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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.