for example SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) – to help craft your goals.
Provide conservative forecasts based on historical SEO data and industry benchmarks. Depending on the sophistication of the client and project this could be something simple you knock together in Excel, but if you’re wanting something more complete, then our SEO forecasting tool is marketing-leading.
Clearly communicate the timeline for expected SEO results, emphasising the long-term nature of SEO
Put in place a timetable to regularly discuss progress towards these goals, fostering a culture where these goals can be incrementally updated, or even subject to a full pivot, as the project progresses.
“Even in the discovery call you can tell if a client is a churn risk. Two big red flags are unrealistic targets and what we call internally agency hopping“
Regular, proactive communication is key to building trust early on in SEO partnerships. Consider:
Schedule regular check-ins. The frequency will depend on client spend, but good practice is generally to have weekly check-ins during the first month, transitioning to bi-weekly or monthly as the SEO relationship stabilizes
Utilizing a mix of communication channels (e.g., email, video calls, project management tools) based on client preferences. The one channel I’d suggest against is getting involved in their own Slack or Teams channels. It’s really difficult to be properly integrated into these without massively over-burning the account.
Providing brief, but frequent updates on SEO tasks completed and progress made
Addressing potential SEO concerns or challenges before they become issues
“The biggest thing is to never go dark on your clients. Make sure they’re updated, and you’re constantly communicating the value of your work”
To differentiate your agency and strengthen relationships, incorporate personal touches such as sending a handwritten welcome note or some merch. Set reminders in your calendar so you can acknowledge important dates (e.g., client’s business anniversary, birthday or kid starting school). Use AI to help you quickly transform generic industry news into something tailored to the client’s specific niche. Finally, don’t forget to set aside a budget (both money and time) for the occasional “surprise and delight” moments that would be hard to be replicated elsewhere.
Nothing quite says the personal touch as much as when the founder gets involved though. As the agency leader you should schedule quarterly check-ins to discuss the wider SEO strategy with the client. When a particular milestone is hit – for example page 1 for their key term – have leadership send a quick video messages celebrating. Invite clients to SEO events with you and bring them along (not all at once!) to your own team-building sessions so they can get to know everyone off-the-clock.
“I go and see my clients and talk to them like people, because they are. Sometimes I visit them for lunch, a coffee or just an on-site visit and we don’t even talk about work, we just enjoy seeing each other and I enjoy meeting the wider team. Not everything’s about the big sell. You’ll build more bridges just going to see a client and asking them how they are, and actually listening. It’s not about becoming an out of work friend, it’s more about showing that you care about them. “
To proactively address potential challenges, create a risk register for each SEO client:
Identify potential SEO risks specific to the client’s industry, goals, and strategy
Assess the likelihood and potential impact of each SEO risk
Develop mitigation strategies for high-priority SEO risks
Regularly review and update the SEO risk register with the client
Create a “lessons learned” database from past SEO challenges to inform future risk management, continuously improving your agency’s problem-solving capabilities
By implementing these strategies in the early stages of SEO client relationships, you create a solid foundation for long-term retention. A proactive approach demonstrates your commitment to the client’s SEO success that gets noticed.
So now we have a client account setup for success. How do we continue that on as the account evolves over time?
Delivering Value: Personalised SEO Strategies and Measurable Results
Your SEO strategy needs to be as unique as each client’s business. Create a plan that fits their goals and shows clear results. Rather than focusing only on rankings, explain how your work brings more visitors and, ultimately, more business. This means:
Crafting Tailored SEO Tactics
Learn about the client’s industry, competitors, and goals. You can achieve this through in-depth competitor research to understand what, exactly, their position in the market is. At the same time make sure your strategy aligns with – and ideally specifically calls out – the client’s broader marketing and business plans. Find people within their organisation that are not only willing to put their name to content you might create, but are actively keen to do so for their personal branding. Understand how their developers work and how to work within their existing systems rather than trying to circumvent them.
Using Data For SEO Insights
Track the metrics that matter—organic traffic, keyword positions, and conversion rates—and present them in everyday language. Explain how these figures relate to the client’s business goals. Doing this well will provide an objective position for your recommendations which will help the client trust you, but also mean that they don’t have to.
Demonstrating SEO ROI In Business Terms
ROI Focus: Always connect SEO metrics to business outcomes:
Traffic → Revenue
Rankings → Market Share
Visibility → Brand Value
While rankings are important, we built our Organic Traffic module so that these could be tied to real revenue. Too few SEO agencies offer any type of conversion rate optimisation (CRO) tactics which could help multiply all of the other good work your agency’s doing. Remember also to show value in a competitive context. SEO is ultimately a zero-sum game and so if you’ve increased their revenue, which competitors have seen a reduction?
Adapting to Evolving Client Needs
Agencies present a year-long SEO strategy and are then, too often, scared to deviate from it. As client businesses grow and change, your SEO strategies must evolve accordingly. Conduct quarterly strategy reviews to ensure alignment with current business goals, adjusting SEO focus as needed. Use these sessions to highlight how attuned you are to changes in the client’s industry, such as new competitors or shifting consumer behaviours. You’ll be amazed how often the client themselves hasn’t picked up on these and so will find them hugely valuable.
It’s up to you, as their agency, to proactively suggest strategy adjustments based on emerging SEO trends or algorithm updates, demonstrating your agency’s proactive approach.
“I keep open communication with key stakeholders, constantly checking in to anticipate shifting priorities (because they always do), and positioning SEO as a sustainable, long-term asset, not just a channel. Easier said than done, but worth the effort”
Integrating SEO with Broader Digital Marketing Efforts
Demonstrate additional value by showcasing how SEO complements other marketing initiatives:
Align SEO strategies with content marketing efforts to maximise impact, ensuring blog posts and resources are optimised for both search engines and user intent
Collaborate with the client’s social media team to amplify SEO-driven content, increasing visibility and engagement
Integrate SEO insights into paid search campaigns for improved efficiency, such as using organic keyword data to refine PPC targeting
Provide holistic reporting that illustrates the synergy between different marketing channels, showing how SEO supports and enhances overall digital performance
Delivering Unexpected Value
If your clients are surprised and delighted by you hitting your contractual obligations then you’ve set shockingly low expectations. As a result, moments of unexpected value typically need to come from elsewhere.
Offer occasional complimentary services, such as a UX audit or competitor analysis, to provide additional SEO insights. Rather than just burning additional budget to do this, use this as an opportunity to train a junior team member up on the subject, or for someone to explore a subject they’re interested in.
Provide early access to new SEO tools or beta features your agency is testing, positioning your client at the forefront of SEO innovation. That’s part of the reason we offer unlimited seats at SEOmonitor – add your entire team and all of the client’s team to the platform at no additional cost.
Create custom resources, like industry benchmark reports, tailored to the client’s niche and SEO goals. If you can do this semi-regularly, your sales and marketing team will love you for it to. Organize exclusive webinars or events featuring SEO industry experts, offering clients valuable networking and learning opportunities. Bonus points if you can invite them to speak about your work with them as part of those webinars. Positioning them as experts, and having them speak publicly about your good work, makes your agency relationship ever more sticky.
Client SEO Education Programs
Empower clients with knowledge to deepen their appreciation of your SEO work:
Develop a client education program covering SEO fundamentals and advanced topics, tailored to different levels of expertise within the client’s team
Create easy-to-understand visualisations that explain complex SEO concepts, such as the impact of site architecture on crawlability
Offer hands-on training sessions for client teams to build internal SEO capabilities, fostering a collaborative approach to SEO success
Provide regular industry updates and their potential impact on the client’s SEO strategy, demonstrating your agency’s thought leadership
By consistently delivering personalised SEO strategies, measurable results, and unexpected value, you reinforce your agency’s indispensability to the client’s success. This approach not only justifies the ongoing investment in SEO but also builds a partnership that clients are reluctant to abandon. In the next section, we’ll explore how to effectively communicate these efforts through strategic reporting and client interactions tailored to SEO services.
The Art of Client Communication and Reporting in SEO
Effective communication and reporting are crucial for reinforcing the value of your SEO services and fostering long-term client relationships. This section explores advanced techniques for client communication and reporting that go beyond basic updates to truly engage and inform your SEO clients.
Here are seven ways you can start improving your communication and reporting in SEO today.
Developing a Strategic SEO Communication Framework
I appreciate that as soon as you saw the word ‘framework’ those at a media agency will be salivating and those at small, independent, agencies will be rolling your eyes. For the latter, be aware that we’ll talk about playbooks at some point soon. The point here is simpler than the jargon though – good communication with clients relies on a backbone of consistency. When scaling that consistency across an agency and standard operating procedure, or framework, gives you that.
This document should set out the expectations when speaking to clients. How do you refer to the agency, when to use ‘I’ to own things vs ‘we’ to make clear that it’s a collaborative effort. How often should you be sending updates, what do those documents look like. When do you escalate things at the client. What’s acceptable language from the client. When do we sack clients? This standard document should then be customised, on a per-client basis, to explain the client’s preferences and SEO knowledge level, along with scheduled touchpoints that align with key milestones in the SEO strategy, such as content launches. Don’t forget to have actual contact details in for escalation protocols – we’ve seen teams trying to work out who has the client’s mobile number when the AM’s on holiday and the dev team’s broken the site.
Concrete, Simple SEO Visualisation
Wherever possible, show don’t tell. SEO is often portrayed as too complex and that stops others engaging with it. Turn otherwise complex SEO data into simple visual narratives. You don’t have to use advanced data visualisation tools – the standards of Google Sheets, Looker Studio and Google Slides will do in 99% of cases. With Looker Studio, consider adding some interactivity to your SEO dashboards, allowing clients to explore metrics like keyword rankings and organic traffic trends. Building custom infographics that illustrate SEO progress and key insights are often, honestly, more effort than they’re worth. Remember that these graphics will often be cherry-picked by your contact and thrown into a report you’ll never see, so they need to be understandable as standalone pieces.
Tell Stories in Your SEO Reporting
Not long ago someone posted on LinkedIn that SEOs are here to make data-backed decisions, not to tell stories. We couldn’t disagree more. Stories are what inspire action, are understood by senior management and are the way humans have communicated for millennia. As Dr Damasio proved, decisions are made emotionally first and then backfilled with logic. Data is crucial, but for that data to be impactful it needs to be wrapped within a story.
“We are not thinking machines that feel; we are feeling machines that think.”
Antonio Damasio
Move beyond dry data presentation by incorporating storytelling elements: Structure SEO reports as narratives, with a clear beginning (initial challenges), middle (implemented strategies), and end (results and future outlook.)
Use case studies and real-world examples to illustrate the impact of SEO efforts, such as how a specific content strategy led to increased organic traffic and leads, this will demonstrate client collaboration. Make sure to include forward-looking sections that paint a picture of future SEO potential, tying current efforts to long-term business goals.
Choose language that encourages this approach. When looking back using ‘remember when’, and when looking forward using ‘imagine’ both get the right part of your client’s mind going.
Scaling SEO Account Management
You can and should look to maintain a personal touch even as your agency grows with a little help from the right software. Use CRM systems to track client preferences, important dates, and personal details, allowing for tailored SEO communications. We use Hubspot, but various SEO teams use Notion etc – we’ve even seen Trello working as on in a pinch. Create segmented email campaigns that address specific client industries or SEO challenges, providing relevant insights and tips. Begin building a library of reporting templates that align with each client’s branding and SEO KPIs, ensuring reports feel tailored to their unique needs
Fostering Two-Way Communication in SEO Partnerships
Encourage active client participation in the reporting process by implement collaborative annotation tools in SEO reports for real-time client feedback, allowing for immediate clarification or discussion of results. At SEOmonitor this is actually built into the platform. We’ll talk about this more later, but many agencies host quarterly strategy sessions where clients can contribute to SEO goal-setting and planning, fostering a sense of ownership in the process. Others have successfully created a client advisory board to inform your agency’s SEO reporting and communication strategies, leveraging their insights for continuous improvement
Addressing SEO Challenges and Setbacks Proactively
Develop a framework for communicating less-than-positive news in SEO campaigns: Things to consider when you face a setback. Create a “no surprises” policy by flagging potential SEO issues early, such as anticipated ranking fluctuations during site migrations.Develop templated crisis communication plans for common SEO setbacks, ensuring consistent and timely responses to issues like algorithm updates or manual penalties.Always pair problem statements with proposed SEO solutions or action plans, demonstrating your agency’s proactive approach to problem-solving. Use scenario planning to prepare clients for potential algorithm updates or industry shifts, outlining contingency strategies in advance
SEO Feedback Loops
Implement systems to constantly refine your SEO communication and reporting. Conduct post-report surveys to gauge client satisfaction and understanding of SEO progress, using insights to refine your reporting approach. Analyse engagement metrics (e.g., email open rates, dashboard usage) to optimise delivery of SEO updates and reports.
As part of this, regularly review and update your SEO reporting templates we talked about earlier, based on client feedback and industry trends, ensuring they remain relevant and valuable.
Ongoing training for your team, to enhance their SEO communication and presentation skills, should also be tweaked over time to take into account current client pain-points. Nothing at an agency should ever be static for too long.
By mastering the art of client communication and reporting in SEO, you not only demonstrate the value of your services but also build stronger, more resilient client relationships. This approach changes reporting from a routine obligation into a powerful tool for client education, engagement, and retention in the SEO industry. With the right forms in place you can start on a somewhat greater goal.
Trust and Credibility As A Retention Marketing Strategy
Once you have the first section mastered you should explore strategies for building trust and credibility by ever closer working with your clients. Here’s some of the most popular mechanisms we see at SEO agencies:
Demystifying SEO
We’ve talked previously about how all agencies should educate their clients to some degree. The best agencies we see develop a tiered learning program, from SEO basics to advanced concepts, tailored to each client’s knowledge level and specific industry challenges. Many have interactive learning modules that allow clients to explore SEO concepts at their own pace, such as simulations of how algorithm changes affect rankings. A few even offer “SEO certification” programs for client teams, fostering a sense of accomplishment and deeper engagement with your agency’s methodologies. In its simplest form, monthly “SEO office hours” times where clients can drop in to ask questions and discuss industry trends, helps to promote ongoing dialogue, learning and a sense of community across clients.
Embracing Radical Transparency in SEO Services
Take transparency beyond basic reporting to build trust:
Provide access to raw SEO data and analytics, empowering clients to explore metrics independently and fostering a sense of ownership. As a minimum, they should have 24 hour access to your rank tracking data, which is why we don’t charge to add extra users.
Implement real-time project management tools that show exactly what your team is working on at any given moment, from content creation to technical optimisations. Our clients use Notion, Trello, Jira, Monday etc; there are as many options here as there are SEO agencies.
Share detailed breakdowns of how time and resources are allocated across different SEO tasks, justifying your agency’s efforts and value
Be open about your agency’s processes, including how you handle SEO setbacks or mistakes, demonstrating accountability and commitment to improvement
Continuous Improvement in SEO
Demonstrate your commitment to excellence through:
Regular sharing of your agency’s professional development initiatives and how they benefit clients’ SEO campaigns, such as team certifications or attendance at industry conferences
Inviting clients to participate in beta testing of new SEO tools or methodologies, making them feel like partners in innovation
Implementing a formal process for collecting and acting on client feedback related to SEO services, showing that you value and respond to their input
Showcasing case studies of how client input has led to improved SEO processes or services, reinforcing the collaborative nature of your partnerships
Building Emotional Intelligence in SEO Client Interactions
Enhance trust through showing that you give a shit (that’s empathetic and emotionally intelligent communication for those who’re copy/pasting out of this guide):
Provide training for your team on recognising and responding to client emotions regarding SEO performance, especially during challenging periods like algorithm updates
Develop frameworks for having difficult conversations about SEO performance or strategy shifts, ensuring clarity and support throughout
Implement “empathy mapping” exercises to better understand and address client concerns about their SEO campaigns, tailoring your approach to their specific anxieties or goals
We know that not everyone (and particularly tech SEO’s) will sometimes find that this isn’t their primary skill and struggle with inferring emotion from clients. You can help these team members Use sentiment analysis tools to gauge client satisfaction in written communications about SEO progress, allowing for early intervention if dissatisfaction is detected
“I’ve always found you can feel it, it’s just something about the chemistry not working. As a rule, people who like you (and who you like) are less likely to churn”
Transform the client-agency relationship into a true partnership:
Establish a secure, shared knowledge base where both your team and clients can contribute SEO insights, fostering a community of learning
Facilitate peer-to-peer learning opportunities among your clients (with their permission) to share SEO best practices and success stories
Create cross-functional task forces that include both agency and client team members to tackle complex SEO challenges, leveraging diverse expertise
Host annual “SEO summits” where clients can network, share experiences, and learn from industry experts, positioning your agency as a knowledge hub
By prioritising transparency and education in your SEO services, you not only build trust but also empower clients to become active participants in their SEO success. This collaborative approach fosters deeper engagement and makes your agency an indispensable partner in their digital growth journey. In the next section, we’ll explore strategies for proactive problem-solving and adaptability.
Building Adaptability & Flexibility Into Your Agency
In an ever-changing SEO landscape, your ability to anticipate challenges and pivot strategies is crucial for long-term client retention. This section explores how proactive problem-solving and adaptability can further solidify your agency’s value to clients.
Leveraging Predictive Analytics for Proactive SEO
While we’ve discussed using data to inform strategies, let’s dig deeper into predictive capabilities:
Implement machine learning algorithms to forecast potential ranking fluctuations, allowing for preemptive strategy adjustments
Develop custom early warning systems for client-specific SEO metrics, such as sudden drops in organic traffic or conversion rates
Use trend analysis to anticipate shifts in user behaviour or search patterns, informing content strategy and keyword targeting
Create “what-if” scenario models to prepare for potential algorithm updates, outlining action plans for various outcomes
Developing an Agile SEO Framework
Large SEO agencies struggle with the ability to pivot following an algorithm update.If you’re ever to successfully exit an update, the team needs to feel empowered to change things and break things by themselves. That needs to happen fast and frequently which is where agile shines. This is far from a guide to agile; the internet is littered with them already – Atlassian’s being one of the longest standing. Know, however, that your whole agency structure needs enough flexibility in it that the core structures, templates and ways of working can radically change from one year to the other without breaking the culture or client relationships.
I saw some agencies, especially with retail media focusses, building cross-channel, cross-functional “SWAT teams” that can quickly address emerging challenges, combining expertise from across marketing. These’ll be your first adopters by their very nature, but they’ll also be the people that will give clients confidence that whatever the industry throws at them you’ll continue to drive innovation.
Build Crisis Management Protocols
Things will go wrong. The client’s dev team will robots block their website at 4pm on a Friday. Your intern will delete a crucial deliverable. An aggrieved customer will negatively SEO your favourite client. When you have established ways of dealing with these challenges it saves a significantsaves significant amount of time that would otherwise be spent panicking.
So, it may not be the document that you’ll talk about publicly the most, but develop detailed playbooks for common SEO emergencies (e.g., sudden ranking drops, manual penalties, site hacks), outlining step-by-step response procedures. Have someone take responsibility for keeping these documents fresh. Make sure they include details of tiered responses based on the severity and potential impact of SEO issues.
“Really listen to what they want and try to read between the lines if they sound stressed or sad or frustrated – what are they really asking? Where have sudden demands come from, and what do they actually need? Lots of people tend to panic when given a sudden list of demands from higher-ups so I just sit down with my client and we go through what they need piece by piece, and come up with a game plan of achievable deliverables.”
One agency that we know even conducts regular SEO crisis simulation exercises, preparing everyone for rapid and effective responses when necessary. When these things happen for real, make sure you already have a culture of leaning into support from your tool providers. Teams like our SEOmonitor’s own customer support team see a lot of SEOSEo issues each day so they’re quick to notice patterns and have access to more data than any agency to understand what’s really happening at a macro level.
Get Clients Involved in Problem-Solving
There’s a myth that clients expect SEO agencies to know the solution in every scenario. That leads to isolated thinking that doesn’t take into account unique issues that the client is struggling with as well as slower responses. Bringing the client into those discussions helps humanise the agency, allows for better decision making and means that solutions are more likely to be implemented. It’s also a pretty effective way to build trust.
So, if things are getting tricky don’t think twice about arranging a collaborative problem-solving workshop, bringing together agency experts and client stakeholders. This could include people within the client team who you’ve provided advanced training to; your “SEO champions” within their organisations . It should also include people who haven’t got a clue what SEO is, but are invested in finding a solution. Sometimes the stupidest of questions provides the most brilliant of solutions.
Fostering a Culture of Innovation in SEO Services
To stay ahead of SEO challenges, cultivate innovation within your agency:
Allocate dedicated time for team members to explore and experiment with new SEO techniques, such as emerging content formats or AI-driven optimisation tools
Create an internal “SEO innovation lab” to develop proprietary tools and methodologies, giving your agency a competitive edge in solving client challenges
Establish partnerships with academic institutions to stay abreast of cutting-edge SEO research, potentially collaborating on studies relevant to your clients’ industries
Implement a system for team members to pitch and develop new SEO service offerings, encouraging entrepreneurial thinking and client-focused innovation
Applying Lessons Learned in One Industry to Another
Expand your problem-solving toolkit by looking beyond traditional SEO:
Explore how methodologies from fields like UX design or data science can be applied to SEO challenges, such as using heat mapping to inform content placement
Conduct regular “cross-pollination” sessions where team members share insights from different industries that could benefit SEO strategies, encouraging out-of-the-box thinking. At my previous agency these were accompanied by really good food.
Develop case studies on how SEO solutions from one client’s industry can be adapted to benefit others, demonstrating versatility and innovative thinking
Create an advisory board of experts from diverse fields to provide fresh perspectives on SEO challenges, bringing in insights from areas like psychology, economics, or technology
By excelling in proactive problem-solving and adaptability, you position your agency not just as an SEO service provider, but as an indispensable strategic partner. This approach demonstrates your commitment to long-term client success, regardless of the challenges that may arise in the ever-evolving SEO landscape. In the next section, we’ll explore how to add value beyond traditional SEO services, further cementing your role as a comprehensive digital growth partner.
Adding Value Beyond SEO: Complementary Services and Insights
To cement your agency’s position as an indispensable digital growth partner, it’s helpful to provide value that extends beyond core SEO services. This section delves into how agencies can offer complementary services and insights that enhance overall digital strategy and solidify client relationships.
Predictive Customer Support in SEO
Good account management relies on providing the right answer at the right time. Great account managers deliver the answer before the question’s even asked. This is easier when you’re working with very large retainers as they can justify having an account manager frequently pouring through data looking for issues and anomalies. For all other accounts, though, here are some hacks to make it feel like you”re doing that:
AI-Powered Issue Detection: Implement systems that can predict potential SEO issues before they impact performance. This could involve monitoring for unusual traffic patterns, crawl errors, or sudden ranking changes. This is one of the things clients love about our Signals technology.
Automated Performance Alerts: Create custom alertsalert that notify you of significant changes or opportunities in their SEO performance in real-time. Our automated alerts mean that you find out about these changes before the client, before Google and can get a fix underway the same day.
Virtual SEO Assistant: Many SEO agencies are now throwing all of their internal documentation and knowledge basis into custom GPT / RAG systems. With this added context, these bots can be surprisingly good at mentoring more junior team members in understanding potential client objections before a deliverable is completed.
Cross-channel – even just a little: By expanding your value proposition beyond traditional SEO services, you create multiple touchpoints of indispensability with your clients. This not only enhances retention but also opens up new revenue streams and deepens your strategic partnerships. Most agency founders will not want to offer services that they do not have a passion for and that’s understandable. This isn’t a call to become the next Omnicom, but tactical expansion into channels like ORM, CRO or MMM can allow you to unlock budget and solve problems with your existing services. Digital Maturity Assessments are typically an easy product to sell into enterprise clients yet often completely miss SEO as a channel because other channels don’t know how to assess or value it – offering comprehensive evaluations of clients’ overall digital capabilities and roadmaps for improvement including SEO can lock its importance into a larger plan for years to come.
Complementary Digital Marketing Services
While maintaining a focus on SEO excellence, consider offering complementary services that enhance overall digital strategy:
Content Marketing: Within the UK you’ll be hard-pressed to find an SEO agency that doesn’t have a significant focus on content marketing. Whilst digital PR is struggling at the moment, content that goes beyond simply utilitarian purposes – interfacing with the brand and other teams – continues to see growth. This is less true elsewhere. Where we see agencies in the UK do it well the content performs jobs across the marketing stack and, crucially, creates dependencies on the SEO agencies with other internal teams at the client. This roots the agency in the day-to-day workings of their clients, giving them greater visibility whilst also working to retainers that are multiples of what a tech-only retainer might look like. Develop comprehensive content strategies that align with SEO goals while addressing broader brand storytelling needs. This could include creating evergreen content hubs, developing thought leadership pieces, or crafting multimedia content that drives both search visibility and user engagement.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): Implement A/B testing and user experience enhancements to maximize the value of organic traffic. As AIO and other Google initiatives continue to hurt click-through rates, good CRO means that the number of conversions can be sustained, or even increase, while overall traffic may decline.
Local SEO and Google My Business Optimization: Many American agencies are stunned when they realise that the majority of SEO agencies in Europe don’t offer, let alone specialise in, local SEO. Often there simply isn’t the search volumes to maintain it as a discreet service, but having a specialist in your team can occasionally lead to some magic being sprinkled on a campaign. By solving this discreet problem for clients you reduce the risk of another agency using it as a beachhead to target your main SEO retainer, but you also mean that you don’t lose the sale at the last possible moment – when they’re finding where they can go into store today and purchase the item. Training a team member up on managing and optimizing Google My Business listings, building local citations, and developing location-specific content strategies is not a huge undertaking, but the value-add it can provide is often outsized.
LLM Optimization: Every agency we speak to at the moment is being asked for support in ranking in ChatGPT, Perplexity etc. With traffic that would traditionally be search traffic switching to these tools, it’s important that clients have visibility in them. This is a nascent, fast growing field. As long as you’re willing to admit to the client that you’re learning at the same time, this service can help build trust and an explorative mindset with the client.
SEO Data for Business Intelligence
SEOs almost universally undervalue the quantity and accuracy of data they’re able to bring to play to help better understand and solve business problems. These unique insights – which other channels often pay tens of thousands for a vignette into – can position your agency as a catalyst for broader digital evolution. Here’s how we’ve seen agencies transform and repackage their SEO data into actionable business insights:
Competitive Intelligence: Use SEO tools and data to provide in-depth competitor analysis beyond just search rankings. This could include identifying competitors’ content strategies, backlink profiles, and market positioning.
Market Trend Forecasting: Analyse search trends to predict shifts in consumer behaviour or emerging market opportunities. This insight can inform product development, marketing strategies, and overall business planning.
Customer Persona Development: Utilise search data to refine and expand client understanding of their target audience. By analysing search queries and user behaviour, you can help clients create more accurate and detailed customer personas.
Product Development Insights: Identify potential new product or service offerings based on search demand analysis. This could involve uncovering unmet needs in the market or identifying gaps in competitors’ offerings.
Technology Stack Consulting: Provide guidance on selecting and integrating marketing technologies that complement SEO efforts. This could include recommending CMS platforms, analytics tools, or marketing automation systems that enhance overall digital performance.
Digital Skill Development: Create customized training programs to elevate clients’ in-house digital marketing capabilities. This not only adds value but also ensures clients can better understand and contribute to SEO strategies.
Change Management Support: Assist clients in navigating organizational shifts required for digital success. This could involve helping to restructure teams, develop new processes, or foster a data-driven culture that supports SEO initiatives.
Many of the above may sound obvious; you’re likely already doing them. Think of this about how these are packaged though. If you’ve just proven that competitor X is going to run out of runway in 9 months that should be going to your clients CMO, not just their SEO, because they become an acquisition target. That thinking fundamentally changes how you write-up those documents and, in doing so, how the client sees the value that you provide.
Cultivating SEO Thought Leadership
Having worked at many high-profile SEO agencies I can confirm that simply having status in the industry is not enough to retain clients… but often it helps. Becoming a recognised industry authority should be a shared goal across both sales and retention. Here are some of the basic building blocks of that strategy:
Custom Research Reports: Conduct and publish original research on SEO trends relevant to your clients’ industries. This not only provides valuable insights but also positions your agency as a leading voice in the field.
Executive Roundtables: Host exclusive events bringing together industry leaders to discuss digital challenges and opportunities. This can provide networking opportunities for clients while showcasing your agency’s connections and expertise.
Webinar Series: Develop educational content that positions your team as go-to experts on emerging digital topics. This could cover everything from technical SEO updates to broader digital marketing trends.
Collaborative Whitepapers: Partner with clients to produce co-branded thought leadership content on SEO and digital marketing trends. This not only adds value for the client but also expands your agency’s reach and credibility.
Strategic Partnerships
As you increasingly get known in the industry you’ll be able to leverage your network to provide additional value clients:
Vendor Introductions: Connect clients with vetted partners for complementary services (e.g., web development, PR) that can enhance their SEO efforts. This positions your agency as a valuable connector in the digital ecosystem. Be careful though, lest you be tarred with the same brush if/when that relationship blows up. Connect people where you genuinely think the relationship could work well, not when there’s a finder’s fee or commission on offer.
Exclusive Beta Access: Secure early access to new SEO tools or platforms for your clients through strategic partnerships. This gives clients a competitive edge and reinforces your agency’s industry connections. At SEOmonitor we occasionally give some of our most vocal agencies access to tools that we know they’d be interested in early in return for feedback. In return, that gives them a competitive advantage.
Industry Connections: Working as a matchmaker, facilitate introductions between clients for potential collaborations or knowledge sharing in the SEO space. This can lead to mutually beneficial partnerships and strengthens your role as a strategic advisor. This seems to work particularly well in Digital PR, where you can bring two otherwise disconnected industries together on a project that can showcase your agency’s ingenuity.
Negotiated Discounts: Use your agency’s buying power to secure preferential rates on SEO software or services for clients. Rates for tools inevitably go up over time, yet many agencies will be on grandfathered rates, so simply adding their client to their account will result in a discount. This adds tangible financial value to your relationship beyond your direct services.
If you’ve gotten this far and have been nodding along then it’s possible you already have a highly engaged, loyal, group of clients. That’s amazing. In the next section we’ll take you through what to do in exactly that moment; how to make the most of those client successes to further cement your agency’s position as a long-term, invaluable partner in their future digital success journeys.
Case Studies and Testimonials in SEO
Shouting about client successes can be a powerful retention marketing tool. We can all think of agencies whose entire growth has been fuelled by it. That’s because they serve as tangible proof of your agency’s impact, reinforcing the trust and credibility we’ve discussed earlier.
Crafting Compelling SEO Case Studies
While many agencies create case studies, elevating them to strategic assets requires a more nuanced approach:
Narrative-Driven Format: Structure case studies as engaging stories, highlighting the client’s SEO journey and challenges overcome. For example, detail how a local business struggled with Google My Business optimisation before your intervention led to a 200% increase in local search visibility. The story is always more powerful than the raw numbers because everyone knows the numbers can and will be fudged. I used to frequently talk about how a client I worked on had to move to a new warehouse twice in the first two years of me working on their account, just to keep up with the volume of new orders!
Multi-Format Presentation: Develop case studies in various formats (written, video, podcasts) to cater to different learning preferences. A video testimonial from a client’s CEO discussing the impact of your SEO services can be particularly powerful.
Interactive Elements: Incorporate interactive data visualisations or before-and-after comparisons to showcase SEO results dynamically. For instance, create a slider that shows the progression of organic traffic growth over the course of your engagement. Show, don’t tell.
Long-Term Impact Focus: Highlight not just immediate SEO gains, but long-term business impact, tying back to the ROI metrics discussed earlier. Demonstrate how improved search visibility led to sustained revenue growth over several years.
Video Testimonials
Producing high quality video is not cheap, but think of it not only as a new business cost, but also part of your retention marketing strategies. Video testimonials are a nice, professional, touch to any sales material. They’re also ego-bait. Not only do they position the client as an important thought-leader in their industry, they give them an opportunity to explain quite how genius their decision to hire you was. It is very difficult to go from that to, three months later, sacking the agency.
If you’re going to get the most from video testimonials, though, encourage clients to share their SEO experiences in their own words, focusing on specific challenges and solutions. For example, have a client describe how your link building strategy helped them outrank a major competitor. Include footage of your team working with the client to subtly remind them of your collaborative approach to SEO. This could involve showing a strategy session or a technical SEO audit handover in progress. Repurpose the content into short clips for TikTok as well as quotes for LinkedIn. Put some paid media behind both and let them know quite how viral they’re going on the platforms.
How AI Can Help to Build SEO Success Stories
Successful case studies and award entries are as much about what you choose not to include as what you choose to include. That means much of the time is spent cutting away details until there’s a strong narrative. AI can be particularly useful here to recognise patterns, give judging feedback before entries are submitted and to transform the case-studies into different formats for different tasks:
Pattern Recognition: Use machine learning to identify common factors in your most successful SEO client engagements. This could reveal key strategies or client characteristics that contribute to outstanding results.
Predictive Modelling: Develop AI models that can forecast potential SEO outcomes for new clients based on similarities to past successes. This can help set realistic expectations and guide strategy development.
Sentiment Analysis: Analyse client testimonials to gain deeper insights into the emotional impact of your SEO services. This can help you understand what aspects of your service resonate most strongly with clients.
One fun idea we heard from an agency recently – automated case-study matchmaking. Their custom GPT, aware of their entire library of case studies, would help to quickly pick out the most relevant case studies for a client based on the RFP document itself.
Where agencies do this well they’re not only providing social proof to potential clients but also create a powerful feedback loop that reinforces the value of your SEO services to existing clients. This approach transforms your past successes into a dynamic tool for future growth and retention. In our final section, we’ll explore how to implement a robust feedback loop for continuous improvement, ensuring your agency stays at the forefront of SEO excellence.
SEO Success Tracking Protocols
You know award season’s coming up soon when, every year at agencies, emails go out wondering who’s worked on something that can go in. Everyone scrambles to think what they can say about their client. Unsurprisingly, this can lead to some of the best stories getting lost and case studies simply disappearing as team members move on before they’re written up. Instead, develop a comprehensive system for continually generating and leveraging SEO success stories:
Success Tracking Protocol: Implement a systematic way to identify and document client SEO wins throughout their journey. This could involve automated alerts for significant ranking improvements or traffic milestones.
Client Collaboration Program: Establish a formal program inviting clients to participate in SEO case studies, offering incentives like additional services or co-marketing opportunities. This ensures a steady stream of fresh success stories.
Industry-Specific Collections: Curate collections of SEO success stories tailored to different industries or business sizes, addressing unique challenges and outcomes. For example, create separate case study libraries for e-commerce, B2B, and local business SEO successes.
Making Them Easy To Filter: Create an interactive online platform where prospects can explore SEO success stories filtered by industry, challenge, or outcome. This allows potential clients to find relevant examples that resonate with their specific situations.
So, now you’ve written up some killer stories. The client feels like a genius as they’re interviewed about their great decision to hire you. Your website is the SEO success equivalent of the Bodleian. There, forever more, your case studies will sit to rot unless you do something with them.
Tip: Case studies aren’t just for new business – share them with your existing clients to reinforce their smart decision to work with you.
Success Stories in Client Communications
These success stories can work to improve both your day-to-day client communication and as educational tools for long-term client growth.
Case Studies for long-term education
Peer Learning Sessions: Host virtual roundtables where existing clients can share their SEO success stories and learn from each other. This fosters a sense of community and allows clients to gain insights from peers facing similar challenges.
Strategy Inspiration Gallery: Create a library of successful SEO strategies from various case studies that clients can browse for ideas. This could include examples of effective content strategies, technical optimisations, or local SEO tactics.
Benchmark Reports: Develop industry-specific SEO benchmark reports based on aggregated client success data. This provides valuable context for clients to understand their performance relative to peers and sales teams love using them in their outreach.
Case studies for day-today persuasion
Weave SEO success stories throughout your client interactions:
Personalized Onboarding: Include relevant SEO case studies in client onboarding materials to set expectations and inspire confidence.
Progress Comparisons: In regular reports, draw parallels between current client progress and similar successful SEO case studies. This helps contextualise results, motivate clients to pursue further improvements and shows where they might be on that growth hockey-stick.
Strategy Justification: Use relevant success stories to support proposed SEO strategy shifts or new initiatives and to push back on suggestions by the client that you believe would be a misstep.
Renewal Conversations: Highlight the average comparative success in years 2 than year 1 – showing the value of staying the course.
Feedback’s Role in Retaining Clients
Implementing a robust feedback loop is crucial for ensuring your agency’s continuous improvement and long-term client retention in the SEO industry. This section will delve into advanced techniques for gathering, analysing, and acting on client feedback to drive your agency’s evolution and cement your position as an indispensable SEO partner.
Designing an SEO Feedback System
A client that suddenly stops opening reports can be as much of a red flag as a client who opens the same report 20 times!
No feedback system will be perfect, but implementing a handful of the below feedback mechanisms will provide you with early-warning signs that churn may be on the horizon:
Real-Time Pulse Surveys: Integrate quick, one-question surveys into your SEO dashboard or reporting tools to gauge satisfaction at key touchpoints. For example, after delivering a monthly report, ask: “How valuable did you find this month’s SEO insights?”. SEOmonitor simplifies this further, by having a simple ‘thumbs-up’ (or not!) reply to monthly reports.
In-Depth Quarterly Reviews: Conduct comprehensive interviews with clients to dive deep into their experiences and evolving SEO needs. Use this opportunity to discuss long-term strategy and align on future goals.
Anonymous Feedback Channels: Provide options for clients to share candid thoughts about your SEO services without attribution, encouraging honest input. This can be particularly useful for identifying areas of improvement that clients might be hesitant to share directly.
Observational Analysis: Implement user session recording on your client portal to understand how clients interact with your SEO tools and reports. If you send your monthly reports through SEOmonitor we’ll tell you if the client has opened your report and how many times. A client that suddenly stops opening reports can be as much of a red flag as a client who opens the same report 20 times!
Creating Feedback Processes
Getting feedback is easy. Getting actionable feedback that leads to tangible improvements in your SEO services is a little harder. There are some steps you can take though:
Feedback Triage System: Develop a protocol for categorising and prioritising SEO feedback based on urgency and potential impact. This ensures that critical issues are addressed promptly.
Cross-Functional Improvement Teams: Form agile teams with members from various departments to address complex feedback-driven challenges. This might involve collaboration between content specialists, technical SEOs, and client service managers.
Client-Centric Innovation Sprints: Conduct regular innovation sessions focused on developing solutions to client-identified SEO pain points. This could lead to new service offerings or improved methodologies.
Feedback Implementation Tracking: Create a transparent system for clients to see how their SEO feedback is being addressed and implemented. This demonstrates your commitment to continuous improvement and responsiveness.
AI for SEO Feedback Analysis
The data received from feedback is usually messy and difficult to interpret. Ai can be useful in helping to pull out trends through:
Sentiment Analysis: Use natural language processing to gauge the emotional tone of client communications about SEO and identify potential issues early. This can help you proactively address concerns before they escalate. If you’re looking to code this, then any flavour of BERT can be handy here.
Trend Identification: Employ machine learning algorithms to spot patterns in feedback across your client base, highlighting systemic areas for improvement in your SEO services. This needs good text mining, which, if coding, the spaCY package offers some good options for.
Predictive Modelling: Develop AI models that forecast potential churn risks based on feedback patterns and client behaviours related to SEO performance. This allows you to intervene early with at-risk clients. In python you’d be looking at. a combination of nltk and scikit-learn, though spaCY could, again, work.
Automated Response Suggestions: Link the above to a pipeline that ends with LLM systems that propose personalised action plans based on specific SEO feedback received. This ensures timely and relevant responses to client concerns.
Continuous Improvement in SEO Services
Embed the ethos of ongoing enhancement throughout your agency:
Feedback-Driven OKRs: Incorporate client feedback metrics into your agency’s Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for SEO services. Make sure everyone knows where you are against these metrics. This aligns your entire team around improving client satisfaction and service quality.
Employee Recognition Programs: Reward team members who excel in addressing client feedback and driving improvements in SEO strategies, not just those who win an award. This discourages hiding issues and makes it clear that yours is an agency where failing is OK as long as you learn from it and the client feels loved throughout. This encourages a client-centric mindset across the organisation.
Continuous Learning Initiatives: Develop training programs that evolve based on client feedback and SEO industry trends. This ensures your team’s skills remain cutting-edge and aligned with client needs.
Transparency Reports: Share aggregated feedback insights and improvement initiatives with your entire team to foster collective ownership of SEO success. This creates a culture of openness and shared responsibility.
Strategic SEO Planning
Use those client insights to inform your agency’s long-term SEO direction:
Annual Feedback Summit: Host a yearly event where key stakeholders review comprehensive client feedback to inform strategic SEO planning. This shouldn’t just be the agency SLT; you need the voice of people actually working on clients day-to-day to be heard.
Service Evolution Roadmap: Develop a long-term plan for evolving your SEO service offerings based on recurring client feedback themes. This might involve expanding into new areas, but doesn’t have to, it could equally involve great automation, creation of a client portal and other initiatives that clients will love.
Competitive Differentiation Analysis: Use client insights to identify unique value propositions that set your SEO agency apart in the market. You’ll be surprised how many things that seem obvious and ‘standard’ to you will be brought up by clients as uniquely you. This informs your marketing and positioning strategies.
Future-Proofing Workshops: Conduct sessions combining client feedback with industry foresight to anticipate and prepare for future SEO challenges. This ensures your agency stays ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Embedding Clients Within Your Agency’s Processes
Up until now much of the advice has been based on a hand-off between client feedback and agency planning teams. Agencies that do this really well, though, take this further in a relatively consistent way – they actively involve clients in their agency’s SEO evolution:
Client Advisory Board: Establish a rotating group of key clients to provide ongoing strategic input on your agency’s SEO direction. This not only provides valuable insights but also deepens client engagement and loyalty.
Co-Creation Sessions: Invite clients to participate in workshops aimed at designing new SEO services or improving existing processes. This collaborative approach ensures that new offerings are truly aligned with client needs.
Beta Testing Programs: Offer select clients early access to new SEO tools or methodologies in exchange for detailed feedback. This provides real-world validation of new initiatives and makes clients feel valued as partners in innovation.
Client-Led Webinars: Empower satisfied clients to share their SEO experiences and best practices with your broader client base. This peer-to-peer learning approach can be particularly effective and reinforces the success of your SEO strategies.
By implementing a sophisticated client feedback loop, you transform your agency into a loveable, ever-evolving entity that’s ever aligning itself with client needs and SEO industry trends. This approach not only enhances retention by demonstrating your commitment to improvement, but also positions your agency at the forefront of SEO innovation.
How to Retain Clients
As we’ve explored throughout this guide, ‘how to increase customer retention’ is not just a set of tactics, but a fundamental approach to running your SEO agency. By integrating the strategies we’ve discussed into every aspect of your operations, you can create a culture of client-centricity that drives long-term success in the competitive world of SEO services.
SEO Retention Is A Value Set, Not A Tactic
To truly embed retention into your agency’s DNA there are five steps that all the best agencies take:
Align all departments around retention goals, from sales to SEO delivery to customer support. This ensures a consistent client experience and a unified focus on long-term relationships.
Incorporate retention metrics into your agency’s key performance indicators (KPIs). This might include metrics like client lifetime value, retention rate, and net promoter score specific to SEO services.
Develop cross-functional teams dedicated to enhancing the client experience at every touchpoint of the SEO journey. This could involve collaboration between SEO specialists, content creators, data analysts, and client service managers.
Create a retention-focused onboarding process for new hires, emphasising the importance of long-term client relationships in SEO. This instills a client-centric mindset from day one.
Retain the best people and make sure that those people rate client retention as one of their own key drivers.
Using Tech As Part of Your SEO Retention Strategies
Building on our earlier discussions of data-driven insights and communication tools:
Implement a unified client relationship management (CRM) system that integrates all client data and SEO interactions. This provides a 360-degree view of each client relationship, enabling more personalised and proactive service.
Develop custom dashboards that provide real-time visibility into retention metrics across the agency’s SEO services. This allows for quick identification of at-risk clients and celebration of retention successes.
Where appropriate, use AI-powered predictive analytics to identify at-risk clients and trigger proactive interventions in SEO campaigns. This might involve automatically flagging accounts with declining engagement or performance metrics.
Create automated workflows that ensure consistent application of retention best practices throughout the SEO service lifecycle. This could include triggered check-ins, satisfaction surveys, and value-add content delivery. Do not use these processes to replace the human touch. They should be your eyes and ears, not your brain.
Fostering a Culture of Continuous Adaptation in SEO Services
As the SEO landscape evolves, so too must your retention strategies:
Establish a dedicated “SEO Retention Innovation Lab” to continuously test and refine new approaches. This team could be responsible for piloting new retention initiatives and measuring their impact.
Conduct regular “retention audits” to identify areas for improvement in your client retention processes specific to SEO services. This might involve analysing churn data, client feedback, and industry benchmarks.
Encourage knowledge sharing across teams to disseminate successful SEO retention tactics quickly. This could involve regular internal workshops, a knowledge base of best practices, or a mentorship program.
Stay attuned to broader industry trends that may impact client needs and expectations in the SEO space. This might involve attending conferences, participating in industry forums, or conducting regular market research.
Measuring the Long-Term Impact of Your Churn Reduction Efforts
To truly understand the value of your retention strategies there are two non-negotiable elements.
First, develop comprehensive lifetime value (LTV) models that account for both direct revenue and indirect benefits like referrals from satisfied SEO clients. This provides a more accurate picture of the true value of client retention.
Secondly, track the correlation between improved retention rates, employee satisfaction and overall agency profitability in SEO services. This can help justify continued investment in retention initiatives. This might involve regular surveys and exit interviews for both employees and clients. Without this in place churn reduction will falter and be forgotten for less important, but more urgent business.
From Retention to Advocacy in SEO Services
The ultimate goal of retention is to transform clients into active advocates for your SEO agency. To achieve this, develop a structured client advocacy program that offers incentives for referrals and testimonials specifically related to SEO services. For instance, you could provide exclusive benefits or revenue sharing for successful referrals.
Client Advocacy Program
Speaking opportunities
Co-branded content
Success story features
Industry awards submissions
Create opportunities for clients to showcase their SEO success stories at industry events or in co-branded content. This not only provides valuable exposure for clients but also reinforces your agency’s expertise. Foster a sense of community among your SEO clients by facilitating peer-to-peer connections and knowledge sharing. This could involve hosting client networking events or creating an exclusive online forum. Lastly, empower clients to become thought leaders in SEO within their respective industries, further strengthening their connection to your agency. This could involve co-authoring whitepapers or providing speaking opportunities at your agency’s events.
The Future of SEO Client Retention
While it’s near impossible to predict too far ahead with SEO, there are some emerging trends that you’ll likely see effect your clients over the next year.:
LLMs: nobody knows exactly what this will be in a year’s time or what to do about it. As with all other client communication, be honest about this. That’s not to say ‘do nothing’ though. Relentlessly be running experiments and begin building up specialisms across the team. Work out what the value now and in the future might be on a per-client basis.
“With the rise of conversational search and Gen AI, clients are seeing less traffic to their websites. For smart agencies, this is an opportunity to adjust and innovate. For others, churn is inevitable because no client wants to hearwe can’t do anything about it ”
The increasing importance of data privacy: data privacy reasons were the primary driver for SEO to lose its ability to report on revenue on a per-keyword basis, it was one of the main drivers behind the move to GA4 and the reason given behind the eventual move away from cookies. Each of these changes has and will make it harder to cleanly show SEO’s effectiveness. In a world where it’ll increasingly be the user’s AI agent, rather than the user themself, who’s browsing your site and making orders, the user is granted even more privacy between them and the retailer. Data retention, modelling and inference are going to be key. If your agency doesn’t have a data-scientist, or access to the results of one, then this challenge is likely to be persistent.
The good news is that if you’re even thinking about many of these things then you’re ahead of the pack. Client churn is inevitable, though, and retention is an ongoing journey of improvement and adaptation. As you implement these strategies, remain flexible and responsive to the evolving needs of your clients and the dynamic nature of the SEO landscape.
Ultimately, the SEO agencies that thrive are those that view every client interaction as an opportunity to reinforce value, build trust, and deepen relationships. By making retention a fundamental part of your agency’s DNA, you set the stage for sustainable growth, increased profitability, and a reputation as a true partner in your clients’ digital success stories.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I know if my client retention efforts are working?
Measure both quantitative retention rates using a clear formula and qualitative factors like client satisfaction surveys and regular feedback. This dual approach helps you gauge overall performance and pinpoint areas for improvement.
What should I do if the ranking results are taking longer than expected?
Manage expectations by clearly communicating SEO’s long-term nature upfront, setting realistic milestones, and providing regular updates that show incremental progress and emerging trends. If you think that there’s a likelihood that you’re not going to catch up to your original forecast then tackling the issue early and co-creating a new forecast will help to reset expectations before too much reliance has been placed on those results imminently arriving.
How can I set realistic and mutually agreed-upon SEO goals with my clients who don’t understand SEO?
Utilise frameworks such as SMART to define specific, measurable, and time-bound targets. Tailor these goals to each client’s industry and historical performance, ensuring everyone has a clear roadmap.
What are some practical ways to personalise my SEO approach for each client?
Assign dedicated account managers, customise reporting to each client’s level of expertise, and incorporate personal touches—like personalised insights and milestone celebrations—to build a stronger, individual relationship.
How do I maintain client trust when internal team changes occur?
Implement strong documentation and knowledge-sharing practices, use team-based account management rather than a single point of contact, and ensure smooth, transparent handovers to minimise disruption.
What are the most important elements in an effective SEO client onboarding process?
Provide a detailed welcome packet, a kickoff meeting to align on objectives and expectations, clear timelines (e.g., a 30-60-90 day plan), and assign a dedicated contact to guide the client through the early stages.
How do I foster transparency and trust with clients regarding my SEO work?
Share raw data and detailed reports in accessible formats, hold regular review meetings, and invite clients into the strategy development process. Transparency in both successes and challenges strengthens the partnership.
How should I handle negative feedback or dissatisfaction from a client?
Embrace a structured feedback loop that encourages candid input. When negative feedback arises, respond promptly with a clear action plan, involve the client in the solution process, and follow through with improvements.
How can I tailor my SEO reports for clients with varying levels of expertise?
Create layered reporting—detailed technical reports for more knowledgeable clients and simplified, narrative-driven summaries for non-experts. This ensures that every client fully understands the value and progress of their campaign.
James Finlayson
James Finlayson is an SEO and content strategy expert with a diverse background in agency, in-house, and freelance roles. He led award-winning teams at Verve Search and later led organic search at the7stars. Since 2008, he’s partnered with brands like Uber, Babylon Health, The BBC, and Expedia, and has spoken at over 30 international events including TEDx Kingston and SMX London. His work spans every stage of campaign development, earning multiple industry awards.
