What do perfect SEO reports look like? I am not referring to the enticing (free) ones that a Google search for “SEO report” throws at you. Those are, in fact, what we call SEO site audits, right? Not many posts shed much light on what exactly to include in the monthly or quarterly reports that you prepare (I hope) for a site for which you’ve got a year-long (I hope again) contract. You may want to call these “interim SEO reports" for the sake of clarity.

The best SEO report ever consists of just one link and looks like this:

If you don’t own all results on Page 1 for your keyword, welcome to the club.

What’s there to report?

Before you prepare a single interim SEO report or indeed formulate a strategy, it is imperative to agree with your client on the exact goals of the campaign. I cannot stress this enough. Once the goals have been set in stone (or on paper), you have to pick the right KPIs (key performance indicators) to help your client determine the extent of the campaign’s success. I cannot stress this enough.

Finally, list out all the on-page and off-page SEO activities, such as modifying Title tags, directory submission, and others that you plan to carry out to achieve key milestones. This is somewhat similar to the concept of WBS (work breakdown structure) in project management. They don’t need to be listed in the order in which you plan to carry them out, but do group similar ones together. It pays to be completely open with your client on this one. Don’t worry if you need to add new tactics down the line (called “gold plating” in project management) or cancel ones that don’t matter anymore (called “saving time and effort” in plain English) from the list at any time. This will only add to transparency.

My client wants results, not reports.

Moving ahead, we SEO blokes (and birds) must understand our clients’ approach to reporting data—figures that they expect to see, in formats with which they are comfortable. Some clients just want to see the ROI on a piece of tissue, while others are keen on detailed week-by-week reports of all your link building, social engagement, and other activities, complete with charts and tables. Consciously resist forming biased opinions such as “busy people and corporate honchos are only interested in the outcome” or “I’ll flood the mom-and-pop business with so much data, they’ll think I know best and won’t bug me.”

SEO and social media campaigns are increasingly becoming synonymous with the marketing functions of advertising and branding. As a result, even though many of us are working with “Just show me the results!” type clients, it is important to articulate your short-term progress on paper. The vast majority of clients do want constant reassurance that their money is being spent wisely and they’re getting something in return. When Coca-Cola pays an advertising agency for a campaign, they don’t judge the outcome as successful based on a single rise in sales of cans; they’d have people monitoring how often the commercials appear on TV or magazines, how they’re received by the audience, and a host of other factors, wouldn’t they? (Legal disclaimer: I am guessing. I’ve never sold sugared water.) There will be occasions when clients, big or small, will want to know what you’ve been up to—especially around payment time. No matter what, it will do you a world of good to meticulously document every action and process that you follow, whether or not you turn it into a report.

Scrape around the web, and you will stumble on umpteen articles such as “10 Tools that God Uses to Create Mind-Blowing SEO Reports”; but dig deeper, and you realize that most tools produce giant gobs of numbers and stats (they have to, because they’re not free) that make Excel sheets look like pebbles.

Appreciate the fact that clients are just like us. They come in three flavours: Those who can count and those who can’t. (Yeah, I spell “flavours” with a “u” – Queen’s Vanilla.) By and large, they don’t fully grasp the concepts of analytics, “crawl errors,” or “talking about this.” Therefore, it is your responsibility, fellow SEO dudes (and chicks), to take the jagged mountains of data spewed out by your dazzling tools (and more importantly, Excel sheets) and present them to your clientele in an easy-to-understand, actionable way.

OK, now show me the money ...um, report.

We have found that sending an interim SEO report to clients on a fixed date every month, whether they ask for it or not, keeps us in good standing. Weekly reports don’t give you enough time for results. Or for actual work. Quarterly reports tend to keep you away from your dear stakeholders for too long. Thus, monthly reports are ideal. Plus, if you make your reports interesting (and are able to produce cool upward-pointing graphs every time), your clients will actually look forward to read them. Don’t believe me? Read on.

Last year, Jonathan Walker wrote a cool YouMoz post on what to include in SEO reports. To jog our memories a bit, it advised incorporating project overview, work completed, keyword progress, impact on traffic, goal completion / sales, ROI figures, and what happens next (upcoming actions). I shall endeavour to give some specific examples and breakdowns of the “work completed” part. As you will see, more often than not, this includes “keyword progress,” “impact on traffic,” and “goal completion.” So let’s get down to business.

Our approach at Maven Infosoft is to constantly try out any and all tactics applicable to the site/brand and possible within budget before zeroing in on the ones that work best. These activities largely come from within the list/breakdown that we agreed with the client at the outset. Please bear in mind that the SEO strategies (such as PR/article/directory submission, increasing PageRank, and others) that I’m going to use in my examples here only serve to drive my point home. Their effectiveness largely depends on what your client needs.

In your first interim report, devote a section to each task that you’ve undertaken. Say you configured Google Analytics (for a new site) and Webmaster Tools, submitted a press release or article about a company, and uploaded some videos to their YouTube channel. Each section can include the following components:

Title

Describe the SEO activity and why you’re doing it. In about five words.

Description

Give an explanation on the nature of the task. Why are you doing it? How are you going to go about it? What can it do for the rankings or visibility? Who else is doing it? Try not to be boring.

_{Note: All the text in the above image are belong to us. If you dare copy it, we will set hordes of smart lawyers on you! To steal is webmaster, to penalize is Google.}

Advantages

Follow up the description with a clear portrayal of what goals or conversions you expect to achieve with this particular activity. Point out the benefits and outline which ones you hope to attain, and to what extent, for the campaign at hand.

_{Note: I filched the text in the above image, from a site I cannot remember, only with intent of educational illustration. I promise not to use it for commercial purposes or to buy a Rolls Royce. My other car is a Bentley.}

Lists (for link building, site submission, etc)

Length does matter. You might want to skip loooong lists and provide links to downloadable documents. Just mention the total number of items here—such as “6000 new followers”—to make an impression.

Screenshots (Task completion or Achievement)

Maybe you gatecrashed into the PR-8 club. Or got 500 Likes. Or the most common keywords Google found when crawling your site were the ones for which you want to rank. Paste the images here.

Screenshots (Progress)

Jump in rankings? Increased traffic? Better results quarter on quarter? Let’s see it.

Screenshots (Comparison)

Closing in on your competitors? Falling behind? In what areas? You can also compare your campaign with another one run for the same company.

Tables (for search query performance, country-wise page traffic, etc)

Again, if you have multiple, large, unwieldy, or ugly tables, you might want to link to downloadable spreadsheets or the like.

Each section would have a Title, Description, and Advantages, as these would be necessary for all the tasks. You can describe how you went about them and what results you got with screenshots, lists, charts, and tables.

To summarize, a completed report will look something like this:

# COVER PAGE #

     --Page Break--

Title: Incoming Links to Your Site

...Description of why back links are important...

Table showing domains, number of links, and linked pages

     --Page Break--

Title: Global Website Ranking

...Explanation of the ranking system you're using...

Screenshots (Progress) of previous month’s rank and this month’s rank

     --Page Break--

Title: Online Brand Awareness with PR Submission

...Nick from above...

List of free and paid PR sites to which you released company news

     --Page Break--

Title: Blended Results with Video Uploads

...Preach how videos help social/viral marketing...

Screenshots (Task completion) of videos you uploaded to YouTube/Facebook

     --Page Break--

# BACK COVER #

In subsequent interim reports, you need not reproduce the whole description for a task you’ve done before. Simply link to the appropriate segment in the report in which you first described the activity like this:

For details on the benefits of Forum Community Outreach, please see Interim SEO Report #2.

Though I have used simplistic examples of SEO techniques, you get the idea of the structure. The beauty of this reporting system is that you can customize it to suit the level of your client’s SEO understanding, regardless of the complexity of your specific strategies. It can potentially be used for corner shops and oil companies alike. You could have as few as one section or as many as humanly possible in your reports.

Don’t be afraid of experimenting with the data you supply or changing its visual appearance. Consider using charts and screenshots in different ways, even if they look like crude infographics. Your clients are almost certainly bored to the core with the prospect of wading through reports. They are conditioned to see data in the same formats month over month over month. What else do you expect with “reports”? So, knock together assorted tables, links, and images in ways that provoke them to think (yay!) and make them want to contribute actively to the campaign.

The “project overview” or larger goals that Jonathan talked about are not something which you need to put into every interim report. They should live on your (and your client’s) whiteboard. Nor am I thrilled about including ROI (positive) in interim reports. Positive sales, revenue, and profits that SEO generates for your client should always be decked in a glorious presentation using the finest of your slides, followed by a ball and dinner.

As for divulging what activities you plan to do next month, I’ll leave the decision to you. It depends on you, your client, and the nature of the campaign.

SEO Report ≠ Client’s Trash Can Filler

Lastly, I absolutely have to address the most common gripe that resonates throughout the SEO community—“Clients don’t read the reports, and you’re lucky if they ever set their eyes on them.” Reporting is considered such a waste of time that people don’t even write articles about it!

My dear homies, that alpha SEO par excellence Danny Dover has an irrefutable solution: wherever possible, send your clients a printed copy of the interim report along with a PDF. The PDF is for record-keeping and distribution within the client’s organization; whereas the hard copy serves to increase readability and professionalism. After sending the report, schedule a phone call (or better yet, lunch) and spend time going over the report with them. This will help drive stakeholder engagement by inducing them to ask questions and compelling you to answer them. Churning out first-class reports is only half the battle won. (And you thought Veni, Vidi, Vici, VISA?) It is crucial that your client understands every part of the report and knows what actions to take and why.

As an additional incentive, I recommend you give your clients access to as many tools (such as Google Analytics and Facebook Insights) or apps that help them manage their site and SEO / Social Media campaigns as possible. Teach them how to use these apps. The least this will do is give them a sense of control and ownership.

“The best way to learn is to teach.” – a proverb

OK, I made up the proverb part to sound wiser.

What you do is always more important than what you report. Nevertheless, periodic reporting is absolutely essential. Nobody hears a tree falling in a dense forest and all that.

Whew! That’s about it. We have a few sample reports that you could use as a framework and customize for your own use. Like us on Facebook if you want a free template! I’m kidding—just ask!

What’s with the title of this post?

Keep reporting...

Comments, anyone?