How to scale client reporting when your agency adds clients

To scale client reporting, cut the staff time each report takes, then set the job up so someone other than you can run it. Reports get built three ways: by hand, with report software, or by a firm or a team that builds them for you. By our estimate, the three take different amounts of your time, so the way you pick counts for more with every client you add.

How do you manage client reporting at scale?

You manage client reporting at scale by counting the hours it takes each month and picking the way of building reports that fits the count. The table shows the hours three ways for one workload. The workload is our own example: an agency with 10 SEO clients, where every client gets one branded report each month. That's 10 reports a month.

Every figure in the table is our estimate for that one workload. None of them is a market rate.

To run the same count for your own agency:

1. Count the reports you send in a month.
2. Time yourself building one, start to finish.
3. Multiply the two.
4. Run the count again each time you sign a client, so the total doesn't creep up on you.

Each time the total goes up, ask three questions.

• Do the hours still fit in the time you set aside for reports?
• Is every report still going out on its day?
• Are you the only person who can build them?

A no to either of the first two, or a yes to the third, means it's time to change how the reports get built.

The time for a single report is where the whole count starts. For how long one report takes, see How do I create a white label SEO report?.

The count above covers the monthly report only. An audit report or a dashboard adds time of its own. For which reports to send, and when, see SEO reports for clients.

Report hours are one part of what each client takes from the person who serves them. For a way to count one person's load, see how many SEO clients one person can manage.

How do you streamline agency client reporting?

Streamline agency client reporting by making every report the same job: one layout, one week, one set of steps. The less one report differs from the next, the fewer choices you make each month.

1. Use one layout for every client. Change the numbers and the notes, and leave the parts where they are.
2. Build every report in the same week. Put the week on your calendar, and do them in one run.
3. Keep one list of where each number comes from. Then nobody has to hunt for a login or a setting.
4. Write the notes in a fixed order. What changed, what you did, what comes next.
5. Use one short check before sending. Right client, right month, right logo, and numbers that match their source.
6. Cut any part you can't explain in one plain line.

Don't cut the check to save time. A wrong number goes out under your name.

Faster only helps if the report still does its job for the client. For the habits that make a report land, see client reporting best practices.

How do you build a client reporting system?

Build a client reporting system by writing the job down well enough that someone else can run it without asking you. A system has four parts: a fixed layout, written steps, a named person for each step and set days. The six steps below build them.

1. Fix the layout. Pick the parts once, and use them for every client.
2. Write the steps for one report. Start at the first number pulled and end at the email sent.
3. Record yourself building one. Keep the video with the written steps.
4. Name who does each step. Name who checks the report before it goes to the client, too.
5. Set two days. One for when the report is due to you, and one for when it goes to the client.
6. Test it for a month. Let someone else do the work while you watch, then fix the steps where they got stuck.

The layout is the step to settle before the rest. For that layout, part by part, see SEO report template.

Once the job is written down, it can go to your own staff, or to a firm or a team outside your agency. Jeremy Kenerson, DeskTeam360's founder, says his team builds and sends monthly SEO reports for an agency's clients. One limit to know on the SEO side. On-page SEO is covered. Link building and outreach aren't.

Here's how a task moves with our team. You send it in through a request form or by email, and it can be written out, recorded as a short video or attached as a document. A North American account manager reads the task, passes it to the specialist who fits the job, and reviews what comes back before you get it. Then it's your turn: check it and send back any changes you want. So you see the work before your client does.

That last look is the part to keep, whoever builds the reports. Everything before it can be someone else's job once the steps are on paper.