If you work with an SEO (search engine optimisation) agency, you should be receiving regular reports showing how your website is performing.
However, an SEO report should do more than list search engine rankings, traffic figures and percentage changes. A good report should explain what has happened, why it matters and what is being done next.
Too many SEO reports are filled with charts and technical jargon that means very little to the average business owner. While the data is important, the real value is in how this data is explained.
A SEO performance report should help you understand whether their website is becoming more visible in search results, attracting the right visitors and generating meaningful enquiries.
What should an SEO report actually include?
A clear executive summary
Every SEO report should begin with a clear executive summary. This is where the main points are pulled together in one place and written in plain English.
You shouldn’t need to dig through the whole report to find out whether the campaign is working. The summary should highlight the most important results.
This may include figures such as impressions, clicks, organic search traffic, enquiries, key event conversions and e-commerce performance, depending on the goals of the website.
Visibility in search results
Google Search Console data is an important part of an SEO report because it shows how often a website is appearing in Google search results, the queries it is appearing for and how many people are clicking through to the site.
The main figures to include are impressions, clicks, click-through rate and average position. Together, these show whether a website is gaining more visibility in search and whether that visibility is leading to actual website visits.
If comparison data is available, looking at performance against the previous month, or the same period in the previous year, can help give the data proper context.
Your website may have received 1,000 clicks in a month, but that figure means more when you know whether it has increased or decreased over time.
It is also useful to include the search queries that are generating impressions and clicks. These are the words or phrases people type into Google before your website appears in the results.
Including this data helps show whether the website is appearing for relevant searches and whether those searches are attracting the right visitors to the site.
Website traffic
An SEO report should also include data from Google Analytics. This helps show which traffic sources are driving visitors to the site and what those visitors do once they arrive.
Traffic should be broken down by source, such as organic search, direct traffic, referral traffic, social media and AI (artificial intelligence) traffic where relevant.
If you’re running an SEO campaign, organic search is usually the main focus of the performance report, but looking at all of the traffic sources can help present a clearer picture of how users are finding the site.
Comparison figures are also important here. Looking at traffic against the previous month or the same period last year helps show whether performance is improving, declining or being affected by seasonal changes.
A good report should also highlight anything unusual or unexpected in the data.
For example, if there is a sudden spike in traffic that appears to come from bots, spam visits or inflated direct traffic, this should be clearly explained.
Conversions and enquiries
Driving traffic to a website is important, but for most business owners, the real question is whether that traffic is turning into enquiries, leads or sales.
An SEO report should show what visitors are doing once they reach the site. This means tracking actions such as contact form submissions, phone number clicks, downloads, purchases or other key events.
These actions show whether SEO is helping to generate real business opportunities rather than just increasing the number of visitors.
The report should also show which traffic sources are producing those conversions. If organic search is responsible for most of the enquiries, that is a strong indicator that the SEO campaign is delivering commercial value.
Work completed and next steps
An SEO report should not just show results – it should also explain what has been done during the reporting period and what is planned next.
This gives context to the results and shows how the activity carried out connects to the wider SEO strategy.
This can also give the client confidence that consistent progress is being made each month.
As SEO is an ongoing process, it’s important to include a section on the next steps. A clear plan for the next reporting period shows the campaign has direction and that the work is continuing to move forward.
An SEO performance report should not be a data dump. It should show where the website was, where it is now and what needs to happen next. Is visibility improving? Is the website attracting the right traffic? Is that traffic turning into enquiries?
If the report answers these questions clearly, it’s doing its job.
Are you looking for an SEO agency that combines data with a friendly explanation you can actually understand? Reach out to the team at Engage Web today.
