What a Good Monthly SEO Report Should Include

On this page

1. What should an SEO report answer?
2. 1. Visibility: are more people finding you?
3. 2. Results: are they contacting you?
4. 3. Rankings for the searches that matter
5. 4. The work that was done
6. 5. What happens next
7. 6. Honest commentary
8. A simple report structure
9. Warning signs of a poor SEO report
10. Be realistic about timing
11. Want clear reporting on your SEO?
12. Frequently asked questions

If you pay for SEO, the monthly report is how you find out what you are getting. A good one is short, honest and easy to follow. A poor one is a wall of charts and jargon that makes it hard to tell whether anything is actually happening.

This guide explains what a useful SEO report should contain, in plain English, and what to be wary of.

What should an SEO report answer?

Strip away the detail and a good report answers four questions:

1. Are more people finding you on Google?
2. Are they contacting you?
3. What was done this month?
4. What happens next?

If a report cannot answer those, it is not doing its job, however many charts it has.

1. Visibility: are more people finding you?

Google’s free tool, Search Console, shows how your website performs in Google search. Its Performance report is where these numbers come from, and a good report should explain them:

• Clicks: how often someone clicked a link from Google to your website
• Impressions: how often someone saw a link to your site on Google
• Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions, which shows how often a sighting turns into a visit
• Average position: where your pages usually appear, where 1 is the top. Google averages it across all the searches your site appeared for, so treat it as a guide
• The searches people used, especially the ones that bring real visitors

A good report compares this month with the last one, and says what the change means in plain words. Impressions and clicks going up together is a good sign. Impressions rising while clicks stay flat might mean your pages are showing up but not appealing enough.

2. Results: are they contacting you?

Visibility only matters if it leads to enquiries. The report should show what the traffic produced:

• Enquiries from your website, such as form submissions
• Phone calls, where they can be tracked
• For local businesses, Google Business Profile actions: calls, direction requests and website clicks. Owners can find these by searching for their business on Google and choosing Performance, or in the Google Maps app under Business. Our Business Profile checklist explains how to set the profile up

Tracking is never perfect, especially in the UK where tracking tools need visitor consent. An honest report says what it can and cannot measure, rather than pretending to certainty.

3. Rankings for the searches that matter

A handful of target searches, such as your main service plus your town, should be tracked over time. Rankings can look different depending on who is searching and where they are, so a report should treat them as a guide and not an exact score. Be wary of reports that boast about rankings for obscure phrases that nobody searches for.

4. The work that was done

You should be able to see exactly what you paid for this month, for example:

• Pages written or improved
• Technical problems fixed
• Listings added or corrected
• Reviews gained or replied to
• Links or mentions earned

If a report says only that “optimisation was carried out”, ask what that means.

5. What happens next

A good report ends with a short plan: the next few actions, and why they were chosen. It should also say if you need to do something, such as sending new photos or approving a page. SEO is a partnership, and the best results come when both sides know what is next.

6. Honest commentary

Some months will be flat or down. Seasonal changes, Google updates and competitors all play a part. A good report says so plainly and explains what is being done about it. A report that is positive every single month, whatever happens, is not telling you the whole story.

A simple report structure

Here is the shape we think a useful monthly report should take:

• A short summary in two or three sentences
• Visibility: clicks, impressions, average position, top searches, compared with last month
• Results: enquiries and calls, where they can be tracked
• Work done this month
• What is next, and anything you need to do
• Notes: anything unusual, good or bad

Warning signs of a poor SEO report

• Vanity metrics only. Big numbers that do not connect to enquiries or sales.
• Jargon with no explanation. If you cannot follow it, you cannot judge it.
• Third-party scores presented as proof. Scores from SEO tools are worked out by the tool’s own maker, not by Google, so a high score does not mean high rankings. They can add context, but they are no substitute for clicks and enquiries.
• Screenshots with no commentary. Data without explanation is not a report.
• Promises of rankings. No one can guarantee a position on Google.
• No mention of what was done. You should know what your money bought.

Be realistic about timing

SEO takes time, and early reports will often show small movements while foundations are built. That is normal. Our guide to how long SEO takes to work sets out a realistic timeline, and a good report keeps you informed along the way.

Want clear reporting on your SEO?

Our SEO service includes plain-English monthly reports, so you can see what we did and what it produced. If you are new to all this, start with what SEO is or our guide to ranking higher on Google. Try our free website check and we will tell you what we would do first.

Search Console and Business Profile details checked against Google’s help pages on 8 October 2026. Google changes its tools often, so check its help pages if something looks different.

Frequently asked questions