SEO takes time, and your clients might be impatient. As your efforts won't immediately translate into business growth, you need comprehensive reports showing exactly what you're doing for your client and how much value they're getting.
If you don't want to waste hours drafting an SEO report from scratch, we've got you covered.
Below you'll find a detailed SEO report template covering everything your client wants to see. You'll also learn how to tailor the report to the client's goals, targets, and project specifics.
Download our SEO report template
You'll find your free SEO report template [here]. When you download it, it's time to do what you best and turn numbers into value-packed insights.
Each client has a unique set of challenges and goals you should address, so it's important to customize the template down to the finest details.
To do this, you need a rich toolbox that includes:
- Auditing, analytics, and SEO reporting tools like Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Surfer
- Data editing and visualization tools like Google Slides
- Any digital marketing tools you use to track the client's key performance indicators (KPIs)
To help you turn our template into an actionable SEO report, we'll break down its main components and cover all you should know about reporting.
What is an SEO report?
An SEO report is a data-driven summary of a website's performance and digital marketing results.
It shows stakeholders if their SEO efforts are paying off by highlighting the progress achieved in a given timeframe alongside future plans and targets.
A report from Databox shows that SEO tools are the most frequently used in business performance reporting, which speaks volumes about the importance of regular reporting. Many of your clients will likely want a monthly SEO report to stay on top of all the key metrics.
Keep in mind that SEO reports are so much more than numbers crunched in a slide.
The last thing you want is to confuse your client with a bunch of complex charts and technical lingo. A good SEO report pulls the most useful data from your findings and presents it in a clear, digestible way.
What is inside an SEO Report?
The exact content of your SEO report will vary greatly between clients. Stuffing the report with a bunch of figures they don't care about is bound to backfire. When deciding how to customize your SEO report template, focus on:
- The client's pain points and targets
- Main traffic sources
- Target audience
- Sales funnel and buying journey specifics
Despite these variations, there are some universal components your SEO report should have:
- SEO KPIs—Organic sessions, click-through rate (CTR), conversions, Google Business Profile (GBP) metrics, etc.
- Keyword rankings—Includes the number of keywords the client is ranking for alongside valuable details on each keyword, like their volume and competition
- Ranking progress—Outlines how the client's pages have moved through SERPs over time
- Organic traffic progress—Shows organic traffic volume, sources, conversions, and all important changes in these metrics
- Backlink profile—Showcases the existing backlinks and their authority, as well as new backlinking opportunities
- Domain authority—Measures the likelihood of a website ranking high in SERPs and offers suggestions for improvement
Now that you have a general idea of what your client expects to learn from your report, let's have a closer look at its structure.
Title Card
The title card is the first thing your client will see, and it should include:
- Date/month of the report (particularly important for a monthly SEO report template)
- Your logo
- The client's logo and URL
There's no need to get overly creative with this part or change the template drastically—you can simply fill in the above fields and move on to the next section.
Report overview
Your report's overview should briefly summarize your SEO efforts and cover the most impactful changes. Make it short and sweet, and include the most compelling data that will get your client excited about the results, such as:
- Organic traffic increased by 26%
- Bounce rate reduced by 7%
- Five new backlinks from reputable websites (businessinsider.com, entrepreneur.com, etc.)
When choosing the data you'll include in the overview, focus on the SEO metrics your client cares about the most based on the project's scope and main issues. It's also a good idea to mention the project's next stage (e.g., Moving toward increasing domain authority through internal linking).
SEO KPIs overview
In this section, you'll leverage data from Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other SEO tools to show the client how their main KPIs have improved in a given period. It's important to do this right after the general overview before diving into the details that might be harder to digest. If your client sees concrete progress right away, they'll be more likely to stick around for the rest of the report.
If you're not sure which KPIs to include, here are some ideas:
- Average position
- Organic search traffic
- Organic conversions
- Search visibility
Make sure to dedicate this part of your SEO report to the KPIs that are closely related to revenue. After all, your client wants to see the return on their investment as quickly as possible, so you want to show that you're getting them there.
It might also be a good idea to explain how a specific metric relates to their revenue if they're still unfamiliar with this connection.
Show your client that you're not only improving some figures on a screen, but that this results in tangible revenue growth.
With this in mind, it's best to leave out technical SEO metrics and similar secondary KPIs from this overview.
Focus on those that matter the most, and you'll have plenty of room to dive into the nuts and bolts later on.
Conversions from organic search
From your client's perspective, the main point of SEO campaigns is to boost the bottom line.
That's why you must show that your search engine optimization efforts are resulting in conversions. Your client wants to see that their organic traffic is driving buyers as opposed to just visitors who come and go.
With this in mind, organic traffic conversions are a crucial aspect of SEO reporting.
Pull data from Google Analytics, and show your client how much traffic brings concrete financial value. You need to pay close attention to how conversions change over time, as this is the best way to let the client see what they're getting for their money.
Besides the total conversion percentage, you should highlight the pages that drive the most traffic, leads, and conversions.
This doesn't only help the client see the results but also enables you to find out what works best and double down on it so that you can keep tweaking your SEO strategy.
Keyword rankings
A keyword ranking report is a crucial aspect of monthly reporting because it shows if your client's organic search efforts are yielding results.
Ideally, you'll identify the so-called "money keywords" (the most impactful keywords for your client's niche) straight away and track them throughout the entire campaign.
As your strategy evolves, you'll want to add new keywords and monitor their progress.
Make sure to include those keywords in your SEO report to show the client how you're making their content more appealing to search engines.
Some of the main metrics you'll want to include in the keyword rankings section are:
- Search volume
- Ranking position
- Historical rankings
- Organic traffic
Due to the importance of mobile-first indexing, it's crucial to show the client how their pages perform in mobile search. Make sure your SEO report isn't limited to desktop rankings, as you might leave lots of growth opportunities untapped.
Link building progress
Backlinks are an essential ranking factor, so your client wants to see that you're helping them build a healthy backlink profile. It can take a while to establish one, so regular reporting shows your client that you're making progress at all times.
The most important information to include in this section is:
- Total link number—All external links leading to your client's pages. Make sure to add monthly changes to showcase the progress you've made.
- Number of unique domains—The total number of websites linking out to the client's content.
- Link quality—Largely determined by the authority of the website you acquired the backlink from.
- Anchor text—Specific phrases used to link out to your client's page. This factor is often overlooked, but don't make this mistake because anchor text shows the relevancy of the client's content.
The goal is to have as many reputable referring domains as possible because Google sees this as a sign of authority.
Your client will be thrilled to see some big names in their niche linking out to their pages, so make sure to highlight them prominently in your backlink report.
You should also report on any interesting coverage they've gotten over the last month or the agreed-upon reporting period.
If there were any shoutouts from industry experts or reputable sources, showcase them in your SEO report.
Technical SEO health overview
Now we're diving into some advanced SEO reporting. Technical SEO can be confusing and dull to someone who isn't familiar with it, which is why this section of the SEO report template is placed under the more "exciting" parts that make it easier for your client to see the results of your SEO efforts.
This doesn't mean technical SEO isn't as important as on-page SEO or backlinks.
Identifying and fixing the most pressing technical SEO errors is crucial to ranking well in search results, and this is the exact aspect of SEO that many businesses struggle with.
You'll most likely point out such errors in the initial SEO audit report. You may include issues such as:
- Lack of XML sitemaps
- Broken links
- Missing alt tags
- Poor mobile optimization
- Long page loading time
After identifying the main issues, use your monthly SEO reports to keep the client posted on everything you've fixed. Many issues won't require ongoing efforts, but you most likely won't tidy up their technical SEO in one go.
Make sure your SEO report showcases the direct impact of your work on the client's website performance and breaks down complex terminology and concepts.
Many people don't know what an XML sitemap even is, so throwing around phrases like "version declaration" and "URL sets" won't add much value to your report.
Instead, you can simply explain that the sitemap helps Google's crawlers index pages properly, which is essential for ranking well. Use plain language for all the technical slang, and this part of your SEO report will be much more digestible.
Road ahead
After your client sees what you've done for them so far, they'll want to know what further progress to expect. That's why the final section of most SEO report templates is dedicated to future plans.
Explain how your SEO campaign will evolve by including the most impactful tasks you plan on completing over the next month.
Prior SEO data is a great starting point for deciding what you'll do, so keep identifying the biggest areas of improvement from the previous month and draw your roadmap accordingly.
There are some universal activities you'll likely repeat each month, like working on organic search rankings and improving referral traffic through backlinks. Remember to prioritize tasks that have the most impact on the client's bottom line, and project the results you'll strive toward.
This gives your client some valuable insight into what they'll see in your next SEO report and boosts accountability.
It's an excellent way to keep the client excited about the future and engaged in the process. If you consistently meet the expectations you set in this section and keep improving the client's SEO performance, you can expect more trust and a long-term relationship.
Conclusion
Now that you've seen what it takes to create a perfect SEO report, it's time to showcase your efforts and results to clients. A monthly report will do wonders for client satisfaction, as it will keep assuring them that your services are worth the investment.
To streamline the SEO reporting process, download our simple SEO report template [here]. You'll see all of the sections described in this guide, so all you need to do is tailor the template to your client and structure your data as explained above. If you do it right, your client will look forward to each new report.
