Starting an SEO agency is a big endeavor. 

Like any type of marketing agency, there are a wide array of considerations that you need to keep in mind as you begin getting established as a business, gathering capital, settling legal and financial matters, and figuring out exactly what direction you want to take your brand. 

If you are wondering what some of the steps are when asking yourself how to build an SEO agency, you’ve come to the right place. 

We can help you with our list of ten things you need to know as you build your SEO agency and start on your career of delivering SEO services to the clients who will help you succeed in your goals.

3. Market Your SEO Agency

No business can succeed without customers. And the best way to get new business is to market your agency. 

There are many different ways you can market your services and search for new prospects when your business launches. 

Inbound marketing is a process that you are likely familiar with as an SEO specialist. 

Rather than directly pushing a message in front of customers, you allow customers to find you online and then come to you. 

This method of marketing helps you avoid coming across as overly sales-focused and pushy. 

The inbound method instead puts a high emphasis on content. Then a potential client can find you through things like Google searches, social media, or blog content.

4. Learn How to Close Deals

Bringing leads in at the top of the funnel is only part of the process of getting new business and signing on new clients. 

You also need to know how to close a deal and make sure that you have officially gained a customer. 

Tactics like personalizing the sales experience and making sure your sales team stays on top of leads help you increase the rates of conversion. 

It’s also a good idea for you to practice sales tactics like emphasizing urgency, setting clear expectations, and giving evidence like case studies and testimonials to your leads so they understand the value of your services. 

You can try mapping each stage of the customer journey to specific sales tactics and assets that will help you move your leads through the sales funnel. 

This approach will help you close deals and gather a big-picture view of your process.

5. Uphold Business Continuity and Operations

It’s essential that you deliver on the promises you make during the sales process. 

It can seriously damage your reputation when you offer certain results or promise specific services, then you can’t make right on those guarantees. 

Upholding your business operations and making sure you have the talent and bandwidth to manage clients is important. 

You must have clear service level agreements and contracts with your clients. When you establish clear deliverables and deadlines for clients, it helps you stay accountable. 

You can also make sure that you have clear processes in place that allow you to maintain consistency and continuity to deliver the best results to clients.

One thing you might not think about early on, but that’ll creep up fast, is backup planning. No joke, agencies sometimes fall apart because a single key person goes offline or leaves—and suddenly projects stall, or worse, clients slip away. Mapping out a simple contingency for team members’ absences, or even basic knowledge-sharing protocols, can save a lot of headaches down the line. It’s not glamorous, but handing off work smoothly is underrated, especially as your client list grows in 2025 and everyone juggles more responsibilities remotely.

Another curveball worth mentioning: regulations and compliance aren’t just for big corporations. If you’re handling data from clients, or even using outside contractors, get a sense of what privacy and security rules apply to your market. GDPR isn’t new, but plenty of agencies still get tripped up by things like cookie consent, tracking, and data storage rules. You really don’t want a client calling in a panic because their legal team spotted something shady on their analytics portal. Build a relationship with a lawyer (or at least a consultant who’s nerdy about this stuff) early and check in as laws change—it’s way less painful than scrambling after the fact.

Now, let’s not gloss over something that actually trips up a lot of new agencies: communication breakdowns. It sounds basic, but when you’ve got several projects bouncing between teams or freelancers, things can slip through the cracks if you don’t have centralized updates and ongoing check-ins. Even a short weekly call or just a shared daily notes doc can save you a ton of hassle—and trust with clients. In 2025, with hybrid and remote work still popular, you really have no excuse for not setting up clear lines of communication from day one.

And honestly, tech debt can sneak up on you, too. Maybe you promised slick monthly reporting dashboards, but now your cobbled-together tools just can’t deliver reliably or the data isn’t syncing as it should. Clients will forgive an occasional hiccup, but if you’re juggling too many manual processes, it’s worth investing in better software—think of it as insurance for your reputation. You won’t regret putting thought into your tech stack early, even if it feels like extra work in the beginning.

6. Build Strong Relationships with Clients

Your clients are the lifeblood of your SEO agency. They are the source of revenue for the business and what keeps you going. 

If all you do is focus on bringing in new business, you might be missing out on an opportunity to get the most out of your existing relationships with clients and customers. 

The account managers and project leads in your SEO agency should become experts in your client companies. 

They need to be able to anticipate the needs and expectations of your customers and know how to approach your current accounts with ideas for upgrades or improvements to their own operations.

 You can also offer discounts, incentives, rewards, and other demonstrations of appreciation to your loyal customers as a thank you for their continued business.

7. Understand that You Need to Do the Work

Running an SEO firm isn’t just getting new clients and working on client satisfaction. You also need to put in the actual work of managing SEO and completing SEO services for your customers. 

You need to be able to answer questions that clients have, handle any and all services you agreed to perform for them, and make sure that you have the right team members in place to do excellent work. 

This part of running an SEO agency might seem like an obvious point, but surprisingly, it is an area that can get forgotten by leadership in favor of expansion and growth. 

Keep a close eye on your operations team and respect and celebrate the work that they do for your business as you focus on other areas.

You can use our Content Cloud to help you streamline your content production and management processes.

8. Maintain Accountability

It’s highly unlikely that you will ever come across a potential client who is happy to pay you for your services and never receive any feedback or proof of services from you in return for their investment. 

Maintaining accountability and reporting back to your clients is essential for the success of your SEO agency. 

Automated tools can do a lot to make reporting easier. These platforms and tools will track important metrics and can help you explain your results to clients. 

They also help you maintain accountability by using real data in the reports.

9. Hire the Right People

Every business depends on the people who work there. Employees are the fuel that keeps a business running. 

Therefore, it’s important to make sure that you have hired the right people to join your SEO agency. 

You want to make sure the employees you hire are experienced, competent, and knowledgeable about SEO and the value it brings to your customers. 

No matter what role you need to fill, from account managers to sales people, you need to make sure you have found the right match for your business. 

Take the time during the hiring process to carefully examine candidates and make sure they will be a benefit to your business.

10. Continually Update and Improve

SEO is constantly adapting and changing. 

There are changes to Google and search engine algorithms, updated best practices for technical SEO, and new technologies and tools that are being introduced to the industry. 

In order to do well in your agency, you need to be able to adapt and change to provide customers with the best possible experience and services. 

Constantly updating and improving your services and the way you do business will ensure that you can delight your customers and grow your business successfully.

You may also be interested in these articles:

• 8 Top Ad Agency Awards You Should Pursue
• Discover How to Overcome Agency Challenges and Grow Your Business
• Smash Your Agency’s Goals with These 7 Growth Hacking Strategies

Knowing how to build an SEO agency is an important part of building a successful brand. 

While there are many moving parts that you need to stay on top of as you create your company, it’s important to keep these important points in mind so that you can prepare for the future and know what steps need to be taken in order to achieve success. 

One challenge that you might come across as you begin your SEO agency is determining the right roles that will need to be filled in your business. 

If this is a problem that you have encountered, then check out our blog on how to structure an SEO team!

There you’ll learn all about how to structure and create an SEO team that works for your brand and business.