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SEO 30 min read July 22, 2022

How to Make SEO Reports That Impress Your Clients: Experience of Strategy Plus

How to Make SEO Reports That Impress Your Clients: Experience of Strategy Plus
How to Make SEO Reports That Impress Your Clients: Experience of Strategy Plus
Daniel Ricardo
Daniel Ricardo
Digital Marketing Director at Strategy Plus
Effective SEO takes time, dedication, and patience. So, when it comes to sharing results with your clients, you need reports that are concise, quick to produce, and easy to understand.

To keep track of SEO performance, you need to have all the tools to create reports that keep up with demands and expectations.

Today, we will review the insights of SEO reports, including valuable tips that were discussed in one of Serpstat's Twitter Chats. Among the main speakers:
  • Sophie Brannon
    Client Services Director
    at Absolute Digital Media
  • Olena Prokhoda
    Social Media and Community Specialist at Serpstat
  • Lyndon NA
    Internet Business Consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC), CM & SMM, UX, CRO & ORM Specialist
  • Remco Tensen
    Digital Marketing Consultant & Founder at RemcoTensen.nl

1. What Is an SEO Report?

SEO report displays your website's SEO achievements and failures. It usually includes information about:

  • organic keywords quantity and dynamics;
  • website traffic;
  • visibility;
  • backlinks quantity and dynamics;
  • technical condition of the site;
  • positions in SERP for the target keywords.
Would you like to create impressive SEO reports with just a few clicks via Serpstat?
Click the button below, sign up and get a free 7-day trial!
SEO reports assist you in educating your clients, documenting the benefits of the SEO work you've been performing, and helps you to develop a relationship with the client.
Olena Prokhoda
Olena Prokhoda
Social Media and Community Specialist at Serpstat

2. Why Should You Make Regular SEO Reports?

Search engine results are changing daily, and changes depend on many factors, which is why very important to always keep an eye on your SEO performance. As an SEO specialist, you should provide SEO reports for clients regularly, at least once per week.
The purpose of SEO reporting is to show the value in what you're doing and the reasons why you're doing it. In many cases, it can act as a communication channel between you and the stakeholder/client.

Your SEO reporting should be the tool that you use to build trust, be transparent, and showcase value. And ultimately, hype up all the amazing work that you've been doing!
Sophie Brannon
Sophie Brannon
Client Services Director at Absolute Digital Media
SEO Reporting serves multiple purposes, depending on the type and whom for:

  • shows the value/gains of prior/current efforts;
  • highlights areas of improvement, or not;
  • help identify areas that need attention;
  • can be used as an "I told you so" stick.
Lyndon NA
Lyndon NA
Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC), CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)
Remco Tensen, Digital Marketing consultant, indicates the following reasons why you need SEO reports:
1. You WANT to be held accountable for results that come out of SEO since they justify the value you add.
2. Diplomacy. Getting support, getting it done. SEO isn't only about search visibility, it's also about being visible yourself.
Remco Tensen
Remco Tensen
Digital Marketing Consultant & Founder at RemcoTensen.nl

3. Getting Started: Our Goals

Strategy Plus is a Digital Marketing Agency that specializes in delivering digital marketing strategies to growing companies online. We offer a holistic approach to maximizing the ROI for everything we do — SEO, social media, email marketing, web design, video, etc.

We take the time to understand your business, customers, and competition before creating a strategy. By working in partnership, we can help you boost your business to grow and reach your goals.

We believe it is essential for an SEO tool to meet the needs of a business, provide clear and concise reports for all clients, and not cost all the money in the world (especially for those who monitor many SEO projects).

Considering all these points, our team chose Serpstat as the tool to quickly and easily share your SEO reports in a variety of ways.

Our Goals

Serpstat is our friend and perfect ally in achieving our primary goals. Most often, we use Serpstat reports for:
1
Assessing the amount of work on the new project and the formation of an initial action plan.
2
Collecting project data to provide reports to the clients.
3
Attracting new customers (quick analysis of any site to make an offer to a potential client).
4
Checking rankings of our clients' competitors to know their strengths.
5
Searching for competitors' keywords to expand the semantic core of our clients' sites.
6
Performing site audit to find and then fix the technical issues of our client's websites and have technical site auditing report.
7
Analyzing backlinks to check their quality and naturalness and control the growth dynamics of the link mass.

4. What Should A Good Report Include?

A quality SEO tool is an essential expense for any digital agency.

Customers always want to see proof of progress, so it is simpler to have an automated report with all relevant key performance indicators sent on a scheduled basis, rather than manually compiling data points at the last moment.

Additionally, useful SEO reports will allow you to see the results of experiments and run a successful SEO campaign.

So, what a perfect report should have?

4.1 Simple Design and Customization

A clear and concise layout is always a must when reporting. A high-quality design means that the key data immediately stands out to your clients and managers. The last thing you want to do when sending results to those in charge is to frustrate them with incoherent reports.

Being able to monitor, create, and share your reports easily is critical when choosing an SEO reporting system that works for you. Not only should a report be easy to navigate for SEOs, but also for clients, who should be able to work their way through reports quickly.

Serpstat's user interface is easy to understand. Graphs and infographics are used throughout to show variations and changes in data, allowing for easy tracking and analysis, saving you time and effort.
Moreover, Serpstat has an integration with Google Data Studio! The use of the platform is entirely free for all Google users. Creating the reports doesn't take up so much time and doesn't require specialized knowledge or skills, and they can be easily tailored to your specific needs. Data is automatically loaded from integrated sources and displayed in real-time. You can share Data Studio dashboards via the link, which is very convenient for teamwork.
Personally, I like Google Data Studio (aside from the freezing at the start of every month, ah!). It's a clear and easy-to-see dashboard that you can design, with third-party tools API'd and that can remain accessible to clients throughout the month. BUT... It's important that you always include more detailed write-ups.
Sophie Brannon
Sophie Brannon
Client Services Director at Absolute Digital Media
How to Visualize Serpstat Reports Using Google Data Studio Connector
Well, what a good SEO report should include? It depends on the type of the report and who it is for.

  • For the top-level — generally, a few charts and maybe a small table should suffice to show cost, gains, and value.
  • For mid-level — sectioned lists, associated tables, or charts.
  • For action-level ... a book :D

It's important to include comparative information along with situational/descriptive information.
Lyndon NA
Lyndon NA
Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC), CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)
Having the opportunity to edit your reports to suit you and your client's needs is essential.

Serpstat SEO reports are easily customizable to suit your preference. The Serpstat logo will automatically appear on all graphs in your reports by default, which provides a level of credibility to your clients. This will show that your reports have been created by an independent, third-party tool, helping to validate your SEO results.
For SEOs who prefer to feature their company branding, Serpstat also offers a White Label feature. This allows users to remove Serpstat watermarks from infographics and graphs and replace them with their own logos.

White Label function may appeal to SEOs who work freelance or in an agency, to strengthen the company's image as the expert in its field.
SEO Reports For Freelancers and Agencies: White Label and Brand Reports by Serpstat

4.2 Scheduling

Scheduling is a crucial function of an SEO tool. If you send a report automatically before work is completed, it will give false information to clients, who won't believe any updates have been made. Sending your reports manually allows you to analyze and comment on your report. This also means you are in control of exactly when the report hits the inbox of a receiver.

Serpstat allows you to schedule your reports as you like: daily, weekly, monthly, manually, etc.
reports settings
Want to know how to receive custom reports, White Label, and brand reports using Serpstat?
Click the button below and one of our managers will provide you with all the info needed!

4.3 Flexibility

When working to create great SEO results, you hope that sharing your findings should be easy. This isn't always the case and can be a bit of a headache if the right tools aren't used and used correctly.

Professional SEO platforms should offer a variety of report formats. Technical reports are needed for SEOs to analyze data internally, but you'll also want to create easily digestible takeaways from this data to clearly and concisely report back to clients.

Serpstat allows users to send their report to anyone they choose and how often. The recipients don't have to be paid users of the system. There's also no limit to the number of recipients who can receive your report.

So, you can export data in any format you want: CSV, XLS, XLSX, Google Docs, PDF, TXT.
data export
How should you adapt your reporting based on who’s receiving it? Let's see the following points of view:
Who your report is being sent to should dictate the level of detail, the type of information, and the overall structure of your report. Not everyone is as passionate about SEO as we SEOs. So we need to remember who's on the receiving end.

I think SEOs can get caught in a trap of trying to send daily/weekly reports when there's not that much to report back on. People forget that SEO is long-term. Over-reporting can also be a big mistake!
Sophie Brannon
Sophie Brannon
Client Services Director at Absolute Digital Media
The higher-up, the greater the distance/view, (so fewer slides, fewer charts, etc. the further up the chain you are reporting).

As you provide for each step-down, you will often provide more data and info, including stats/metrics relevant to their role.

This should be adjusted by the type/period of the report. Progress reports should be lighter than quarterly reviews, and those lighter than an initial state-of-things report.
Lyndon NA
Lyndon NA
Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC), CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)
Balance out what matters to you in what you MUST communicate to ensure the client knows and cares enough, and a lot of that starts in the onboarding phase.

Personally, I may prefer talking to an in-house marketer/dev/SEO to reach the C-level.
Remco Tensen
Remco Tensen
Digital Marketing Consultant & Founder at RemcoTensen.nl

5. How We Use Serpstat to Generate Reports and Manage Our Clients' Projects

5.1 Keyword Analysis & Organic Keyword Visibility

A keyword analysis is essential for effective search engine optimization. If you optimize the pages of your site with proper relevant keywords, this will bring you undoubted benefits. It will be easy for you to achieve high rankings in search engines, get high-quality traffic, and convert this traffic to loyal customers.

To find keywords, we use several Serpstat reports. First, we go to Keyword ResearchSEO ResearchKeyword Selection. Then, you can apply filters if you need them
Next, we need to find keywords that are semantically connected to our keywords. Related Keywords report is the perfect tool. Go to Keyword ResearchSEO ResearchRelated Keywords.
Search Suggestions report will help you find a list of search suggestions related to the researched query. These are popular search queries that pop under the search bar as you start typing the query. Go to Keyword ResearchSEO ResearchSearch Suggestions.
By clicking the Only questions button, you can see a list of all interrogative search suggestions containing the query. Serpstat arranges search questions depending on the wording. These are questions asked by our target audience.
Using this section, we can show the client the upcoming work on his project, the level of competition in the niche, or how things are going on in the client's project.
Would you like to test the Serpstat Keyword Research Tool?
Click the button below, sign up and get a free 7-day trial!

5.2 Site Audit

Algorithms change and update regularly, so you need to carry out site audits to ensure that a website is optimized to keep up with search engine demands.

Reporting tool should highlight issues and recommendations to SEOs to improve site ranking, including meta tags, headings, content, and redirects, and which of these issues are of high to low priority.

Not only does Serpstat do all this via a clear user interface, but SEOs will also receive an SDO score, a metric used by the Serpstat team. This indicator is calculated from a ratio of the issues found on the site (and their severity) to the number of possible problems on the site. The better optimized the website, the higher the SDO rating.

The SDO score can easily be explained to clients and can act as a clear indicator of SEO success, and is, therefore, a great addition to any SEO report.
Effective Site Audit With Serpstat: Tool Overview
To see the site's technical issues, click on any of the indicators in the summary report or go to the reports from the menu on the left. Serpstat not only indicates specific problems on the site, but also gives recommendations on how to fix them.

The tool also notes the corrected issues since the last audit on the site.
Site Audit is a perfect way to show the client the state of his site before and after the conducted work in a few clicks.
Frequently Asked Questions About Site Audit

5.3 Rank Tracker

Rank Tracker Tool allows searching for relevant keywords, reviewing competitors, and monitoring search engine rankings for the clients.

Analyzing site positions is essential to track the effectiveness of a promotion; so you can study the results of your work or your team.

You can upload keywords (depending on your pricing plan), divide them into groups by topics, and track your site's positions and the positions of your competitors. You will get all the information on the top 100:
  • keywords positions in organic and paid search results;
  • keyword distribution history;
  • competitors data;
  • market share.
Start tracking positions by clicking on the button Start tracking positions at the bottom of the Overview report.

A pop-up opens with the entered project domain, substituted by the name of the project, which can be changed as you like. The project group is the default. It can also be changed.

Check all the fields, make sure that everything is correct, and set up the tracking according to your needs.
rank tracker: general settings
After Serpstat tracks domain positions, you will get several reports:
1
In the Keywords report, you can see basic information about the project's positions for the keywords added to the project. The report will display the highest domain position in the SERP .
2
In the Competitors section you will find a report with a graph of the dynamics of changes in your positions in comparison with the top 100 competitors. To add competitors to the report, tick the check box next to the corresponding competitor.
3
URLs report helps determine if the tracked / expected URL matches the one that is in fact ranked in the SERP. As the actual URL, we display the one that has the highest position in the SERP.
Serpstat Rank Tracker: A Complete Guide
We use the Rank Tracking tool so that the client can see how the project is going and whether there is any progress.

5.4 Reporting On Link-Building

As one of the ranking factors, links can positively affect the position of a site in SERP. We used Serpstat to control the number and quality of our backlinks, as well as competitors' links. It was a necessary step to examine links and anchor lists of top competitors, analyze the quality and naturalness of the backlinks, and control the growth dynamics of the link mass.

Serpstat Backlink Analysis Tool provides general information on the backlink analysis module:
  • referring domains and subdomains;
  • backlinks leading to the analyzed domain;
  • referring homepages, IP addresses, and subnets;
  • the unique indicator of domain authority.
In Serpstat, you can also check backlinks for link building. Enter your domain and check these parameters:
1
Domain authority. Serpstat Domain Rank is an indicator of domain authority on a scale from 0 to 100.
2
Backlink quality. We recommend that you pay attention to the list of referring domains and anchors' list. At this stage, you need to make sure that the site's link profile is not full of suspicious sites and spam anchors.
3
Link mass growth dynamics. A sharp rise or fall, in most cases, indicates the manipulation of link builders with backlinks.
4
Malicious sites. Malicious sites are those blocked from viewing by Google Chrome (you see a warning if the content that you're trying to see is dangerous or deceptive).
Serpstat Backlink Analysis Tool: A Comprehensive Guide
Backlink Analysis can assist in checking the quality and naturalness of the backlinks, and controling the growth dynamics of the link mass.

6. FAQ. Most Common Questions About SEO Reports

What is an SEO analysis report?

An SEO report is a summary of the SEO measures that reflect the performance of your website. The reports usually cover areas such as the entire organic traffic, positions in SERP for the website keywords, backlinks and technical condition of the site. You can personalize the report based on your objectives.

What level of detail should your SEO reports go into?

As much detail as possible without overwhelming the end recipient. It needs to be tailored to what they want to see.

I've had clients demand a 1 pager to summarize everything, and other clients who wanted a 100-page report each month. The reports cover the information that your clients really need to know that will showcase the work you've done.

Insights and recommendations are very important. The data doesn't always tell the recipient what it tells us — because they don't deal with it every day. The insights are an opportunity to tell them exactly what the data means.
Sophie Brannon
Sophie Brannon
Client Services Director at Absolute Digital Media
What else you should take into account? 

The KPIs and general metrics of the report should change to suit the audience. As you get lower down the chain/closer to those "doing" things, the more KPIs and details you should give.

By rights — every piece of data/information, every chart/table should either answer a question (or several), raise a point (or more), or help explain something ... that is important to the recipient.

If not - cut it!
Lyndon NA
Lyndon NA
Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC), CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)
Remember that everything in a company is translated into the one metric we all understand, that allows us to compare, literally, all things in and around a business: money. Show me HOW you're contributing.

I should add a note from the heart: don't be afraid of talking about money. Money is your ally. After all, it's what eventually creates a decent income for YOU!

Making SEO out to be simple; ignoring the learning, competitor, and profit aspects, hurts YOU in the end. Your job value! That has nothing to do with gatekeeping.

SEO, is FUN, BECAUSE it ALWAYS provides that challenge, that you need in order to make your job durable and enjoyable!
Remco Tensen
Remco Tensen
Digital Marketing Consultant & Founder at RemcoTensen.nl
And what about showing bad news in the SEO reports? 

And what about showing bad news in the SEO reports? Sophie Brannon, Client Services Director at Absolute Digital Media, thinks that it's important not just to show bad stats, but to explain why they're this way, and what you're going to be doing about them.
This is something I see so many SEOs shy away from. Because no one wants to share bad news, right? But more often than not, it's inevitable in SEO.

Things aren't always going to go perfectly, whether that's our fault or not. But being transparent and honest about this, and coming to the client upfront with solutions, can actually make your relationship and trust stronger.

More often than not we know why things may take a downturn — an algorithm update, not being able to implement our recommendations, things stuck in the approval process, new competitors entering the market. But your communication piece throughout the month should mean that this isn't a surprise to the client/stakeholder.

Highlighting these things and showing your proposed solutions will actually showcase your expertise further and build more trust.
Sophie Brannon
Sophie Brannon
Client Services Director at Absolute Digital Media
Have any suggestions regarding SEO reporting?
We will be glad to see you in our next Twitter Chat!

Join our #serpstat_chat!

Join #serpstat_chat to discuss the questions of practical SEO, trends, and updates with SEO experts.


We conduct them every Thursday at 2 pm ET | 11 am PT on our Twitter channel by hashtag #serpstat_chat.

7. Conclusion

Having discussed the importance of reports and what you should consider when choosing a reporting system, you should provide explanations and analysis of your findings alongside this.

With Serpstat, you can easily monitor and analyze all your SEO data in one interface and quickly share it with clients at a time and in a way that suits you.

Customers want to see results, analysis, and SEO plans. Make sure to invest in a tool that is easy to use and allows instant sharing of results so that SEOs can ensure their hard work is understood and appreciated.
Join our private Facebook group Serpstat Insights to get read follow-ups with all the info discussed in Twitter Chat!
Serpstat, SEO, marketing, and everything related to this area are discussed in depth here. 

Learn, succeed, and share your experiences in this group: discuss workflows, network with other Serpstatmates, and contact our dedicated customer support representatives.
Get the latest product updates and industry news here!

Looking forward to interaction — we’re sure you’ll love our little community as much as we do :)
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