What Should an SEO Report Include? Key Components and Best Practices
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), reporting is not just about churning out data or showing off impressive numbers. While you certainly want to demonstrate the result of your efforts, the objective should always be to provide valuable insights that inspire actions, drive results, and foster communication between the SEO team and the client or company leadership. In essence, the question “What should an SEO report include?” should be answered with “Whatever helps drive better decision-making”!
This comprehensive guide seeks to explore the key components that an SEO report should have and offers best practices. For those who want a ready-made solution, here’s a Google Looker Studio template for SEO Performance Dashboard that webmasters can use. We’ll be looking at impressions, clicks, the number of keywords, and CTR (click-through-rate). Without further ado, let’s dive in!
Start With an Executive Summary — Keep it Brief and High-level
Anyone who glances through an SEO report should be able to understand the key takeaways in just a few minutes. An effective way to highlight the essential points is by including an executive summary. This summary should provide an overview of your SEO efforts’ main outcomes over a specific period. It should underline what worked, what didn’t, and the plan going forward, in a concise and straightforward manner.
Highlight Key SEO Performance Metrics
To answer the critical question of “what should an SEO report include”, it is essential to note that you must highlight vital SEO performance indicators. This includes data such as impressions, clicks, number of keywords, and click-through-rate (CTR).
Impressions measure how often your website appears in search engine results for a particular keyword, while Clicks refer to the number of times users clicked on your website from search engine results. These metrics, together with CTR, which is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions, offer insight into the visibility and appeal of your website in search engine results.
Reports should not only highlight the number of keywords your website ranks for but also indicate the positions and progression over time. When reporting these metrics, it’s crucial to align them with the context of your SEO strategy and goals. For instance, if your focus was on increasing organic search traffic to your eCommerce category pages, the report should display metrics related to this specific goal.
Website Health and Technical Audits
A good SEO report must also shed light on the health of the website. This involves running regular technical SEO audits to identify any potential issues that might hinder your website’s visibility in search results. From website loading speed, mobile-friendliness, to server errors and crawlability issues, these technical elements directly impact your search engine ranking. Regular SEO audits also help preemptively detect problems that could hurt your SEO efforts and therefore, are crucial to any SEO report.
Performance By Channel
Considering how users interact with your website is crucial to understanding the effectiveness of your SEO campaign. An excellent way to categorize user activities is by separating them into different channels — organic, direct, referral, paid, and social. This not only allows you to have a clear view of where your users are coming from but also, and more importantly, how well your SEO efforts are working compared to other marketing activities. Doing so enables you to tweak your strategies as necessary.
Competitor Analysis
Lastly, one component that is often overlooked yet vital in an SEO report is the competitor analysis. Knowing your position concerning your major competitors in organic search is essential in devising a winning SEO strategy. A thorough competitor analysis should include the keywords they rank for, their top-performing pages, backlink profile among others. This information can unmask opportunities for improvement and feed strategic planning.
SEO Reporting Best Practices
Now that we have decoded the essentials of what an SEO report includes, here are some best practices to keep in mind as you draft your report.
1. Tailored to Your Audience: Whether it’s for a client, upper management, or your internal team, each SEO report should be tailored to the understanding level of the audience. Don’t assume that everyone knows or understands the technical jargon. It is essential to present the data in a clear, concise, and actionable manner, covering the points that matter most to them.
2. Visualization of Data: A great way of making your SEO report more engaging and readable is by visualizing the data. Use graphs, charts, and infographics to show progress over time, compare performance, or present complex data in an understandable and visually appealing way.
3. Regular & Consistent Reporting: Choose a regular and consistent time to report. Whether it’s monthly, quarterly, or on another timeline, make sure you stick to it. Consistency enables your audience to anticipate the report, and regular reporting helps to keep track of progress and make necessary adjustments in a timely manner.
4. Actionable Insights: Data is just data until you derive actionable insights from it. Make sure your SEO report not only presents data but draws meaningful conclusions that can inform future SEO tactics.
5. Celebrate Wins, Learn from Failures: Always take time to highlight significant improvements, successes, and ‘wins’ in your reports. This helps your team or client see the benefits of their investment in SEO. Equally important is to document and learn from failures. This promotes a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
Creating effective SEO reports is a combination of art and science. While raw data and metrics form an essential part of the report, how you present them matters equally. Not only should the report be digestible, but it should also illustrate the story behind your SEO efforts — the successes, challenges, and road ahead. Most importantly, remember that the primary aim of these reports is to facilitate informed decision-making that results in improved SEO performance. Stick with these guiding principles, and your SEO reports will indeed make a significant impact!