Why Web Agencies Should Offer SEO Monitoring to Every Client

You build the website. You hand it over. The client pays their invoice, and the project is done. Maybe they come back for updates in six months, maybe they don't. Sound familiar?

Most web design agencies leave a massive revenue opportunity untouched: ongoing SEO monitoring. It's recurring revenue that requires minimal effort, keeps clients engaged long after launch, and positions your agency as indispensable rather than transactional.

The Problem: Websites Don't Stay Healthy on Their Own

Every website you build will develop SEO problems over time. It's not a question of if — it's when. Plugins get outdated, SSL certificates expire, content goes stale, Google changes its algorithms, and pages start returning errors nobody notices.

Your clients don't know this is happening. They're running their business, not checking Google Search Console. By the time they notice — when leads dry up or they Google themselves and can't find their own site — the damage is done. And sometimes, they blame the agency that built the website.

Regular SEO monitoring catches these problems before they become visible. It turns you from the agency that "built my website" into the agency that "keeps my website performing."

The Revenue Opportunity

Let's do some quick maths. Say you have 30 active clients. If you offer a basic SEO monitoring package at £79/month to each of them, and even a third sign up, that's:

• 10 clients × £79/month = £790/month in recurring revenue
• That's £9,480 per year — with almost no additional work

The cost of providing this? A monitoring tool that does the heavy lifting for you. Your actual time spent: reviewing reports and flagging anything critical. Maybe an hour a month total.

Compare that to the alternative: building new websites from scratch at unpredictable intervals, constantly chasing new leads, and never knowing what next month's revenue looks like.

What SEO Monitoring Actually Involves

You don't need to become an SEO agency to offer monitoring. The core of a good monitoring package includes:

Monthly Technical Health Checks

• Is the SSL certificate still valid?
• Are all pages returning 200 status codes?
• Is the sitemap accurate and submitted?
• Are Core Web Vitals passing?
• Are there any new crawl errors?

Keyword Rank Tracking

• Are the client's target keywords maintaining position?
• Have any rankings dropped significantly?
• Are there new keyword opportunities emerging?

Indexation Monitoring

• Are all important pages still indexed?
• Have any pages been accidentally deindexed?
• Are new pages getting picked up by Google?

Content Gap Analysis

• What keywords do competitors rank for that the client doesn't?
• What content could be created to capture new traffic?

An automated tool handles all of this and delivers it as a clean report. You review it, add a brief note if something needs attention, and send it on. That's your total involvement.

How to Introduce It to Existing Clients

The best time to introduce monitoring is at project handoff. But even for past clients, the pitch is straightforward:

"Hey [Name], we've been looking at ways to make sure the websites we build keep performing long after launch. We're now offering SEO monitoring — basically a monthly health check for your site. It tracks your Google rankings, catches technical issues early, and gives you a clear report each month. It's £79/month and saves you from nasty surprises. Want me to set it up?"

Most clients will say yes because:

1. They already trust you (you built their site)
2. The price is low relative to what they paid for the build
3. They know they should be doing "something" about SEO but don't know what
4. A monthly report gives them something tangible

Choosing the Right Monitoring Tool

You need a tool that:

• Runs automatically — you can't afford to manually crawl 30 client sites
• Produces client-ready reports — PDFs you can forward without editing
• Is affordable at scale — enterprise SEO tools at $200+/month per site kill your margins
• Covers the essentials — technical audit, rank tracking, indexation, content gaps
• Doesn't require SEO expertise to interpret — clear, prioritised action items

This is exactly what we built Navi-SEO to do. Our Starter plan covers one site for $39/month, but the Growth plan at $77/month covers three sites — meaning you can monitor three client sites for about $26 each. The Pro plan covers ten sites for $97/month — under $10 per client.

You're charging clients £79/month and paying roughly $10 per site. The margin speaks for itself.

The Bigger Picture: Positioning and Retention

Beyond the revenue, SEO monitoring fundamentally changes your client relationships:

• Monthly touchpoints: You're in their inbox every month with something valuable. They don't forget you exist.
• Early warning system: When something breaks, you catch it first. The client sees you as proactive, not reactive.
• Upsell opportunities: When the report shows content gaps or technical issues, that's a natural conversation about additional work.
• Reduced churn: Clients with ongoing services are dramatically less likely to take their next project to a competitor.
• Referrals: Clients who feel looked after are clients who recommend you.

What About White-Labelling?

Some agencies want to brand the reports as their own. We get it. While Navi-SEO doesn't currently offer white-label reports, the PDF reports are clean and professional enough to forward directly. Many agencies simply email the report with a brief note: "Here's your monthly SEO report — everything looks good, but I noticed [X], which we should address."

That personal touch is actually more valuable than a branded PDF. It shows the client that a real person reviewed their report.

Getting Started

If you manage websites for clients and you're not offering SEO monitoring, you're leaving money on the table and missing the easiest way to build lasting client relationships.

Start with a few clients. See the response. Once you see how little effort it requires and how much clients value it, you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.