What is an SEO report?
An SEO report is a summary of metrics that indicate how your website performs in search results.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a long-term investment that requires continuous monitoring to ensure it’s producing the results you desire. That’s why it’s important to generate an SEO report — this report will tell you what’s working, what isn’t, and what needs improvement.
If you’ve never created an SEO report, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll break down everything you need to know about SEO reporting, including:
- What is an SEO report?
- Why do I need to run an SEO report?
- How to create an SEO report in five easy steps
- Using SEO reporting tools
Let’s dive in!
What is an SEO report?
An SEO report is a summary of metrics that indicate how your website performs in search results. These search metrics allow you to track your website’s performance and better understand where you need to improve your SEO strategy.
Your SEO report will look at areas like:
- Overall website health
- Organic traffic
- Technical aspects of your website (website speed, for example)
- On-page optimizations (title tags, meta descriptions, etc.)
- Backlinks and internal links
- And more!
What is an SEO rank report?
An SEO rank report is slightly different from a standard SEO report. An SEO ranking report looks solely at your website’s performance in search results over time. This report helps you see what pages rank well, how page rankings change over time, and more.
This report tells you how you’re performing in search results, but doesn’t tell you the cause. If your rankings dropped, for example, a ranking report won’t tell you why.
An SEO report, on the other hand, can give you an idea of why it may have happened. If your SEO report comes back saying your website is too slow, it could be the reason for your dropped rankings.
Using these two reports in conjunction with each other can give you a better overall picture of your SEO performance.
Why do I need to run an SEO report?
So, what’s the value in running an SEO report? How does it benefit your business?
Here are a few reasons you’ll want to run regular SEO reports:
- SEO reports help you see where to improve: When you implement your SEO strategy, you want to ensure it’s working effectively. SEO reports help you see where you fall short and need to make improvements.
- SEO reports help you identify technical issues: Technical SEO issues aren’t always easy to spot, which makes SEO reporting crucial. Your SEO reporting can help you identify any technical issues on your website that hinder you from ranking better.
- SEO reports help you keep tabs on website changes: As time goes on, you’ll change your website, adding some things to it and removing others. Running frequent SEO reports helps you see how those changes negatively or positively affect your SEO performance.
How to create an SEO report in five easy steps
So, you’ve been convinced of the benefits of running an SEO report — now where do you start? Let’s break down how to create an SEO report in five easy steps so you can get started!
1. Set your key performance indicators (KPIs)
The first step to creating an SEO report is determining what key performance indicators (KPIs) to include in your report. These metrics are the ones that matter most to your business and are the best indicators of whether you’re achieving your goals.
Some common metrics included in SEO reports include:
- Website traffic
- Page load speed
- Backlinks
- Conversions
The metrics you include will vary depending on your business’s goals and what matters most to you.
2. Determine how frequently you want to do reporting
Once you know what you’re tracking, you’ll want to determine how you run an SEO report. If you just started with SEO, you’ll want to wait at least six months to do your SEO reporting. Since SEO is a strategy that takes time to show results, you’ll want to wait a few months to do your report.
If you’ve already had your SEO strategy in place for a while, you’ll want to determine how often you want to track and report on your SEO. You can opt to report bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
3. Design your report
The most difficult of all the steps in creating an SEO report is designing your report. You’ll want to choose a layout that is logical, organized, and easy to read.
You can opt to create a spreadsheet, PDF, or a slideshow to gather all your data. If you aren’t sure how you want it to look, you can always find a SEO report template that fits your business’s needs.
4. Know what tools you’ll use to fill your report
Once your template is set, the next step in SEO reporting is to determine what tools you’ll use to help fill your report. What tools you use largely depends on what metrics you include in your SEO report.
Google Analytics is a great tool to use to gather data on your SEO. You can see information on organic traffic, conversions, and more. If you wanted to check page speed, you could use Google PageSpeed Insights or other site speed tools.
Once you know what tools you’ll use to provide the data, you can start putting that data into your SEO report.
5. Figure out your next steps
Once you have all your data in your SEO report, you can see the bigger picture of your SEO performance. You can identify where your performance has dropped and where you need to make improvements.
After understanding where you fall short, you can create a strategy to start improving your SEO efforts.
Not sure where to start with improving your SEO? Check out this blog post for tips on how to improve your search engine performance!
An alternative to creating your SEO report: Using an SEO reporting tool
Now that you’ve seen how to create an SEO report, you may feel overwhelmed — there’s a lot to do. If you feel like creating a manual report will take too much time, consider using an SEO reporting tool instead.
SEO Checker, for example, is a free tool you can use that enables you to input your website’s URL to get a report on your SEO. It automatically scans your website and detects issues with your SEO.
SEO Checker will provide a detailed report on your:
- Indexability and crawlability
- Structured data
- Page load speed
- Backlinks
- Mobile-friendliness
- And more!
You’ll get a breakdown of the impact of those issues, how easy they are to solve, and how to solve them.
Get your free SEO report today
If you’re ready to see how your SEO is performing, use our free SEO checker to find out!
$3bn+
revenue driven for clients
Add WebFX to your content marketing toolbox today
Get SEO Proposal$3bn+
revenue driven for clients
Add WebFX to your content marketing toolbox today
Get SEO Proposal