SEO Reporting: How to Build Reports for Your Clients + Tools for Success

May 22, 2025

By Two minute reports

10 min read

SEO is all about measurable data; your clients expect to see more than vague theory. They need clarity, context, relevance, and actionable recommendations to rank their content higher in search engine results pages.

Creating SEO reports for clients that provide value means making the data digestible and actionable. In this guide, we'll show you how to build reports that highlight your clients' SEO progress and offer them the insights they need to continue improving.

How to align SEO reports with client goals?

First and foremost, clients need relevant reports. SEO is about so many things, and in theory, you can report on hundreds of different findings and metrics, which seem interesting to you. However, will it be something useful for your client? Will it help improve their business?

We have kick-off meetings or onboarding questions to keep things aligned with the client’s needs and requirements. These help you understand their business, industry, and specific goals so that you can tailor your reports accordingly.

SEO reportingImage Source: Ahrefs

Catering reports to industry-specific goals

When creating SEO reports, tailor every sentence and every data line to the requirements and needs of your clients. Every business and every industry is different, so you’ll want to focus on what matters most to them. 

Here’s how you can configure your reports for some of the most popular industries:

  • Healthcare: Track local search rankings and how well appointment booking pages perform. Today, 77% of patients use search engines before booking an appointment, so tracking and analyzing local search visibility is your key to healthcare clients' reporting.
SEO reporting statisticsImage Source: Sixth City Marketing
  • Finance: Monitor keyword rankings, lead generation forms, and conversion rates for financial products.
  • Real Estate: Look at local search results, lead generation, and user engagement with property listings.
  • Coaches, consultants, and educators: Use landing page data to show how well current pages attract new visitors and capture leads.
  • E-commerce: Focus on product page performance, cart abandonment, and sales trends.

Tailoring SEO reports to your client’s industry isn’t just about numbers on a page — it’s about turning data into something actionable.  When you align with the clients’ needs, you’re delivering the kind of insights that actually get them excited to make changes.

How to create actionable recommendations based on report findings

SEO clients don’t need vague recommendations and general insights if they don’t apply to their particular industry and business situation. They may find such reports interesting to read, but certainly not worth paying money for.

You aim to tie your research findings to the specific client’s goals and develop concrete and actionable recommendations.

Now, this is where most reports fall flat. It’s easy to say, “Improve your backlinks” or “Work on your site speed,” but what does that really mean for a fitness coach, a SaaS startup, or a local bakery trying to compete with national chains?

Your job is to take the data you’ve gathered and translate it into next steps that make sense — and feel doable — for your client. You’re not just a data-deliverer. You’re the translator between analytics and action.

SEO client reportingImage Source: Ahrefs

Here’s a simple way to approach it:

  1. Identify the actual problem. Don’t just say rankings dropped. Say why — was it algorithm-related? Content decay? A bunch of broken links?
  2. Match the problem to the goal. Does the issue impact their top-selling product page? Their lead generation form? Connect the dots to their bigger goals.
  3. Offer one or two clear next steps. Don't overwhelm them. Give them one to two things to tackle now, like rewriting underperforming content or restructuring URLs.
  4. Be specific, not fluffy. “Optimize your content” is vague. “Add 300+ words, include keyword variations, and update the meta title” is useful.
  5. Show the WHY behind your advice. Clients are more likely to act when they understand the benefit. Tell them what outcome they can expect if they follow your lead.

You want your client to finish reading your recommendations and say, “Aha! I know what to do next.” Not “Cool, but now what?”

The sweet spot is when your advice feels custom-made, because it is. That’s what turns a decent report into a business-growing asset.

Core metrics to include in every SEO report

SEO clients love numbers. Not just that they won’t be excited about an eye-opening written recommendation, but a single number can speak louder than a thousand words.

In digital marketing, specifically SEO, hundreds of vital metrics can effectively communicate a content or a website’s performance online. Below, we list the ones that are known to work particularly well in SEO reporting and split them into distinct categories.

These track how well a client’s content and backlink strategy are working.

  • Backlinks gained – The client’s online popularity score.
  • Referring domains – How many different sites are sending traffic?
  • Domain authority (DA) – A website’s power level.
  • Internal link count – SEO fuel is passed between a website’s pages, contributing to the overall site structure.
  • Content freshness score – New content still packs a punch, providing better results for SEO.
  • Pages with no traffic – Time to configure, recycle, or retire that content.

SEO reports should help clients detect promising opportunities, including guest blogging campaigns. These reports should also allow clients to choose a domain with a high DA rating (e.g., 40+), offer a range of websites to publish their guest posts, give automatic content performance checking tools, and contain many other important features and best practices. 

  1. Traffic & engagement metrics

These show how to find a site and what to do once you get there. Many of them are self-explanatory, but a nice and short description won’t hurt:

  • Organic traffic – The king of SEO metrics, showing organic visitor rate.
  • Click-through rate (CTR) – How tempting a client’s listings are.
  • Conversion rate – The ultimate proof: did visitors actually do the thing your client wanted them to do?
  • Bounce rate – The number or percentage of customers who left a site.
  • Pages per session – Are they sticking around or just peeking in?
  • Average session duration – The longer, the better.
  • New vs. returning visitors – Fresh eyes vs. loyal fans.
  1. Search visibility & ranking metrics

All about how a website performs in search results and how findable it is.

  • Keyword rankings – Are your client’s keywords climbing or falling off a cliff?
  • Impressions (Google Search Console) – How often does the website or its pages show up?
  • Top queries – The terms users type that lead to the website.
  • Index coverage – What Google has found and listed.
  • Crawl errors – What’s blocking search bots from doing their job?
  1. Technical & user experience metrics

Also known as technical SEO metrics, these cover the behind-the-scenes magic that keeps everything smooth and fast.

  • Page load speed – If a website lags, users bounce. Studies have shown that as page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, the probability of a user bouncing increases by 32%.
Page load statsImage Source: Queue It
  • Mobile usability score – Mobile-friendliness is expressed in a score of 0 to 100.
  • Core web vitals – Google’s user experience stress test. It’s a fancy way of checking if your client’s site feels smooth, not sluggish.

Sure, your client may not know their CTR from their DA at first — but when you tie these metrics to actual outcomes (like leads, sales, or sweet ranking jumps), they’ll get it.

Top SEO reporting tools

Connecting reporting to the client’s marketing goals and using the right SEO metrics is only one part of the challenge. The other part is the knowledge and correct application of the right SEO reporting tools. The right ones save time and help you deliver sharp, digestible reports and genuinely useful for your clients (instead of just looking impressive).

Here are some of the most loved and battle-tested tools for building effective SEO reports:

  • SEMrush: It is perfect for SEO pros. It finds keywords, tracks rankings, runs audits, and spies on competitors, making SEO less like a guessing game.
  • Ahrefs: Another SEO must-have. It shows backlinks, top pages, and keyword gaps. Great for planning smarter content.
  • Google Search Console: It's free and direct from the source. It shows how Google sees your site, what’s ranking, and what needs fixing.
  • Google Analytics 4 (GA4): It's the go-to tool for understanding user behavior. It tracks who’s visiting, how long they stay, and what they’re doing.
  • Screaming Frog: A crawler that helps you spot broken links, duplicate content, redirects, and all sorts of SEO gremlins.
  • Moz Pro: Known for its clean UI and handy tools like DA score, link tracking, and rank monitoring.
  • Surfer SEO: Helps you optimize content with data-backed keyword suggestions and live content scoring. Writers love it.
  • SE Ranking: A strong all-rounder that includes keyword tracking, audit tools, and white-label reports. Great bang for your buck.

Other SEO tools are available, some more affordable than others. However, chasing affordability and free features, don’t forget about the value for your customer. Perhaps, it is for a good reason that most SEO enthusiasts choose among the three SEO kings: Moz Pro, Ahrefs, and SEMrush.

Common mistakes in SEO reporting

SEO reportImage Source: Semrush

Sometimes, report SEO success comes not from following the best practices but from avoiding common mistakes. Below, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the most common mistakes, where even one can ruin an otherwise great SEO report.

  1. Dumping too much data without context. Throwing charts and numbers at clients doesn’t make you look smart — it makes their eyes glaze over.
  2. Skipping client goals altogether. If your report doesn’t reflect your client's concerns, you’ve just written an impressive piece of generic content. 
  3. Failing to prioritize metrics. Not all metrics are equal. Stop putting bounce rate next to revenue like they’re best friends.
  4. Relying too heavily on AI-generated content without proper evaluation. According to Robin Waite (business coach and mentor), AI content should supplement, not replace, human-driven creativity and strategy.
  5. Reporting on vanity metrics. High impressions look pretty… until the client realizes no one clicked. Always pair volume with value.
  6. Not explaining what the data means. Telling clients their CTR dropped without context is like handing them a puzzle with no picture on the box.
  7. Using overly technical language. Avoid phrases like “canonical tag conflicts” without a friendly translation unless your client is an ex-Google engineer.
  8. Forgetting to highlight wins. If traffic went up 32%, and you don’t celebrate that? All clients love seeing and hearing the good news, and some prefer quick wins.
  9. Hiding bad news. SEO isn’t always rainbows. Clients appreciate transparency and a plan to fix whatever went wrong.
  10. Delivering reports with no action items. A report that doesn’t answer “What do we do next?” is just a progress check—and not a very helpful one.

All clients are different. Some may be too picky with the accuracy of SEO reporting numbers, while others may be more interested in proposed action plans than the findings and errors. The art of SEO client reporting assumes that you can understand the client’s pain points and preferences, and avoid making mistakes that cause more questions than answers.

The key takeaways

SEO reporting is the culmination of your analysis of your client’s SEO performance. It should be well-written, contain relevant metrics and statistics, and visualize the key findings for better communication with clients and stakeholders. 

Much of the SEO reporting these days is automated with the help of powerful SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz Pro. Remember that you’ll need access to premium features to extract the maximum potential from your efforts.

The key to a high-impact SEO report is your ability to define the problem, connect it with the client’s business goals, and propose highly specific, actionable recommendations to resolve the issue.



 

 

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is SEO reporting, and why is it important for clients?

SEO reporting is the act and process of presenting to a client the results of the analysis of their SEO efforts. It gives clients a professional outsider’s perspective on their content, online shop, social media page, or website performance.

What should be included in a client SEO report?

A client SEO report should include on-page and off-page SEO stats, technical SEO, and UX metrics. The gist of your report should revolve around conversion metrics and proposed optimizations. Clients want to know what’s working and what’s not in their SEO campaigns, so your objective view and unbiased opinion are highly desirable.

What tools are best for building SEO reports?

Look for tools that balance depth with usability. Many SEOs rely on GA4, Looker Studio, or Semrush. Plenty of alternative tools are also available, including Google Analytics 4 or its paid version, GA360.

Can I use AI-generated content in SEO reports for clients?

Yes, but wisely. AI can help speed up report writing, but blindly trusting it is a dubious idea. Always review AI-generated insights, which may contain irrelevant suggestions, wrong assumptions, and overly generic recommendations.