How many SEO clients do you handle?

[hanamck]

I work in a small web & design agency who started offering SEO  2 yrs ago as it made sense due to them building websites. There have been 2 previous people to me and I now work there 3 days a week and they also have a junior who knew nothing before she started working for us. She mainly works for me.

My question is, how many clients do you think would be reasonable to work on? We currently have around 55 and I have been working there for nearly 5 months now and haven't even got to half of the sites to do some work on.

I've told them the client list is way too big and we should only have around 15 clients max. However they don't want to lose the money from the already paying clients so won't get rid of any and keep adding new ones

Their systems were a mess and had no reporting or useful software so I had to investiagte and deploy that, along with project management software.  Their analytics is also a mess and have employed a contractor to help sort that out too. It's like they were offering SEO services but had no idea or structure to what they did. Meta descriptions were cherry picked which ones to be done, so say 50/60 on a site not filled in. So it's not like I have 45 or so well maintained accounts. They're all a mess. Then the latest 10 new ones are all new sites so All need a lot of work.

I'm starting to feel incredibly overwhelmed and oppressed by it all and wanted to see what other SEO professionals thought about it. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[EGOL]

I am saying this as a business owner and as a former employee who has foot prints on his back....

The business owner should be well aware of the number of clients, the amounts that they are charging, and the number of people who are on staff to do this work.  It seems to me that a choice is being made to collect payments rather than to provide service.

Some people might not like what I am going to say, but if I was the employee here, I would find another job rather than work in an effort to improve this company.  Their actions are likely deliberate.

You have a very generous attitude and ethic that deserves a better work situation.  I hope that you discover an employer who deserves you!

I wish you all the best.

[hanamck]

Thanks to everyone that has responded so far.

I have already stated about it being too many clients and they said very similar to what Miriam said but there has been no sign of reduction in clients  only an increase!

We had another email today asking why a site isn't performing well. We're going to have a meeting but my boss isn't there (on holiday) but will strongly make my points based on the above to the others.

I need them to take this seriously as the bad reputation thing looks like it could be happening as so many sites haven't even had basics done right and if these clients go elsewhere this will be easily discovered.

I can understand it's hard to let go of clients (like relationships!) but I really need them to take action If this mess.

I have been looking into copywriters and link building externally today also.

It was meant to be an nice little job 3 days a week but I have turned into an SEO Manager with a junior! You won't even believe I'm only an a contract too! Although I highly suspect they'll want me to stay on

[DonnaDuncan]

"it does sound to me like your agency has enlarged its client stable without making the necessary hires to enlarge the staff"

The agency may have a misguided understanding of how SEO works and thinks you can add a few tags and easy-to-acquire backlinks and their clients' sites will magically skyrocket to the top of search results and convert. You might have to do some education at the same time. I'd prepare some simplified and relevant examples to try to get your points across more convincingly.

Good luck!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi There,

I really like Donna's answer, and I think, on an even more basic level, the fact that you are feeling overwhelmed and oppressed by the workload is a clear indicator that the agency has bit off more than it can chew.

Unless the business was doing consulting ONLY (in which case 3 hours per month of consulting for each client might be tenable), it does sound to me like your agency has enlarged its client stable without making the necessary hires to enlarge the staff. A larger agency could certainly be handling 50 clients, but your company is small. The business sounds like it is at an important turning point at which it should consider:

• Reducing the client list

• Determining to take fewer but more lucrative clients

• Determining to continue to grow the client stable, but only after making the necessary hires to grow the agency

I'd be completely frank about this with your agency - let them know it's causing you genuine stress because you don't feel you can deliver quality because the staff is being over-tasked. If the agency is committed to building a respected brand and lasting success, wise decisions are necessary here, and you could be instrumental in helping to protect the brand from earning a reputation for poor quality work. Good luck!

[EGOL]

This is a really good answer.

Don't allow your clients to learn how many hours per month they are getting.

[DonnaDuncan]

Let's just do the math.

Let's say you can productively work 8 hours a day, 21 days a month. That's 168 hours total.

Divide that by 55 clients and you get 3 hours a month.

I haven't added in any extra time for your "junior" as he/she is probably already using up some of your 168 hours as it is in managing, mentoring, training time.

There is no way you can achieve anything measurable on 3 hours a month, regardless of what the client has signed up for, regardless of the role and responsibilities you've been assigned. Furthermore, if you flip it around the other way, would you want to accept a client that was only willing to pay you 3 hours a month with the expectation that you could "move the needle"? I know I wouldn't.

[Roman-Delcarmen]

Same question for you Kris, How many clients/website can a single person handle? of course Im talking just SEO campaigns

[Roman-Delcarmen]

Im agree with you, just to know your opinion, How many clients/website can a single person handle? of course Im talking just SEO campaigns

[WebMarkets]

50-60 SEO clients is a healthy amount. But of those 50-60, how many are full SEO campaigns? In the SEO world, there are multiple levels of "SEO"...from Google My Business management to heavy link building. In my opinion, you can effectively handle 50-60 SEO clients, but it depends on the package they are signed up for.

Link Building, Google My Business Optimization, Directory Listing, Citation Listings, Guest Blogging, On Page Optimization, on page content, blogging, internal link errors. If you are implementing a full SEO campaign and not delivering, ultimately, you will only frustrate your client and lose them.

Organizing your time and communicating in a transparent manner are the most important factors when running an SEO business. Besides knowing how to implement SEO of course.  

[TaylorRHawkins]

I personally believe that that is far too many clients for one person (or two people with the person training under you). If they are paying you for SEO services and you haven't touched some of them in 5 months, that's a problem. These companies want to see results, and if no work is being done and there's no difference in their rankings, traffic, etc., then they will most likely leave your company. Retention is very important and it looks like the way things are structured there that you will certainly start to have clients leave...

[Roman-Delcarmen]

In my case to make a really good job 10 sites are my number. I mean is not just some on page basic optimization. keyword reserach, post optimization, linkbuilding and so on. So if have to handle 45 websites in a month and your team is you and a newbie, well my friend you are in a searius problem.

In think a good team, needs be conformed as this way 1 developer (to see technical aspect) 1 Designer, 1 Social Media, 3 seo specialist and the leader, I think with that Team you can handle until 100 websites. In the other hand you need to add some premium tools to make the work more efficient. 1 Tools for reports (such as mix panel), I use moz and semrush for SEO, Mailchimp and Infusionsoft for email, Unbounce for landing pages, Wordpress for blogs, shopify for ecommerce and Limelight CRM

By the way this is just my perspective of how small agency needs to be