The essential SEO reporting checklist
The upkeep of your site is ensured by SEO reporting, ultimately checking that everything is running like clockwork. However, the complex bits and bobs of SEO can make it hard to know what to look out for without missing anything. It can even feel impossible to know where to start.
SEO reports are the gift that keeps on giving. Without these, there’s no way to understand why your site performs the way it does or how to make changes to future strategies.
SEO reporting can be a really straightforward process once broken down. We’ve prepared this ultimate SEO reporting checklist that helps you see the results from your search optimisation strategy and pinpoint what needs changing.
What is an SEO report and why is it important?
An SEO report is basically a summary of all the important SEO data that track your website’s performance. This provides evidence to show your client how successful your strategy has been or areas that need improvement.
The report consolidates the overall health of your site, click-through rate, keyword rankings, impressions, traffic and conversions. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console help pull this information into a dashboard structure that’s easy for clients to follow.
SEO reporting is so important for both SEOs and clients- the relationship is strengthened when full transparency is provided and any necessary changes can be made effectively. Providing evidence therefore builds trust with your client that their site is on track, or that you’re taking action swiftly if things haven’t gone exactly to plan.
Another reason why SEO reporting is important is that you can see which areas of your strategy have played out successfully, and those areas that need optimising, such as content. The report provides a short summary of the key information so you can pick out the important, relevant elements quickly.
Additionally, you can determine the ROI (return on investment) or potential ROI as it tells you if investments have increased traffic. With the report results, you can plan ahead and inform future strategies based on what’s going well and what changes need to be made.
A 4-step checklist
What a report covers depends on the KPIs set with an agency and its client, but there are main areas that it should target. These areas ensure a detailed, full report that has all the necessary information for SEOs and clients. These are as follows:
1. Keyword ranking
One of the most important factors is what keywords your site ranks for and what position it is currently in on the SERPs. With past reports, you can present how performance has shifted and whether any keyword considerations have changed.
Where a site ranks in the SERPs should be included in the report to let clients know where their site is at and to show them any success as a result of your SEO strategy. Where and what they rank for is key information to create a future plan or stick to the current strategy.
2. Traffic analysis
Overall traffic determines the amount of people who come to your site and how, whether this is organically or from paid ads. Looking at both organic and inorganic traffic can help you decide which methods are best for your SEO strategy. If your strategy is more concerned with organic methods, such as content optimised for keywords, the analysis helps reveal whether this has worked.
The amount of organic traffic reveals the number of people who’ve landed on your site from unpaid methods, such as content that targets keywords. You can also see inorganic traffic volume to see if paid ad efforts have paid off.
3. Impressions, clicks and visibility
Impressions refer to the number of times your site has appeared in the SERPs. If an increase in impressions is found, this means the methods that you use for SEO (such as keyword-driven content) have succeeded.
Clicks are how many times a user has been led to your site by clicking on a link, ad or a search result. Clicks and visibility go hand in hand, if your site is visible by appearing highly in the SERPs and attracting users, then you’re likely to see an increase in clicks.
4. Conversion and revenue
Another element to include in an SEO report is the amount of conversion and revenue. The conversions come in the form of desired actions, so it may be that a user has clicked on a link or purchased something from your site.
Showing a client the amount of revenue within the report or the amount of conversions is an indicator of success. Again, the SEOs and clients should decide on a common ground for how they aim to measure conversion rate.
Note: It’s worth keeping in mind that time period plays a massive part in the results shown in the reports. A client may want a year-over-year analysis or month-over-month. The span of time therefore determines how drastic change is going to be.
With a month-over-month approach, things like seasonality are not shown within the report. It should be discussed between SEOs and clients how they want to receive the report data, and with what KPIs are most important to them.
How Embryo can help…
At Embryo, SEO reporting is part of our detailed approach. We cast our expert eye over every detail so that nothing gets missed. With our reporting process, we can get straight to the point with an easily digestible format to be sure clients understand everything.
Think we can help? Contact us today.
Deeper insights
- SEO and automation: 10 tasks to automate for efficiency
- Is CTR an SEO ranking factor?
- How to use AI to speed up SEO strategy creation
FAQs
What are the pillars of SEO?
We define the pillars as:
- Technical
- Off-page
- On-page
Technical SEO covers how the website is built, which includes things like your URL structures and site architecture.
Off-page SEO includes link-building to strengthen your overall authority, and then on-page SEO covers all your content, including page titles, meta descriptions, and everything ‘on’ the page.
How should I present my report?
Once you’ve gathered your data, you might be presenting it to a client or fellow team member. You could this as a deck with slides showing each of your findings while outlining challenges as well as successes to maintain full transparency. Explain each finding clearly and outline each area that your report focuses on. Don’t just throw data at whoever’s listening- present it with helpful context and clarity.
What is the difference between an SEO report and an SEO audit?
1. An SEO report looks at performance data over a given period. An audit looks at the site performance from a SEO perspective. eg broken links and technical issues on the site. key metrics.
Does an SEO report need to be interpreted to be useful?
5. It needs to be interpreted. Need to have an understanding of a wider market and in the context of whether competitors are also improving or declining.
