SEO reporting and tracking are major sticking points for anyone in the industry.
Unimportant data may be less valuable to C-suite executives.
Or maybe you don’t have enough data to clearly and accurately show growth, changes and significant events.
Reports must tell a story. Without the right details, you’ll end up with a confusing plot that won’t be accepted.
Before you can start reporting and tracking data, you need to collect it, which means using the right tools.
Most SEOs use a combination of different tools to properly collect, track and report data.
Some of the main ones include:
You can also use third-party tools to track keyword growth, sites and more, such as:
You will find many third party paid tools available to help you with your reporting and tracking.
But you need to be aware of the limitations of each tool.
For example, Google Search Console only keeps data for 16 months, so you need to consider this if you expect to provide long reports that show data beyond this threshold.
I assume you already have these tools in place. However, if you don’t have any of these tools, take a look at them and add any coding you need to the website to start tracking.
Otherwise, without the data these tools provide, you will go into your SEO journey blindly.
Tracking events (even non-SEO ones)
With your tools and analytics in place, you’ll want to start tracking big events.
SEO is all about driving organic traffic to a site and generating revenue, but you also need a way to track your progress.
Some of the things I recommend tracking are:
Tracking site changes and updates can demonstrate the value of the work you’re doing and can be extremely insightful as the site continues to grow.
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Separating brand vs. non-brand keywords
Now that you’re tracking events, it’s time to get into the nitty gritty of keyword separation.
Providing clients with a long list of thousands of keywords will not show them value. Many of these keywords may not be bringing in much value at all.
What you should do is try to split your keywords into:
Brand keywords will include the company and product name, and this is what many companies want to track when focusing on their branding.
Nike is a good example of a strong brand where people could search for “nike running shoes” and “running shoes” to find their products.
However, when working with large keyword datasets, you may want to start separating keywords further by:
You can then separate these keywords by page, URL or section if you want to further clarify the data and display it in your report.
Working through keyword lists takes time, but most of the work you’ll do is for your reports.
Clients want to see which keywords they are ranking for and where the traffic is linking to on the site.
However, there is one data point that is more important than any other when tracking – income.
Track revenue drivers
It is the Revenue Commissioners who open the eyes of every stake holder and are the prime minister in a report.
You’ll want to do a few things here to show income in a way that everyone understands and can appreciate.
Period-over-period comparisons
Comparisons are a great way to show growth over a period of time.
For example, companies earn a large portion of their Q4 revenue on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Everyone is looking for a deal, and it’s a time period filled with valuable data for your reports.
I recommend looking at data over a two-year period so you can show:
It is valuable when creating reports showing how higher search engine rankings were able to increase sales by 25% this Black Friday compared to previous Black Fridays.
Sales drivers
Sometimes, it can be difficult to figure out which keywords were responsible for driving sales.
Tools may not allow this level of fine-tuning when browsing through traffic, and this is where the IT team can help.
If it is shown that X keyword, which went from ranking 19 to 2, resulted in 17% higher sales of a product, it will show how investing in SEO generates income.
You can also segment data for events, such as the traffic that led to calls, email signups, consultations, and so on.
Supply the correct data to the right stakeholders
You have collected and segmented your data in a meaningful way.
But while some data points will be valuable to you and your marketing team, others may be glossed over by the C-suite.
For example, say you created a report that shows:
Marketing teams will appreciate this data, but a C-suite executive will wonder how the 10% increase in traffic led to an increase in revenue.
If you don’t wisely tie this information to the company’s revenue, the C-suite won’t be interested in your reporting.
You’ll want to create reports that tap into the key data that specific stakeholder groups want to see.
Save your SEO data for future use
Your reports today will be referenced in the next year or two, and will help tell the company’s SEO growth story.
Save the data you collect as it contains valuable information that you will use in the future.
I created my own custom tools to back up Google Search Console data so I can refer to it beyond the 16 month limit.
I suggest you do the same with most of the reporting work you will be doing even if you change companies.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily those of Search Engine Land. The staff authors are listed here.
Ludwig Makhyan is a contributor to Search Engine Land, covering organic and technical SEO. His background is in web development and digital marketing. Ludwig has over 20 years of experience in website design, coding and promotion. He is the co-founder of MAZELESS, an enterprise SEO agency.
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