Most monthly SEO reports are too long and say too little. Twenty pages of charts, 300 keyword positions and a traffic graph with no explanation. The client skims page one, sees a number go down, and books a call to ask whether SEO is working.
A good monthly report answers three questions a business owner actually has:
- Is this bringing in customers?
- What did you do this month?
- What happens next?
Everything in the report should serve one of those questions. This guide gives you a template that does, plus the rules for comparing numbers fairly so the report does not mislead anyone, including you.
The template at a glance
Seven sections, in this order:
- Summary (one paragraph)
- Leads and conversions
- Search traffic
- Rankings and visibility
- Work completed
- Next month’s plan
- Notes and issues
A local service business report built this way is usually three to five pages. A larger ecommerce client might need more detail in sections 2 and 3, but the order stays the same.
1. Summary
Write this last, put it first. Three to five sentences in plain English that a client could forward to their business partner without explanation.
A good summary says what happened, why, and what you are doing about it. For example, for Coastline Plumbing (a fictional plumbing company in Austin):
October brought 41 calls from Google search and Maps, up from 33 in September. Most of the increase came from the new water heater replacement page, which reached the top three in north Austin in mid-month. Website visits from search were flat because September had an unusual spike from a frozen-pipe article after an early cold snap. In November we are building the tankless water heater page and asking recent customers for reviews in Round Rock, where map rankings are still weak.
Note what is missing: jargon, hedging and a list of every metric. The client learns the result (calls), the cause (the new page), an honest explanation of a flat number, and the plan.
2. Leads and conversions
Lead with the numbers closest to money. Which ones depend on the business:
- Local service businesses: calls and direction requests from the Google Business Profile, calls from the website (if you use call tracking), and form submissions.
- Ecommerce: revenue and orders from organic search in Google Analytics 4, plus conversion rate.
- B2B and SaaS: demo requests, trial signups or quote requests from organic search.
In GA4, these are tracked as key events (Google renamed “conversions” to key events in 2024). Make sure they are set up before the first report. If they are not, say so in the report instead of quietly leaving the section out.
Show each number with a fair comparison (see below), and add one sentence explaining any big change.
3. Search traffic
Use Google Search Console for search-specific numbers and GA4 for what visitors did on the site.
From Search Console:
- Clicks: visits from Google search results.
- Impressions: how often the site appeared in results.
- Top pages by clicks, with the change from last period.
- Top queries, grouped where it helps (“water heater” queries, “drain” queries).
From GA4:
- Organic search sessions and engagement for key pages.
Keep it short. Five rows of top pages is more useful than fifty. If impressions rose and clicks did not, explain why (for example, you started appearing for broader terms on page two, or an AI Overview now answers the question above the results).
4. Rankings and visibility
Clients love keyword positions and they are easy to misread. A few rules:
- Group keywords by service or page (“Water heaters: 12 keywords, average position 6.2, up from 8.9”) rather than listing 200 individually.
- Show share of voice or a visibility trend for the whole tracked set. One keyword dropping two places matters less than the overall direction.
- For local businesses, show the map grid. A single ranking number for a map search depends on where it was checked from. A Local Rank Grid image shows the client where they are strong and weak across their area.
- Mention AI visibility if you track it: which assistants mentioned the business for the client’s chosen questions this month.
RankThat’s Rank Tracker records desktop and mobile positions daily or weekly, including which page ranks, so you can also spot when Google switches the ranking URL between two pages (a common sign of keyword cannibalization).
5. Work completed
This is the section clients read most closely after the summary, and the one agencies most often get wrong by being vague. “On-page optimization” tells the client nothing. Be specific:
- Published “Tankless water heater installation in Austin” (1,400 words, linked from the services menu and three related pages).
- Fixed 12 broken links and redirected 4 deleted pages to their replacements.
- Rewrote titles and meta descriptions on 8 service pages.
- Added Plumber schema with service area to the contact page.
- Replied to 14 Google reviews.
If you used tools to apply fixes, list what changed, not which tool did it. Clients pay for outcomes and effort they can see.
6. Next month’s plan
Three to five items, in priority order, each with a one-line reason:
- Build the Round Rock area page, because map rankings drop sharply there and the client wants more work in that area.
- Refresh the 2023 “water heater maintenance” post, which has lost half its clicks since spring.
- Ask the last 30 customers for reviews.
This shows the client that the work has a direction, and it gives you something to report against next month.
7. Notes and issues
Things the client needs to know or do: a website change their developer made that broke something, a Google update that moved rankings across the industry, a missing login, or a delay. Keep it factual.
How to compare numbers fairly
Bad comparisons cause more client panic than bad results. Watch for these:
- Months have different lengths. October has 31 days and September 30. Compare daily averages, or note the difference.
- Seasonality. An HVAC company’s searches will drop from July to October every year. Month on month looks like a decline; year on year shows whether the business is doing better than last October. Show both for seasonal clients.
- Day of week. For short periods, compare matching weekdays, because weekends behave differently.
- Data delays. Search Console data usually lags by two to three days. A report run on the 1st may be missing the end of the month. Run reports a few days into the new month, or label the date range clearly.
- Data limits. Search Console keeps 16 months of history and hides some rare queries for privacy. GA4 may apply thresholds to small numbers. Mention it if it affects what you show.
- Tracking changes. If you added call tracking or new key events mid-month, the increase is partly measurement. Say so.
RankThat’s monthly reports apply these comparisons automatically: per-day figures, month on month and year on year, with Search Console and GA4 data in one place.
Writing tips
- Plain English throughout. Replace “SERP”, “CTR” and “organic sessions” with “Google results”, “click rate” and “visits from search”, or explain them once.
- One idea per chart. Every chart needs a title that says what it shows (“Calls from Google rose 24% month on month”), not “Chart 3”.
- Explain drops honestly. Clients trust agencies that explain bad months more than ones that only show good ones.
- Do not pad. If nothing changed in backlinks this month, leave the section out or give it one line.
- Check before sending. Read the report as the client would. Does the summary match the numbers? Are the dates right?
Delivering the report
- Send it with a short note that repeats the summary and invites questions.
- Offer a short call once a quarter rather than every month, unless the client wants more.
- Give clients a place to look between reports. A read-only client portal lets them check rankings and traffic without emailing you.
- Brand it as yours. White-label reports with your agency’s logo and colors keep the relationship with you, not the tool.
In RankThat, each month’s report is drafted automatically in plain English from the client’s data, including work completed. You review, edit and approve it; nothing is sent to a client automatically. For running many clients, see our agency solution.
A copy-and-paste outline
[Client name] SEO report: [Month Year]
1. Summary
[3-5 sentences: result, cause, plan]
2. Leads and conversions
Calls from Google: [n] ([+/- %] vs last month, [+/- %] vs last year)
Form submissions: [n]
[Revenue / key events if relevant]
3. Search traffic
Clicks: [n] Impressions: [n]
Top 5 pages by clicks: [page, clicks, change]
4. Rankings and visibility
[Keyword groups with average position and change]
[Map grid image for local clients]
[AI visibility summary if tracked]
5. Work completed
[Specific list]
6. Next month
[3-5 priorities with one-line reasons]
7. Notes and issues
[Anything the client needs to know or do]Keep the structure the same every month. Clients learn where to look, and month-to-month changes become easy to spot.