USE CASE
SEO reporting,
under your own name.
A report has to answer three questions: what changed, why, and what happens next. Most answer the first and stop. This guide covers what belongs in a report, how to build it once, and how to get it sent without anyone having to remember. In SEORCE it goes out in your brand, from your own mailbox.
What is SEO reporting?
SEO reporting is the regular communication of search performance to the people who pay for it or depend on it. A useful report covers the results, the work that was done, the link between the two, and the next steps. It now has to cover AI search as well as Google, because buyers use both. For an agency it is also a product in its own right, and the name on it should be the agency's.
Key facts
- A report answers three questions: what changed, why it changed, and what happens next
- It should cover AI search as well as Google: mentions and citations beside rankings and traffic
- Results with no record of the work behind them invite the question of what the client is paying for
- A report built once and sent on a schedule is more reliable than one assembled by hand each month
- For agencies, the report should carry the agency's brand from start to finish
- SEORCE reports export to Excel, PDF and Google Sheets, and can be scheduled
- On Agency accounts and above, every email and report can be custom branded: the sending address, the reply address, the logo and the display name
Last reviewed 15 October 2026 by the SEORCE team.
Days to build, a minute to skim.
We've all made the report that takes two days: screenshots from five tools, pasted into slides, sent a week late. It lists the numbers and leaves out the two things a client wants to know, which are what you did and whether it worked.
A report built by hand
- –Pulls screenshots from several tools
- –Shows rankings and traffic, with no cause
- –Covers Google and leaves out AI search
- –Arrives under the tool's name, or as a slide deck
A report that earns its keep
- ✓Is built once, from one set of data
- ✓Links each result to the work behind it
- ✓Covers search and AI answers together
- ✓Goes out on schedule, in your own brand
Four parts of a report worth reading.
Drop any one of them and the reader is left with questions you could have answered.
What changed
Open with the outcomes the reader cares about, which are visits and goals. Rankings matter only because they lead there.
- Traffic and goalsVisits by channel, and the goals those visitors completed.
- RankingsPositions on the keywords that matter, against the last period.
- AI visibilityWhether AI engines name and cite the brand, on the questions buyers ask.
- Visits from AI toolsCounted as their own channel, beside organic search.
What we did
Most reports leave this out, which is odd, because it's what justifies the fee. List the work you did, with dates.
- Fixes appliedEvery technical fix is logged with a before-and-after record, and the history can be exported.
- Content publishedEach article and its status, from brief to published.
- Links earned and lostNew referring domains, and the ones that dropped away.
Why it changed
A number that moved with no explanation is just weather. Tie results to work, and be honest when you can't.
- Markers on the chartAdd a note on the day a fix or an article went live, then read the line after it.
- Before and afterCompare the same pages over matching periods, against a baseline.
- What you can't attributeSay so. A report that claims every gain loses the reader's trust on the first bad month.
The name on the report
A report is part of what an agency sells. It should arrive from the agency, look like the agency, and reply to the agency.
- Your own mailboxConnect your Google account and report emails are sent from your address.
- Your display name and reply addressThe client sees your name as the sender, and replies come to you.
- Your logoShown in the email header.
- On a scheduleSet it once. The report goes out without anyone remembering to send it.
How to build an SEO report, in six steps.
Spend most of your effort on the first step. If you don't know who the report is for, no amount of data will make it useful.
Decide who it's for
A founder wants outcomes. A marketing lead wants the plan. Agree the three or four numbers that matter, and the goals behind them.
Goals and conversions →Pull results from one place
Traffic, goals, rankings and AI visibility, for the same period, from the same data.
Web Analytics →AI Beacon →List the work behind them
Fixes applied, content published and links earned, each with its date.
Fix history →Connect the two, honestly
Mark where work and results line up. Say plainly where they don't, or where it's too early to tell.
SEO uplift →Brand it and schedule it
Build the report once as a dashboard, set the schedule, and send it under your own name.
Reports and dashboards →SEORCE for agencies →Check it gets read
Ask the reader what they use and what they skip. Cut what nobody reads.
A page audit you can hand over today.
The extension audits any page and exports the result as a PDF. It makes a useful first deliverable while the full report is being set up.
Five numbers are usually enough.
Once a report has forty metrics in it, it has become a data export and people stop reading.
| Metric | Part it belongs to | What it tells you | Read it with care |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal completions from search | Results | What search traffic turned into: leads, signups, sales. | Small numbers swing. Show a trend over a quarter. |
| Organic and AI visits | Results | How many people arrived from search engines and from AI tools. | AI visits are undercounted. Some arrive with no referrer. |
| Positions on agreed keywords | Results | Where the site ranks on the terms that matter. | A handful of agreed keywords beats a list of hundreds. |
| AI mention rate | Results | How often AI engines name the brand on tracked questions. | It depends on the prompts tracked. Keep the set stable between reports. |
| Work completed | Work done | Fixes applied, articles published and links earned in the period. | Volume is no proof of value. Tie the work to a result where you can. |
A report that sends itself.
Ledgerly is our demo account, a B2B accounting tool for agencies. Northwind Digital is our demo agency. Ledgerly is one of its clients. Here is how the monthly report was set up, once.
Three numbers were agreed
Ledgerly's founder cares about demo requests, organic visits and whether AI engines name the product.
One dashboard, one set of data
Traffic, goals, positions and AI mentions came from the same project.
The work was listed with dates
171 fixes, four articles and six new referring domains, each from its own log.
Two results were tied to work
A marker showed the fixes going live before organic visits rose. The AI mention change was reported as too early to call.
Branded once, scheduled once
Northwind connected its mailbox, added its logo and reply address, and set the report to go out monthly.
The client was asked what it reads
Ledgerly's founder reads the first screen. The detail moved further down.
Demo data throughout. Northwind Digital and Ledgerly are fictional.
Build the report once. Send it as yourself.
A dashboard full of numbers still isn't a report. In SEORCE the results, the record of the work and the branded email that carries them come from the same project, so building the monthly report isn't a separate job of its own.
Pricing is per project, never per seat, so adding people to a report costs nothing extra. The 7 AI engines are ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek and Llama.
Every module talks to the others.
A report is only as good as the data behind it. When rankings come from one tool, traffic from another and the fix list from a spreadsheet, the numbers rarely agree.
In SEORCE those figures come from one project, so they agree with each other, and with what the client sees if you give them read-only access.
Ask SEORCE sits on top. It is your AI agent, in the app and on WhatsApp. Ask it a question in plain language and it answers from your project's data.
To start, sign up, link your WhatsApp number and text "Hi" to +1 (363) 200-3169.
Meet Ask SEORCE →How SEORCE handles each part of the job.
This page covers the subject as a whole. The pages below are product pages and related guides. Each goes deeper into one part.
Reports and dashboards
Custom dashboards, scheduled reports and white-label branding.
See reports and dashboards →Web Analytics
Traffic, behaviour and goals, free on every plan.
See Web Analytics →Goals and conversions
Custom events, split by source.
See goals and conversions →AI traffic
Visits from every AI tool, as their own channel.
See AI traffic →Rank Tracker
Your positions over time.
See Rank Tracker →AI Beacon
What AI engines say about the brand.
See AI Beacon →SEO uplift
See what your fixes and content changed.
See SEO uplift →Search Console analytics
16 months of history on day one.
See Search Console analytics →Fix history
An exportable record of every technical change.
See fix history →Content pipeline
Every article, from brief to published.
See the content pipeline →SEORCE for agencies
Per-project pricing and reports in your brand.
See SEORCE for agencies →AI search analytics
The guide to measuring what AI search sends you.
Read the analytics guide →Frequently asked questions.
SEO reporting is the regular communication of search performance to the people who pay for it or depend on it. A useful report covers the results, the work done, the link between the two and the next steps.
Four parts: the results that matter to the reader, the work completed, what caused the change, and what happens next. Keep the metrics few. Goal completions, visits, agreed positions, AI visibility and work completed cover most cases.
Yes. Buyers now ask AI engines as well as Google, so a report that only shows rankings leaves out part of the picture. Add whether engines name and cite the brand, and the visits AI tools send.
Yes, on Agency accounts and above. Every email and report can be custom branded: the sending address, the reply address, the logo and the display name.
Excel, PDF and Google Sheets.
Yes. Connect your Google account and client-facing emails are sent from your own mailbox, with your display name and your Reply-To address.
Yes. Access to a project can be shared as read-only, so a client can look for themselves without being able to change anything.
Yes. Build the report once and put it on a schedule. It goes out without anyone having to remember.
Monthly suits most clients. Search data varies enough week to week that a shorter cycle mostly reports noise. Send more often during a launch or a migration.
With a baseline and a date. Add a marker in Web Analytics on the day a change went live and compare the period after it. Where the link is uncertain, say so in the report.
Not for colleagues. SEORCE is priced per project, never per seat. Each client's site is a project, so a new client uses one of your plan's projects.
No. SEORCE has no GA4 connection. It connects to Google Search Console, and Web Analytics collects traffic and goals from one line of code.
Ask SEORCE is SEORCE's AI agent, currently in beta. It works in the app and on WhatsApp, and answers plain-language questions from your project's data, such as what changed for a client this month. It is included for every user, with no usage limit. To use it on WhatsApp, link your number and text Hi to +1 (363) 200-3169.
Yes. The SEORCE browser extension audits the page you're on and can export the result as a PDF. It covers one page at a time, so it suits a first look more than a monthly report.
Send your next report as yourself.
Add a site, build one dashboard, then connect your mailbox and add your logo. After that it sends itself.
Not ready for an account? Use the free browser extension or any of the free tools.