Track Progress Of Your SEO Campaign

The second strategy in the book is SEO reporting. This is a simple but effective method for tracking your progress over time. If you're using Google Analytics, you've already implemented a basic form of SEO reporting.

Analytics will help you track which pages on your site get the most traffic. It will tell you where your site is ranking in the search engines. It can also give you insights into the keywords and phrases people are typing in to search for your products or services.

Take a look below screenshot showing a similar report.

Find Out On Website What Needs Improvement

SEO Reporting is a tool that can help you track your website's SEO performance, identify the areas where you need to improve, and make the necessary changes. The primary purpose of SEO Reporting is to provide actionable insights into the site's current status.

For instance, the insights on overview performance of a site shown by Ubersuggest.



It highlights the strengths and weaknesses so that you can make intelligent improvements to your website. It can help you find pages lacking keywords, backlinks, or other related issues. SEO reporting also covers actions to prevent these from happening in

Exhibit Your Capabilities To Clients

SEO reports give you a comprehensive look at how Google sees your site and what they're looking for. It allows you to create a thorough keyword analysis to gain insight into how to grow your business.

Below screenshot is a sample of keyword analysis present in an SEO report.



You can leverage this information to improve client outlook toward your business. It can help you get the right people interested in your business. Proper reporting can also help your clients build trust and credibility with their customers.

The key is to ensure that you only focus on delivering 100% verified data through reports. Never attempt to add in fake metrics just because they look better.

Analyze Issues With SEO Process

Reporting provides a thorough analysis of the current state of your site's search engine optimization. Detailed SEO reporting can ensure that you've covered all your bases with SEO issues. Agencies can produce this report on a flexible timescale.

Either hourly or monthly, depending on how you want to see it. This report provides detailed statistics that highlight key issues. It includes a comprehensive assessment of both on-page and off-page optimization.

Read: What are the Things to Include in SEO Reporting?

SEO reporting can identify and rectify several client-side issues with their campaign. Regular audits will keep the websites in good shape.

Build Case Studies For Future Prospects

Another area where SEO reporting can help businesses is through building case studies. As we know, case studies are an important marketing tool for getting more clients. It lends credibility to the claims of businesses about performance.

This is why reputed brands publish SEO case studies on their site, like an example shown below from backlinko.



You can build a powerful profile for your company using comprehensive SEO reporting. It can give you more traction than your competitors and get you loads of traffic. It's a great conversation builder to get more interest from prospective clients in your niche.

Finally, it can also help you tell your brand story to your audience better.

Monitor Several Critical SEO Metrics

Regular SEO reports can help how vital metrics are performing on your campaign. When looking to improve business, you should always watch search engine marketing metrics. Most people know that organic search visibility is essential to success.

Thus, it includes vital organic metrics like impressions, clicks, CTR, etc.



SEO reporting enables you to find and interpret the key metrics for each website page. These metrics reflect how well your website is performing on a day-to-day basis. This is based on information that is recorded periodically in an audit.

Keeping tabs on this will deliver impressive results in a short amount of time for your business.

Help Build Backlink Profile

Backlinking is a term used to describe getting links to a website. SEO reporting helps you build your backlink profile. This includes everything from asking websites to link to you to paying for them to do so.

An SEO report lists the websites that link to you and how many times each one has linked to you. This information can be invaluable to know and understand. Knowing this information can help you decide whether it's worth paying for links.

It also reports the number of dofollow, nofollow, UGC, broken, and various backlinks a site possesses.



Important search engines like Google consider backlinks a powerful ranking metric. Authority linking can help you fast-track your ranking process.

Useful For Customer Support Services

Your customer support services are crucial to your business. But, you can't always rely on those services to help your customers. To help improve your customer service, you can use SEO reporting to see how customers search for your company.

For example, SEO reporting helps find user intent queries, as in the below image, to connect with potential customers.



You can use this information to improve your customer service by knowing what questions customers are asking. It also gives you insights into how they're searching for answers.

It can streamline your customer support network and find flat spots in services.

It can improve your brand perception and get great reviews on your services.

Finalize A Template For Your Reports

A report from your agency needs to convey all the important information that your client needs. But it should also be unique and appealing to look at and read from. A few visual touches can help improve your reporting.

Here’s an attractive yet very detailed SEO reporting template that covers the most crucial metrics of a site.

Tips To Improve Your Template

When you're creating a report, the first thing to do is discuss what you want to convey to your clients. Once you've figured out what you want to include in your report, you need to decide how you want it formatted.

The template you use determines the final appearance of your report. If you're not careful, you can design a report that looks exactly like every other report on the Internet.

• There are many other options, and there's no reason to settle for a generic report format.

• Don't opt for visual elements over data. Information is always the critical part of the report.

• Ensure you brand your report adequately, but don't go overboard.

Set Realistic Expectations With Clients

When creating reports for clients, something to keep in mind is to convey what you can deliver. It helps to set the expectations right off the bat during reporting scenarios. This can prevent dissatisfaction during the engagement or reporting.

For example, take a look at the below screenshot that shows what the customers will get after signing up.

Fulfilling The Right Expectations

The first step is to write a clear description of what you'll need from your client. This includes keywords, page titles, meta descriptions, and other information aligned to search engines. It's a pretty simple process and requires just a little effort.

From there, you'll need to start collecting the data you need. Once you've collected all of the information you need, it's time to create a report. This report should include all of the data you collected and a brief explanation of what your findings mean for their website.

• Communication is key here to set the right expectations with your clients.

• Try to give your clients an accurate timeline of when you will complete the project.

• As an agency, don't be afraid to step outside your boundaries sometimes. Your clients will appreciate it.

Ensure That Your Reports Are Validated

The most critical aspect of a report is that it needs to be accurate. While this might seem a given, some agencies don't bother to validate their reports completely. This can lead to many problematic situations. The best way to avoid this would be a validation phase.

Guide To Proper Report Validation

Reports need to be validated to make the right impression on your clients. Make sure you're using the right tools to generate reports and optimize your website. To create an SEO report, you need to ensure that the right tools are used.

These days, you can use several different tools to help improve your SEO. A majority of these tools are designed to be used manually. Using automated tools helps you identify gaps in your SEO and allows you to automate tasks and manage your data better.

• Google Analytics is the most chosen tool for reports. It's free and powerful, and people can use it right out of the box.

It offers a plethora of site performance metrics, as shown in the screenshot.

• SEMrush is probably one of the most popular platforms here. It can handle report generation and validation by itself.

• Ahrefs is another obvious choice for report validation for agencies. It has several features to make your life easier.

Maintain Transparency With Your Data

When you're an agency servicing a client, your data needs to be reliable. You need to disclose to them how you're drawing data for the report. It can help them understand how your agency works regarding reporting.

Keeping Your Reporting Process Open

Reports are an extremely sensitive topic, especially when it comes to the validity and privacy of data. It helps to keep track of where you are drawing your data from. This is where your clients need maximum assurance of their data and your source of information.

Disclose your data sources and tools that you use for the process. You also need to let them know what data you use from their end.

In the below screenshot, the report shows the data is drawn from Moz, which builds trust among the clients.

• Never hide data or misrepresent it for your advantage in a report. It can backfire, and you will lose trust.

• Check the information at multiple sources to verify if it's true. Bad data can be disastrous for a client.

• Ensure that you are not sharing client data that is confidential. Comply with their NDA.

Customize Reports According To The Customer

The advantage of custom reports is that they can help improve your agency perception. It is important to work with your client as an agency to understand their business. This can help you curate your reporting process to deliver a custom report.

Creating A Unique Reporting Process

A general rule of thumb with businesses is that customization sells. The more you're able to create a unique experience for your clients, the more opportunities you will have. While it does take time to understand your client's business, it is worth it.

To create a custom report, you need to focus on key differences in your client's businesses. It could be anything from their demographics to how they handle socials. It also keeps them happy and helps you gain more business.

Or it could be their authority scores, rankings, mentions, or others, as in the below image

• To create a unique report for your clients, you need the right tools. They can help speed up the process.

• Mangools might seem like a simple platform, but it is powerful and featured.

• Supermetricscan help you pull unique data points to your reports.

Never Deliver Absolute Metrics

Another vital aspect of report generation that agencies forget is never to have singular results. We mean by this is always specify a range for a more useful metric. Absolute metrics are never accurate in SEO as things can change by the minute.

Give Your Clients A Range Of Metrics

It is good to never opt for absolute values when fixing metrics for a report. The better option would be to give them a range of values for key metrics. You should not entertain this from the client's side as well.

Let's say they want you to hit a specific number for traffic. Depending on how the search updates are implemented, it might not always be possible. Offer them the option of a range - it is achievable and realistic.

• During the initial phases, specify that you will deal with a range of metrics rather than singular numbers.

• Focus on delivering insights to your client for a volatile metric. A good example is keyword ranking - it can change quickly.

• Ensure your client goals are aligned towards positives rather than just numbers.

Automate Repetitive Parts Of Reports

The most challenging part of SEO reporting is generating a report on hundreds of pages. This has to be done with care as results can sometimes vary. You can automate some aspects of SEO reporting, such as analyzing keywords and checking on backlinks.

Saving Time With Automation

Report generation is a chore that not many people enjoy. There are hundreds of metrics to factor in, which can get overwhelming for bigger engagements. This is a good reason to consider automating part of your report generation.

Smart automation can deliver quicker and more accurate reports for your clients. Some tools have AI-assisted protocols which can aid you with this.

• SEO Spyglass has a powerful wizard-based reporting tool that can accelerate report generation tasks.

• Google Data Studio is another powerful alternative for data collection.

In fact, it offers the best visual and user-friendly report.

• You can use smart automation with OWOX BI, a full-fledged marketing analytics platform.

Focus On Offering Actionable Advice

Something to keep in mind is that reports are not all about numbers. At the same time, it is a fact that numbers matter, but recommendations are also a good part of it.

Below screenshot shows an example of such an SEO report.



Your agency experts should give clients workable advice. They should benefit directly from the report.

Making Effective Recommendations On SEO

The key to a successful SEO report is getting to the point quickly. It should give users information that is actionable and provides value. Ensure that whatever you provide is related to the page's primary topic.

Ensure that you add proper recommendations along with numbers. It can help improve the readability of your reports. Try to see it from a client's perspective - it can help come up with good advice.

• Give your client's context when you discuss the metrics in the report. Keep the descriptions short and sweet.

• Be open to a call to discuss the report. You can get a lot more said over a phone than just text.

• Provide them with accurate links to similar cases so they can reflect.

Simplify Reports Into Specific Categories

A standard report usually has pages upon pages of information. As an agency, you should strive for better readability for your reports. It helps categorize various board topics like client details, challenges, SEO process, and results.

Strategies To Enhance Readability

Before creating a report, understand how you will get the information to your users. You should do this before you finalize a template for your report. The goal is to create visually appealing and easy-to-understand and implement reports.

Sometimes clients might also have specific requirements that you need to adhere to. Opt for different ways to categorize data. Also, having a detailed index would be helpful for your clients to understand the report better.

• Align your report categories to what your clients want from you.

For example, creating a data report with the charts shown below requires no explanation for clients to understand.

• Ensure that you use font styles to highlight areas of content as required. Heading, bold, and italics all have their uses.

• Use visual elements to break long walls of text on your report.

Highlight Key Metrics And Improvements

When it comes to creating reports, not all metrics are the same. Every business has its own set of critical metrics that are important to keep track of. As a service provider, it is important to understand what they are and execute accordingly.

Understanding Key Metrics And Insights

Because every business is different, its focus metrics vary depending on the engagement. A good way to identify this is to ask the client right in the first meeting. The goal is to create a cohesive report that can highlight all the required metrics.

Discuss with them and finalize the list of metrics to be published in the report. Ensure that you have methods to extract the right information for them.

• Key metrics vary across different industries. Create several templates which you can show your clients.

• The client is a good source of information regarding key metrics. But if you have enough experience in the niche, you can also suggest alternatives.

• With experience, your team can decide on the most optimal metrics to add to the report.

Communicate Findings Properly

Your agency may have its SEO report, but it may not be communicating the results effectively. Let your colleagues know what part of the report needs more attention. By optimizing your report, you can share those findings with the client.

Tips To Get The Message Across

When writing SEO reports for clients, it's important to communicate your findings appropriately. You can add many SEO metrics to the report. But the most popular metrics on reports are bounce rate, conversion rate, time on site, etc.

This shows the client the areas of improvement to reduce the bounce rate.



The bounce rate tells us whether people are coming to our site and leaving right away. Conversion rate factors in how many people become customers of the brand from being a visitor. Time on site tells us how long they stayed and what pages they viewed.

• Be clear and concise about what you want to communicate with your client.

• Ensure that your metrics are under the right category of the report.

• You can use Raven Tools and SE Ranking tools to improve SEO reporting.

Add-In Timeline For Comparison

Clients love to compare the performance of their businesses over time. A report is perfect for showing how much they've improved on metrics. Showcase their metrics at the start of the engagement versus current stats.

The below screenshot shows the comparison between the previous months.

Using Comparison To Highlight Metrics

It is in your interest to get the best insights for your clients. Sometimes it can be difficult to do so. Focus on separating the starting metrics of the client from the current one. This is where a comparison can help your client get the picture.

The more the difference, the better it is for all parties. This can highlight the changes you've been able to carry out for them.

• A comparative study is important from a competitive perspective for your client.

• It is important to record their website metrics as soon as the engagement starts.

• Focus on the difference in time between both the snapshots.

Not Being Transparent With Data

While SEO may seem a little technical, there are some mistakes you can avoid if you understand the basics.

One of these mistakes is using inaccurate reporting. This is one of the reasons you should always make your data transparent. It also builds trust with your clients.

Also, ensure that the numeric figures in each of your SEO report, period by period (be it weekly or monthly), is not modified to please the clients.



Read: SEO Data: What is it? And Its Importance for Your Business

Being More Open With Your Clients

Data transparency is an important thing for business. It is vital for building trust on both sides. But as a service provider, the onus is on you to provide information. Share how you use client data with them.

• Ensure your data policies align with your clients' before starting the engagement.

• Always confirm before you use client data as part of your process. The best thing to do would be to get permission beforehand.

• Disclose all the tools you use as data sources for reporting metrics to the client.

Not Being Consistent With Reporting Methods

Consistency is a virtue when it comes to SEO and reporting. As an agency, you need to ensure that you are touching on the same stats the client wanted. Consistent reporting is something that you need to check regularly.

Conducting SEO Reports Audit

Usually, during the start of an engagement, fix a few key metrics for the client. Your reporting needs to focus on them for the entire engagement. And not just the metrics; remember to keep the design templates consistent.

• Being consistent with your reporting can improve brand perception. It also makes troubleshooting a lot easier.

• Connect with your clients and fix the metrics they need for every report.

• Popular SEO platforms like Ahrefs and SEMrush have effective report templates that you can use.

For example, here’s a screenshot showing the URL healthscore report of a site.

Not Offering Custom Reporting

Clients today expect the ability to customize their SEO reports from agencies. Creating a customized report takes time but is worth the effort. Clients are bound to stick to agencies that offer them more options.

For instance, as shown in the screenshot, the report is available to them on GA. So, your SEO report should give them more insights than just what’s seen on GA.

Creating A Custom Reporting Funnel

Today, several agencies might offer a basic reporting package but rarely go beyond that.

They don't think there's any need to because their clientele won't need to know more than the basics. But the truth is that most clients do need more information than the average website owner can give them.

• Custom reporting is challenging but needs to be done to maintain client relationships.

• Highlight and incorporate the changes they want to your default reporting template.

• Swydo is a great platform that can customize your SEO reporting differently.

Not Including Valuable Insights

A report is not just about numbers and SEO metrics. You need to draw the right insights from them to help your clients. KPIs are important to the success of a brand, but it is critical what they point to.

Making Effective Recommendations

Your role as an agency is to ensure that they get the right information from the report. Any service provider can put together a list of SEO metrics for a client. Just reporting on KPIs is just not enough to improve SEO performance.

As shown in the screenshot, a report with recommendations offers much value to the clients.

• The agency's role is to be a liaison to their client to offer them advice.

• Do not overwhelm a client with numbers. Their function as a company is different from yours.

• Once you've sent the report, call them and discuss KPIs.

Not Focusing On Critical Metrics

One of the common SEO mistakes clients make is not paying attention to critical metrics.

It may differ from business to business based on their KPI. A typical SEO report begins with website performance and the metrics shown in the below screenshot.



These tell them whether or not their site is performing as well as it could. These critical metrics are typically listed in the SEO report you'll get when you're trying to optimize your site.

Highlighting Critical Metrics

There are a lot of metrics to account for in SEO. Finding the right one for a client business usually comes with experience.

Agencies can help track the best metrics for a specific niche. Discuss with the client about their goals and cater KPIs accordingly.

• Have a "metrics template" ready to go when you start the engagement. This can help you be more productive.

• Make sure that you give clients actionable advice about metrics.

• If there are metrics that do not align with the brand, don't be afraid to tell them so.

Not Understanding Client Requirements

One of the most occurring mistakes that we've seen a lot of lately is that of not understanding the client's requirements.

SEO reporting tools should give your clients specific details on what they need to improve upon. This can help them get better results and much quicker as well.

Gathering The Right Information

Requirements analysis is an important part of any engagement. And it's not just about the SEO pipeline - it also needs to be implemented with reporting. Accurate requirements gathering means fewer errors and missteps with reporting.

• Create a detailed requirement analysis process for your SEO reporting. It can deliver a much better client experience.

• You can opt for reporting tools like Geckoboard, which can help you with client requirements.

The image shows a sample report of a client.

• Another upcoming SEO reporting platform is Zoho Analytics.

Not Opting For The Right Metrics

SEO today is all about the metrics. With hundreds of them involved in ranking websites, the choice becomes challenging for companies. It is critical to ensure that you don't choose the wrong metrics for your client. This can have disastrous results.

Choosing The Right KPIs

The first thing you should clarify with your client is what they use to define success. This can differ from each business and engagement. For some, high web traffic is what they're looking for. Others might prefer improved revenue.

The probable KPIs of a SAAS or service firm may be as mentioned below.

• Improper metric choices can skew the engagement and make results ineffective.

• Regardless of the KPI, an agency's experience should help clients choose the right ones.

• Make informed decisions about the choice of metrics. What worked for your client before may not work now.

Not Offering The Right Solutions

An SEO report of a client has two essential parts - the metrics and the solution. With the technological advances today, numbers are more accurate than ever before. But agencies sometimes get the interpretation of these metrics wrong.

Thus, it’s crucial to measure the right metrics and offer apt solutions.

Focusing On Actionable Advice

Misinterpreting information is one of the most common errors in reporting. It is also one of the most damaging to any SEO campaign. It takes experience and restraint to solve this issue consistently.

The agency should step in and correct misconceptions about these metrics.

• Stay ahead of the SEO curve when dealing with metrics. It can help inform your clients as well.

• Have discussions with your clients during the analysis phase and understand their requirements in-depth.

• Understand the fact that different businesses have different approaches and adapt accordingly.

Not Justifying Drops In Metrics

With something as volatile as SEO, drops in rankings are inevitable. Simply saying "it happens" without any reason is a big red flag. It can happen to the most professional SEO agency out there. The key here is how they can justify it.

It’s something that every business experiences once in a post, an algorithm update, or due to competition.

Providing Reasons For Drops

This is a common issue that agencies struggle with. When they report a big drop in traffic, sometimes they can't justify it. It's important to understand why traffic decreases, but not use this as an excuse. If clients don't get the results they want, they will move over.

• Fluctuations in SEO metrics can happen at any time. The key is to back up why with a solid reason.

• Google Analytics is a great way to keep track of SEO fluctuations

• Keep communication lines between the agency and the client open during these times.

Not Validating Reports Before Sending

With SEO reporting, you need to keep a close eye on what's happening with the client's website. This means you should audit reports regularly. Ensure that the data is accurate, the information is valid, and the metrics are being applied properly.

Finalizing Error Free Reporting

Any agency report to clients has a lot of sensitive data. To avoid your client's SEO process mistakes, you need to validate these data points. It's a great idea to have a specialized team who can do this at your end.

• Maintain a checklist for reporting so that you don't commit errors.

Here’s a sample checklist that an SEO report consists of.

• Have a cross-functional team that can deal with SEO and validation together to save time.

• Allocate enough time to check your SEO reports. Validate metrics with popular platforms like SEO Site Checkup.

Not Completing Report On Time

Reports are an important asset to the client and the agency. It shows how much progress has been made for the client since the last period. Agencies understand what they could do better to improve results and become more effective.

Importance Of Quick Reporting

Turnaround times are going lower with highly competitive markets today. Companies are focused on delivering consistently quick reports to minimize delays for clients. They can get an exact picture of their SEO pipeline at the end of every month

• While your team should be delivering quick results, never sacrifice accuracy. Clients might be okay with delays but never if it's incorrect.

• Fix a consistent pre-deadline date and ensure your reports go out before that consistently.

• If delays are unavoidable, communicate that with your client immediately.

Not Open To Changes In The Report

It is not uncommon for agencies and clients to disagree on an SEO report. This is almost certainly going to happen during the initial stages. The key here is to come to an understanding and progress in the engagement for everyone's benefit.

Have a look at the below input that may help you while SEO reporting.

Learning To Accept Criticism

The onus is on both parties to understand the specifics of the report. If things need correction, both teams should work together to solve them. The agency should keep an open mind about iteration in the report till the client is comfortable working with

• Keep track of changes you make to reports so you can revert if required.

• The key is to open discussion about what report expectations are for both groups.

• It is important to understand the agency has more SEO exposure, so they have the upper hand.