How to Create an SEO Report for Clients – A Step by Step Guide

Is it possible that your clients get lost in the cluster of long reports filled with complex charts and difficult-to-understand terms? You aren’t alone at all. SEO reports can look like a huge stack of numbers, where it is unclear how much your work is worth.

There is no need for an SEO report to be a challenging puzzle. Instead, it should be simple and captivating. This manual will teach you the art of producing SEO reports that are simple, lucid, and strong. We will take you through all the stages, from gathering data to displaying results, so that you can make reports that prove your performance and increase customer relations.

What is an SEO Report?

An SEO report is a document typically sent monthly or quarterly that provides a brief overview of the performance of your search engine optimization work.

This service will mainly inform the clients about the value that has been delivered. It gives them the main answer: “What changes have your services brought to my business during the last month?”

What an SEO report should NOT be: It should not be an unprocessed list of numbers. Instead, it is a selective, concise, and knowledgeable summary emphasizing the most critical points concerning the client’s business objectives.

Why are Effective SEO Reports So Important?

One of the most critical abilities for retaining your clients is learning to create a good SEO report. The report has many dimensions:

• Trust and transparency are fostered: This reveals to the client exactly what your work is and what they are paying for, preventing guesswork or uncertainty.
• ROI and Value are shown: It directly connects your SEO actions (the “work”) to positive outcomes for the business, such as increased website traffic, more qualified leads, and, consequently, more sales (the “results”).
• Strategic Decisions are Made Easier: It uses numbers and facts to justify your previous actions and to propose new ideas for future developments. This approach helps the client feel like they are part of the team.
• Client Retention is Increased: The client clearly perceives and understands the value, and they gladly renew their contract with you.

What to Include in Your SEO Report: The Essential Sections

First, creating an SEO report will require a comprehensive yet significantly simplified plan. Here are the key points:.

1. Executive Summary: The “So What?” Section

Use simple language and write 3-4 concise points that highlight:

• The month’s greatest success (e.g., “A 25% increase in people filling our contact form”).
• One major issue or point that you are monitoring (“Fewer visitors to our service pages were seen, and we are resolving it by…”).
• The most crucial thing you advise doing next.

2. Performance Overview (The Core Metrics)

It should consist of:

• Organic Traffic: The sum of all visits and users via search engines like Google.
• Keyword Rankings: This is not just the case for the main keyword; it is recommended to conduct keyword research and analyse the overall status — for instance, assessing how many of your keywords are currently located on the first page of Google.
• Conversions & Goals: This is the number that matters the most. Report the leads, sales, contact form submissions, or any other significant actions taken by those who discovered you through Google.

3. Content Performance

• Most Frequently Visited Landing Pages: Enumerate the 5-10 pages that received the highest visitor count via Google.
• Content Trends: Point out new articles or pages that are becoming popular, or old pages that unexpectedly received more or less traffic, to guide your SEO writing and content strategy.

4. Technical Health & Backlinks

• Core Web Vitals: Indicate website speed and responsiveness using the yellow and red light system (Good, Needs Improvement, Poor).
• Crawl Errors: Discuss only the significant errors on the website that you are currently fixing.
• Backlinks: Present a few fresh, excellent links from other websites that you have gained, and mention if any significant ones have been lost.

5. Goals vs. Actuals & Next Steps

• Last Period’s Goals Clarity: Simply state in a few words how much you have completed the primary tasks outlined in the previous report. 
• Next Steps: List clearly and systematically 3-5 specific actions to be taken in the next month.

How to Create Your SEO Report?

A comprehensive process for making an SEO report for a client that communicates a strong narrative is presented here.

Step 1: Establish Purpose and Target Audience

First, when considering data collection, ask yourself, “Who is the target audience?” The report has to be presented to the company’s highest officer, who wants a summary of the main business ideas. On the other hand, the marketing director could ask for detailed project data. The report you create should be based on the audience’s requirements.

Step 2: Choose Your Reporting Tool

You have a few choices:

• Google Looker Studio: Great for making nice-looking, interactive reports that update themselves.
• Google Sheets: You can change it a lot; everyone knows how to use it, but you must put the new information in yourself.
• Agency Platforms (Ahrefs, Semrush): These have report-making tools that can save you time getting SEO information.

Step 3: Gather and Consolidate Your Data

Collect the main information from your most important sources:

• Google Analytics 4 (GA4): Displays the statistics of your website, user actions, and sales.
• Google Search Console (GSC): Offers information concerning search visibility, clicks, keyword ranking, and site performance from a technical aspect.
• SEO Tools (such as Ahrefs or Semrush): These provide information about backlinks and allow you to compare your site with competitors.

Step 4: Analyze, Don’t Just Report

This is the distinction between basic reports and great reports. Do not simply mention, “Traffic decreased by 10%.” Provide reasons for it. For instance, “Traffic went down by 10% since another website gained the top Google ranking for our main product page. We will refresh our content to get back to that position.”

Step 5: Visualize the Data

Incorporate images that are easy to understand, like graphs and charts. A rising line to traffic increase over 6 months is simple to interpret. A pie chart representing modes of goals is more interesting than a dull and lifeless list of numbers.

Step 6: Write the Narrative

This is where you tell the story behind the numbers. Use small boxes of text or short sentences to connect the information.

• Instead of: “The keyword’ best CRM software’ moved from position #8 to #4.”
• Write: “Our updated article about ‘best CRM software’ jumped to the first page of Google. This led to a 15% increase in people signing up for a free trial from that page.”

Step 7: Review and Deliver

Read everything carefully to check for mistakes. Ensure there are no spelling errors, broken charts, or confusing sentences. A clean and professional report shows that you do high-quality work.

Expert Ways to Build Reports Your Clients Will Value

• Customize for the Client: A local bakery emphasizes “phone conversations” and “people who need to be guided.” A software firm prioritizes “demo requests” and “free trial registrations.” Observe their priorities.
• Use Plain English: Impressions refer to how often your website was seen in search results.
• Focus on Business Results: Always tie your numbers to money, new customers, or brand awareness. More traffic is significant, but they hired you to turn more traffic into more paying customers.
• Keep it Simple and Scannable: Use whitespace, plain headings, and bullet points. Nobody likes to read a large, solid block of text and figures.
• Be Truthful About Failures: If something didn’t go as planned, explain why and tell the client what you are doing to fix it. This builds a more solid trust foundation than attempting to keep the client ignorant about the failure.

Your Blueprint for Success: A Professional Template

Creating an SEO report is one thing, but having an instrument to assist you quickly is a different story. We have prepared a free template for professional SEO reports to make things easier.

This Google Sheets/Looker Studio template, which you can modify according to your needs, has all the abovementioned sections. It also has pre-made graphs and easy-to-follow instructions. This template aims to significantly reduce your time while ensuring that the most crucial figures are always included.

SEO Report Example

Let’s look at a real-life example of how to generate a report for SEO that does its job well.

An Effective Report:

A neat, 2-page document.

• Page 1: Executive Summary & Key Metrics Dashboard. The Dashboard provides an overview at a glance, including a traffic chart, a goal-completion graph, and three short points that succinctly state the wins and next actions.
• Page 2: Deeper Dives. A table of the best content, a brief update on site health, and a clear, structured list of actions planned for the following month (for instance, “Create more attractive page titles for the top 5 service pages,” “Acquire 3 new backlinks for the ‘Houston SEO’ page”).
• Why it Works: It provides a quick visual snapshot, is centered on business outcomes, communicates the process very well, and supports the direction of travel.

Stop Reporting, Start Impressing

Knowing how to create an SEO report transforms you from merely a number collector to a consultant who offers smart insights. Your report is your greatest weapon in proving your worth and building solid, lasting client partnerships. It turns all your effort into easily digestible results that confirm your monthly value.

If you wish to ensure that your reports are always spot on for your clients and that your SEO plan delivers the best results, let the specialists handle it. At Angel SEO Services, we carry out the SEO tasks and provide transparent reporting, demonstrating our success and making our clients feel comfortable with their choice and informed about the process.

Ready to create SEO reports that win renewals? Contact Angel SEO Services today and let us show you the power of transparent, results-driven reporting.

FAQ

1. How often should I send SEO reports to clients?

Most people send a monthly report. This method constantly updates clients and demonstrates progress without informing them too much.

2. Which metric is the most crucial one to be present in an SEO report?

Conversions. The best metric to consider that correctly reflects your efforts’ value has to be the number of leads, sales, or other desirable actions that have resulted from SEO, even if traffic and rankings are still influential metrics to your success.

3. My client doesn’t understand technical metrics. What should I do?

Use basic vocabulary and discuss the implications for the company’s operation. Rather than “Improved LCP by 300ms,” you may say, “We made your site load faster, which delights the visitors and may lead to more sales for you.”

4. Can Angel SEO Services help improve our agency’s reporting process?

Yes, definitely! Angel SEO Services can help you create better report templates, set up dashboards that make reports automatically, and teach your team how to look at and show data in a way that clients will understand and like.

5. What should I do if my SEO report shows negative results?

Be honest and transparent, and also have a strategy ready. Wrap the most likely reason for the decline (for instance, a Google update, or more efforts by competitors) and present a straightforward plan for resolving the situation immediately. Such an approach will increase client trust even when you are not at your best.