This guide covers how to run an SEO agency once the first clients sign. Michael Gleed wrote it. He runs his own SEO agency on Lumea Direct, the software he built for the business side.
Running an SEO agency is 2 jobs. The first is the craft of ranking, and every course teaches it. The second is the business around it: clients, delivery, reports, hours, and the money. The courses stop where the business starts, and your busiest client might be your worst client.
What Does Running an SEO Agency Involve?
Running an SEO agency involves 5 jobs beyond the SEO itself. You keep track of every client and deliver the monthly work. Then you report on it, track the hours behind it, and check the net. Skip any one of them, and the agency runs on guesses.
The craft is the easy half to learn. Courses, forums, and podcasts cover it every week. The business half gets learned the hard way, one missed deliverable and one surprise payroll at a time.
Each job below comes with a number. SEO agency operations get easier once each job has a place to live and a time it takes.
How Do You Keep Track of Every Client?
Keep every client on one roster, with one page per client. The page holds contacts, notes, the package, and the month’s work. At any moment, you should know which clients are on pace, which are behind, and which have nothing done yet.
Most agencies start with a folder per client and a spreadsheet for the list. Standing rules like “email only, never call” end up in someone’s head. Put those rules at the top of the client’s page, where every teammate sees them. Here’s how Lumea’s SEO agency management software handles the roster.
How Do You Plan and Deliver the Monthly Work?
Plan each client’s month from a service tier, then give every item an owner. A tier is the package the client pays for, and it repeats every month. SEO work covers far more than content, so a typical monthly package holds these:
- Content, from service pages to blog posts, planned from the topical map
- Google Business Profile posts and updates
- Citations and backlinks
- Schema on new and updated pages
- The monthly client report
- Ad hoc fixes the client asks for
The topical map plans pages across months, one silo at a time. Pull the next rows from it into each month, so the map and the task list never drift apart.
Check pace by the 10th. A client with nothing done on the 10th is a client about to have a bad month. See how SEO project management works when pace counts working days.
How Do You Report to Clients Each Month?
Report on 3 things every month: the Google numbers, the work you finished with live links, and what comes next. Numbers alone make the client guess what you did. A list of live links shows it.
A bad month still gets a report. “Show the real number, say what caused it, and say what you’re doing next month,” Michael says. “Never hide the drop, never blame Google, and never promise it won’t happen again.” In Lumea, a drop shows as a gray arrow with the real number, never red.
Why Should You Track Hours on a Retainer?
Track hours on a retainer because the fee stays flat and the time doesn’t. Take two clients at $1,700 a month. One takes 40 hours and earns $42 an hour of team time. The other takes 6 hours and earns $283 an hour.
Nobody feels the gap in a busy week. The heavy client fills the calendar, so it feels like the important one. Tie every hour to a client, including your own, and the gap shows up on paper.
Salaried time counts too. Divide the annual salary by 2,080 hours, and a $52,000 salary costs $25 an hour. Leave salaried hours out, and every client looks more profitable than it is.
How Do You Know If the Agency Made Money?
Check one number, Net, every month. Net is income, minus client costs, minus team pay, minus agency expenses. Salaries count in full, and so does the software you pay for.
Revenue says the agency is busy. Net says whether the agency paid you. Look at it next to the hours by client, and you’ll see which clients to raise, keep, or drop.
What Does a Month of Agency Operations Look Like?
A month of agency operations comes down to 4 jobs you repeat on a schedule. Here’s how long each one takes per client in Lumea, next to the time it took before. The times come from Michael’s own agency:
| Job | How often | Time per client in Lumea | Before |
| Plan the month’s work | Monthly | About 10 minutes | 30 to 40 minutes |
| Send the client report | Monthly | About 5 minutes | About 35 minutes |
| Set up a new client | Once | About 30 minutes, plus 5 for the topical map import | Spread across files |
| Check Net and profit per client | Monthly | Read it in Reports | A weekend in a spreadsheet |
Source: Michael Gleed’s own agency, measured in Lumea, September 2026.
Those times add up. At 8 clients, planning and reports take about 2 hours a month in Lumea. By hand, they took about 9.
When Do Spreadsheets Stop Working?
Spreadsheets stop working around 3 clients and 2 people, not at 8 or 10. Three clients means 3 deliverable lists, 3 reports a month, and a payroll run if anyone helps you. Watch for these signs:
- You rebuild the same recurring tasks every month
- You can’t say which client is behind without asking someone
- The topical map lives in one file, and the work lives in another
- Every client report gets built by hand
- Profit per client never gets worked out
Two or more of these, and the spreadsheet costs you more than a tool would. Start with one client and move the rest over one at a time.
Run the Half Nobody Teaches
Michael Gleed built Lumea Direct inside his own SEO agency. For years, his client facts sat across Drive, Docs, and Sheets. The biggest problem, in his words, was being disorganized. Now the agency runs on Lumea every day, and the bad day he used to brace for stopped happening.
Start your 14-day free trial with no card and no sales call. Compare the Lumea Direct plans first, if you like. You’ll see where every client stands by the end of your first week.
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Questions About Running an SEO Agency
Do you need an LLC to run an SEO agency?
You don’t need one, but most owners set one up. The SBA’s guide to launching a business says your structure affects your taxes, your paperwork, and your personal liability. It adds an LLC protects your personal assets in most cases.
Should agency helpers be contractors or employees?
It depends on who controls the work. The IRS guide to contractors and employees asks one key question. Does the company control what the worker does, and how they do it? If you set the hours and the method, the helper is likely an employee.
What time records does an agency have to keep?
For hourly, non-exempt staff, you keep hours worked each day and each week. The Department of Labor’s recordkeeping fact sheet lists the records. It says to keep payroll records for at least 3 years. Log salaried hours by client too, for your own profit math.
How do you show SEO value to a client?
Show the numbers next to the work. Google Search Console’s Performance report shows clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position. Put those beside the month’s finished pages, with live links, and the client sees what the fee bought.
