How to read a monthly SEO report in five minutes
You don't need to understand SEO to read your agency's report. Five questions, in order, that tell you whether the work is paying off and what to ask next.
Your SEO report arrives, it's twelve pages long, and you have a business to run. Here's how to get what you need from it in five minutes, without learning SEO.
Ask these five questions, in this order.
1. Did more people call or fill in a form from Google?
Find calls and forms from organic search. Compare them to the same month last year, not last month, because home service demand is seasonal.
If the number isn't in the report, that's the answer to the whole report: nobody is measuring what you're paying for. Ask for call and form tracking before anything else.
2. Did more people find the business on Google?
Look for clicks from Search Console and actions on your Business Profile (calls, website clicks, direction requests). Clicks are people who chose you. Impressions are just people who saw you, so give them less weight.
Good sign: clicks and profile actions up year on year. Worth asking about: impressions up, clicks flat. Your titles may not be earning the click, or you're showing for searches that don't fit.
3. Which searches moved, and do they bring jobs?
A report will often say "we now rank for 400 more keywords." Ask which ones. Ranking for "roof replacement [your town]" is worth more than ranking for a hundred searches nobody makes.
There should be a short list of the searches that matter to your business, with their position this month and a year ago. If there isn't, ask for one.
4. What was actually done?
The report should list the work: pages published, problems fixed, profile updates. Real things you could go and look at.
If the work section is vague ("optimizations," "ongoing link building," "technical improvements"), ask for specifics. You're entitled to know what you paid for.
5. What's next, and why?
A good report ends with next month's plan and the reason for it. "Two town pages for the towns where we get the most calls but don't rank yet" is a plan. "Continue to optimize" isn't.
Red flags to watch for
- Rankings screenshots with no clicks or calls behind them
- Numbers from paid tools, such as "authority" or "visibility" scores, used instead of your own Google data
- Traffic up but no breakdown of where it came from
- The same "next steps" every month
More on what a good report contains in monthly SEO reports for contractors, and rankings without tracking explains why rankings alone mislead.
A simple check you can do yourself
You own your Google Analytics, Search Console and Business Profile, or you should. Log in once a quarter and look at the same numbers the report shows. If they don't match, ask why. Our guide to Search Console for contractors shows where to look.
Next step
Take your last report and answer the five questions. If you can't answer the first one, that's the conversation to have with your agency this week. If you want a report built around these questions, here's our one-page template.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important number in an SEO report?
Calls and forms that came from Google. Rankings, traffic and impressions are useful context, but leads are what the work is for.
Why do my rankings go up but my calls stay flat?
Usually because the rankings that improved are for searches that don't bring jobs, or because calls aren't being tracked at all. Ask which keywords moved and whether call tracking is set up.
How often should I get an SEO report?
Monthly is right for most home service businesses. Weekly reports show too much noise, and quarterly ones let problems sit for too long.
