Good SEO reporting answers three questions in plain English: what changed, why it changed and what we are doing next. If a report cannot do that in a page or two, it is probably measuring the wrong things.

Start with business outcomes

Rankings and traffic are means, not ends. Begin with what the website is for: form submissions, calls, bookings, quote requests or sales. Set these up as conversions in Google Analytics so you can see how many come from organic search. Where possible, go one step further and record how many enquiries became customers, because a hundred poor enquiries are worth less than ten good ones.

Use Search Console for visibility

Google Search Console shows how your site appears in search, using data that comes straight from Google. The measures worth watching are:

• Impressions: how often your pages appear for relevant searches

• Clicks: how many visits those searches generate

• Click-through rate: whether titles and descriptions attract the right people

• Average position: a rough guide, best viewed per page or topic rather than sitewide

Separate branded from non-branded

Branded searches come from people who already know your name. Non-branded searches show whether you are reaching new audiences, which is usually what SEO is meant to achieve. A report that lumps them together can look healthy while new-customer visibility stays flat. Filter queries containing your company name to see the difference.

Look at landing pages, not only keywords

Show which pages bring in organic visitors and what those visitors do next. A service page with rising traffic and no enquiries needs a different fix from one with low traffic and strong conversion. Pair the numbers with a short note on what you will do about the weakest pages. If you are not sure what to fix first, our SEO audit checklist can help prioritise.

Track technical health lightly

Keep an eye on indexing problems and page experience, but do not let them dominate the report. Google's Web Vitals measures give a simple view of loading, responsiveness and stability, and our plain-English guide to Core Web Vitals explains what to do when a score slips.

Add context so results are read fairly

Search results move for reasons unrelated to your work. Note seasonality, website changes, new competitors and Google updates so a dip is not blamed on the wrong thing. Compare with the same period last year as well as last month. Remember, too, that SEO takes time. Our guide on how long SEO takes to work sets realistic expectations, and a quarterly view is often more useful than a monthly one.

What a monthly report should contain

• A short summary written in plain language

• Organic enquiries and, where possible, their quality

• Non-branded clicks and impressions with trend lines

• Top and weakest landing pages

• Work completed this month

• Priorities and any decisions needed for next month