Firstly, let me start by introducing myself – I’ve been working as an agency SEO for just over three years now, during which time I’ve read the SEOmoz blog pretty much every day. Although I enjoy and learn from many of the posts published, the ones that get bookmarked and read over and over again usually contain something that can be used straight away to improve the service we offer. Hopefully this article does that for at least some of you.

Since joining the company I work for (Clicky Media), I’ve witnessed the SEO department develop from being a small part of the company, to becoming an integral part of its success. As part of this growth, we’ve had to implement certain processes to ensure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. We’ve tried a fair few project management tools, but they all seemed to take more time to update and manage than they were worth (especially for the more specific processes). Then we found Trello.

I’m not going to run through how the platform works as it would need a whole separate article. Also, this topic has already been well covered by Eric Siu and Tom Critchlow, so if you’ve never heard of or used Trello before, then I’d advise you to check out their posts. What I will say though, is that it is one of the easiest and quickest to use project management tools I’ve seen, and they consistently roll out new features to further improve the product. Best of all, it’s completely FREE!

Now, on to the actionable part. We use Trello for various processes in the department, three of the main ones being reporting, guest posting and lead management. Below, I’ve provided screenshots of how we have set up boards to manage each of these.

Reporting

Reports are one of the best ways to demonstrate your worth to clients. However, it can become increasingly difficult to keep on top of these as your client list grows, especially when multiple people across multiple departments are involved in compiling the report. We have the following board setup to ensure that everybody knows what is due and when.

The image is a little zoomed out, so in case you can’t read it, the six lists we include on this board are:

• Needs to be started
• Needs SEO section
• Needs PPC section
• Report complete
• Report printed
• Report sent to client

Lists two and three are only used if the report needs to include data from both an SEO and PPC campaign (and they are managed by different people). You may also want to include a list for social or any other service that you provide.

Notice that you can assign board members and set due dates on specific cards. The relevant member can then choose to receive a reminder (via email and the Trello platform) when any of their tasks are due.

Link to board - https://trello.com/board/reports/512383539db0463e7200ca2a

Guest Posting

One of the best things you get out of guest posting is the ability to build strong relationships with sites and blogs in your niche. The last thing you want to do is spark a bad relationship with one of these sites by missing an agreed deadline, or worse, forgetting about them completely. The following board has allowed us to steer clear of these scenarios while ensuring multiple parties can be kept in the loop:

Again, apologies for the zoomed out image (click the link below to see the board in full). The lists we have in place here are:

• Potential opportunity
• Contact made
• Article subject agreed
• Article/information requested from client
• Post submitted to site
• Post live

You can have a single board to manage all opportunities but we quickly found that this became too messy, so created a similar one to the above for each client. We try to keep a contact name and site URL on each card so that we don’t forget who we’ve spoken to. We also like to note some of the key metrics for the site, whether that be domain authority, social signals, estimated traffic, or anything else (this can be seen in the above screenshot). Again, it’s a good idea to set deadlines for people on these cards so that nothing is missed.

Link to board - https://trello.com/board/guest-posts/5123ace8ef6310a2570009ea

Lead Management

As well as helping us keep on top of work for current clients, we’ve also found that Trello helps us convert more leads by keeping on top of the proposal and sign-off process.

As with the guest posting board, notes on each card come in handy here as they allow you to keep track of anything that has been discussed (e.g. specific requirements, budget, etc.). This information allows us to create a proposal that is more tailored to each prospective client (as we don’t forget things that were discussed at the outset), which always increases the chance of winning their business.

Lists on this board include:

• Prospective (for initial enquiries)
• Phone call arranged (following which you should add any notes from the conversation)
• Proposal requested
• Proposal sent
• Meeting/follow up call arranged
• Lost (for contracts we didn’t win – good for reference in case they get in touch in the future).
• Won

Again, this can be tailored to match your sales process. Additionally, you can invite the sales team to the board so that everybody knows what stage the pitch is at.

Link to board - https://trello.com/board/lead-management/51237964514ddf2447004d45

Copying the Boards

If you don’t have time to make your own boards (not that it takes too long at all) and would like to copy any of the above and adapt them to your needs, then please feel free to do so. All you need to do is click the relevant link above to go through to the public board that I’ve created, then select ‘copy board’, change it to ‘private’ and deselect ‘keep cards’:

Bonus Tip – Creating a ‘to do’ Calendar Feed

As all of us here work on Mac’s, we use iCal to organise ourselves day to day. I wanted to find a way to integrate my assigned items and due dates from Trello into my calendar, which is checked daily. It doesn’t look as though Trello supports this yet but recently came across a web app that can create a Trello ‘to do’ feed, which can then be imported into iCal (and I’d imagine other Calendar applications).

The web app created by (Michael Sverdlin) can be found at http://fun.sveder.com/trello. All you have to do is enter your email, select ‘authorise’ and allow the app access to your Trello boards. There are then a few simple settings to select (or not), which determine whether you see only your own ‘to-dos’ or everybody’s, and how much time you want the item to take up in your calendar:

Then simply follow the relevant instructions link, dependant on which calendar you use.

I’m sure there are plenty of other uses for Trello, and we’re always looking for new ways we can incorporate it into our processes – so please feel free to discuss additional ideas in the comments.