What's in a SEO Report?

With goal conversions comes reporting... Can't say I love it but it definitely some work! If you're into SEO then you'll know you have to do lots and lots of reporting. It's all about keeping the client informed (and happy) with the campaign so they know what's going on. However, if you're your own boss, and doing SEO for you're own site, we can just skip the reporting part.

So really, what's in a SEO report? Good question!

An SEO Report should contain some basic information. The depth of information depends on how deep you're willing to go with the site analysis. But there are a few basic information which should always be there here are a couple of them:
  
Traffic Analysis
This is the easiest thing to track and report on, mainly because Google Analytics makes it so easy. Here's a screenshot of Google Analytics doing all the work for you:

It's always a good idea to track the traffic for each month, that way we can compare traffic month on month and see the rise and fall of visitors to your website. Even if you don't track your traffic for each month, as long as you have Google Analytics, you can always have a look at your previous months to see what the traffic volume was. It comes in handy at times...

Ranking Report 
Now with ranking it's slightly different. You don't have to track the ranking but it's a good idea to know where the ranking position for certain keywords. The higher up you're found for a particular keyword the higher the traffic you'll get for the keyword, especially if people search for that term. Take the term 'SEO Nigeria', if I'm ranking no 1 for it on Google I'm going to get more traffic than if I was saying in 6th position for that key term. Based on that, keeping track of one's ranking can come in handy. Also, it lets you know if you're link building efforts is paying off or not... 

Link building analysis
Once again, if you're your own boss, keep moving... But even if you are, it's always a good idea to know where you're leaving your mark on the Internet. Dropping comments, signing up for directories and social bookmarking are all parts of link building and should be included in a report; it's not something you HAVE to do, but once again, it's something to check and see if your efforts are paying off. 

Once those are in the report, the rest can vary. Some other things you might want to add are:

• Goal Conversions
• Bounce Rates (not that I really think they are that important)
• Top entrance and exit pages
• Competitor Analysis
• Geography of visitors

It's all about what you feel would be relevant for you or your client. Sometimes a report could be something setup from the very beginning - agreed before signing the initial contract - and it could be something created at the last minute. If everyone has access to Google Analytics you might think it unnecessary to actually draw up a report, after all GA has all the information there. However, some people might just want a concise copy, which is where a SEO report comes in, because GA can sometimes be seen as too much information.

These are something of the areas which I believe any site owner should be interested in knowing and hence should be in a SEO report. What do you think? Is there anything else you put in your reports or something you think is just as important? As usual please drop me a comment or send me an email to share your thoughts.

Thanks!