How to Build Your Own SEO Report (Steal Our Reporting Template)

Every month, we send an “SEO report” to our clients.

We went through dozens of tools before we decided to build our own reporting template using Google Data Studio.

We used Data Studio for a 3 simple reasons:

Connection to Google properties

Built in pulls from all of the data sources you need to build a proper report. Simply build the visual dashboard for how you want it to look and pull through key data.

Connection to non-Google properties

You can export data from other tools in Google Sheets (i.e. keyword rank tracking, project management info, CRM data, etc) and push into Data Studio. In other words, you can pull data from everywhere and format it into a branded, automated SEO reporting template.

It’s 100% free to use

You can read more about that here.

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1. Summary page

Why include this page?

• An intro page is a good way to summarize and communication key items in the campaign

What’s measured on this page?

• Major deliverables completed that reporting period
• Open action items that require attention
• Summary of increases (or decreases) in organic traffic
• Upcoming meetings, tasks, etc

This is a great page to add data from your project management tool. Pull down data into Google Sheets and pull through your updated project plan.

More resources

• How to add text to pages
• Sync a Google Sheets file to your report

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2. Organic traffic summary report

Why include this page?

• A high-level traffic summary allows you to see organic traffic trends over time
• Monthly and yearly comparison scorecards of organic traffic, bounce rate and time on page
• Key organic landing pages from the reporting period

What’s measured on this page?

• Complete history of organic traffic trends
• Organic sessions and pageviews during the reporting period, previous month and previous year
• Organic page views during the reporting period, previous month and previous year
• Organic average time on page and bounce rate
• Top landing pages from organic traffic and their engagement metrics

More resources

• Impact of engagement rates on SEO
• How to create filterable dropdown menus

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3. Organic traffic breakdown

Why include this page?

• Get granular insights in regards to how organic traffic is engaging with your website
• Deep dive into how mobile, tablet and desktop organic traffic differ
• Understand the demographics of your SEO traffic

What’s measured on this page?

• A trend line of your organic traffic by device (mobile, desktop, tablet)
• Organic traffic by location and device type
• Organic traffic by age, sex and device type
• Engagement rates like time on page, bounce rate and pages per session segmented by device type

More resources

• N/A

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4. Organic landing pages

Why include this page?

• Understand your best (and worst) pages as a result of your SEO efforts
• See which landing pages are driving conversions and engaged visits

What’s measured on this page?

• A list of all the entry pages from organic search along with their engagement rates
• The CTR of your top landing pages in Google
• A list of the landing pages driving the most sales or leads

More resources

• N/A

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5. Channel comparison

Why include this page?

• Get a head to head picture how organic search is performing against other channels

What’s measured on this page?

• Comparison of sessions, engagement metrics and conversions of organic search, referral traffic, direct traffic, social traffic, email, paid traffic and (other)

More resources

• N/A

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6. eCommerce conversion and revenue analysis

Why include this page?

• A deep dive into how organic traffic is impacting the sales on your website (if you’re managing an ecommerce site)
• A head to head comparison of organic traffic vs non organic traffic and how they affect various aspects of your sales
• Quickly understand metrics like average order value and revenue per page

What’s measured on this page?

• Overall ecommerce conversion rate (organic vs non organic traffic)
• Overall eCommerce conversion rate (organic vs non organic traffic)
• Revenue from organic search (this month, last month and last year)
• Transactions (aka purchases) from organic search (this month, last month and last year)
• Average order value (AOV) from organic search  (this month, last month and last year)
• The top organic landing pages on your site by sessions and conversion rate (compared to the previous reporting period)

More resources:

• Setting up Ecommerce tracking in GA

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7. Organic revenue report

Why include this page?

• Visualizations on how organic traffic is impacting your revenue
• Key landing pages and device types affecting sales

What’s measured on this page?

• A chart with organic traffic to product revenue over time
• Breakdown of organic revenue from mobile vs desktop
• The top landing pages driving purchases, revenue per user and conversion rate

More resources:

• Setup content grouping in GA

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8. Organic revenue by demographic

Why include this page?

• The breakdown of age, sex and location of your website’s customers from organic traffic

What’s measured on this page?

• Purchases from organic search by age
• Revenue by location (Country)
• Revenue by gender
• Revenue by new vs returning users

More resources:

• N/A

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9. Lead generation and conversion analysis

Why include this page?

• If you run a lead generation website (or one whose conversions are based on goals, not Ecommerce sales), this page focuses specifically on goal conversions from organic search
• Get a deep understanding of the pages that are driving the goal conversions on your website compared to non organic channels

What’s measured on this page?

• Goal conversion rate (organic traffic vs. non organic traffic)
• Total number of goal conversions (organic traffic vs. non organic traffic)
• Organic traffic plotted against organic conversions over a long trend period

More resources:

• Creating Goals and Events in Google Analytics 

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10. Lead generation by entry page

Why include this page?

• How the top entry pages are affecting your lead generation efforts

What’s measured on this page?

• A big list of your organic landing pages segmented with data on goal completions, goal conversion rate, bounce rate, pages per session and avg time on page

More resources:

• N/A

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11. Organic leads by demographic

Why include this page?

• The breakdown of age, sex and location of your website’s leads from organic traffic

What’s measured on this page?

• Leads from organic search by age
• Leads by location (Country)
• Leads by gender
• Leads by new vs returning users

More resources:

• N/A

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12. Local SEO reporting breakdown

Why include this page?

• For businesses with a physical location (verified in Google My Business), this page gives you insights into performance in your local market
• This page needs a local URL on your website to work (example 👉 https://webris.org/locations/boston-seo/)

What’s measured on this page?

• The trend of organic vs goal completions on your local landing page
• Goal conversion rate for your local pages
• A complete list of your local landing pages organic performance

More resources:

• How to verify your business in Google
• Local SEO case study

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13. Keyword visibility progression

Why include this page?

• Tracking how keyword rankings in the top 3 positions have progressed since your SEO campaign started
• Overall keyword ranking trends on position and impressions from Google Search Console

What’s measured on this page?

• The number of keywords in the top 3 positions this month, last month and campaign start
• The average position of your website in Google over time
• The number of impressions your website is receiving in Google over time

More resources:

• More about Query reporting in GSC

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14. Keyword performance report

Why include this page?

• The exact search queries (i.e. keywords) that are driving traffic to your website
• How “non branded” queries are trending over time (aka commercial intent keywords)

What’s measured on this page?

• The search queries visitors are using to find your website
• The rankings of top keywords across your website displayed as this month vs previous month vs campaign start
• How traffic from “non branded” queries are trending over the life of your campaign

More resources:

• N/A

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15. Links and content published

Why include this page?

• Link building and content generation are a key part of SEO growth. We built in a custom page that displays how many links and pieces of content were published during that reporting period
• This page is optional and since Data Studio is so easy to customize, you can alter based on how you report / build links and content

What’s measured on this page?

• Links landed this month
• Links landed to date
• Articles published this month
• Articles published to date

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Wrapping it up

Did we miss anything? What else would like to see out of our reporting template?

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