SEO report template

A report template is not a document with blanks for numbers. It is a set of decisions taken once, so that they are not taken again, differently, every month: which sections appear and in what order, which rows the metric table has, where each figure comes from, how each one is defined, and where the person writing the report adds words. What the template leaves open is the part that should change: the headline, the explanation under each table and the plan.

Every section hangs on the spine set out in the guide to SEO reporting in revenue: what was done, what moved, and what it brought in. The template turns that spine into pages. Done well, it lets a reader compare two months at a glance, lets a second person write the report without changing what it means, and makes a missing figure visible instead of quietly absent.

The skeleton below has a cover, six sections and a definitions page at the back. It suits a monthly report for one site; the versions later in this guide shorten or extend it. What to write inside each section of a monthly report, and how to compare one month with another, is set out in Monthly SEO report: what to include. This guide sets out the fields each section holds, so that the template can be built once.

The AI visibility section works only if the prompts stay the same from month to month, so the template names the prompt set and the day it was frozen. How to build that set and read its changes is in the guide to measuring results in AI search.

The outline below is the template as plain text. Paste it into a document or a spreadsheet tab, fill in the definitions once, and copy the file each month. Words in square brackets change; everything else stays as it is.

SEO REPORT · [Site] · [Month YYYY]Prepared by [team] · sent [date] 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY   Headline:  [one sentence: the main change, with its figure]   Table:     metric | this month | last month | change | source   Notes:     [3 to 4 short paragraphs: what moved, why,              what it brought in] 2. OVERVIEW   Chart:      clicks and impressions, 16 months, changes marked   Top pages:  page | clicks | impressions | CTR | position   What the numbers say: [2 to 4 sentences] 3. KEYWORDS AND PAGES   Ranking spread:  top 3 | 4-10 | 11-20 | 21-50, against last month   Gained / lost:   [pages, with the searches behind them]   Buyer searches:  [the non-branded searches that bring sales]   What the numbers say: [2 to 4 sentences] 4. AI VISIBILITY   Mentions | citations | prompts that changed, each with its cause   What the numbers say: [2 to 4 sentences] 5. AUTHORITY AND SITE HEALTH   Referring domains:  new [N], of which spam [N], action [ ]   Site errors:        [before] on [date] -> [after] on [date]   Pages indexed:      [N], change [N] 6. INSIGHTS AND NEXT STEPS   What worked | What needs work   Issues to fix next:  [list]   Next month:  1. [action -> the figure it should move]                2. [ ]  3. [ ]   Next three months:   [one focus]   Needed from the client:  [approval, content, access, by date] 7. DEFINITIONS (fixed; change only with a dated note)   Key events:   [form_submit, purchase, call_click]   Revenue:      [order system / CRM / GA4 only]   Label:        [known / influenced / modeled / incremental /                 GA4-reported]   Brand terms:  [brand name, product names, misspellings]   Keyword set:  [name], [N] keywords, frozen [date]   Prompt set:   [name], [N] prompts, frozen [date]   Page groups:  [selling pages, articles, locations]   Changes:      [date: what changed, and from which month] APPENDIX: links to the keyword sheet, the audit log, the exports

The appendix line matters more than it looks. A report stays short when the full data sits one link away: the whole keyword sheet, the technical audit log, the export behind each table. A reader who doubts a figure can open its source; a reader who does not is never asked to scroll past it. How those reports stay short by linking to the full data is set out in Automated SEO reports: what to automate and what not.

The definitions sit at the back, as the pillar of this hub advises, because a reader turns to them only when a figure surprises them. What matters is that they are always there, and that the cover says where.

A template without definitions compares numbers that only look alike. If the tracked keyword set grows from 150 keywords to 220, the count of keywords in the top 10 rises with it; if a key event is added in March, March’s enquiries are not February’s. The definitions page states each choice once, at the back of the report, and any change to it is dated in the report of the month it happens.

• Key events: the actions the business counts, as marked in analytics. In Google Analytics, a key event is an event marked as one that matters to the business, and a standard property can mark up to 30 of them^[1]. Name each one, and the page or form it belongs to.
• Revenue: where it is recorded, and its label: known, influenced, modeled or incremental, or GA4-reported when it comes from analytics alone, which is none of the four. The rules of organic revenue attribution, the model and the lookback window, go here too, so that a revenue row means the same thing in June as in January.
• Brand terms: the searches that contain the business’s name, its products and their misspellings, so that branded and non-branded figures are split the same way every month.
• The keyword set: its name, its size and the day it was frozen. Tracked keywords and Search Console keywords above an impressions floor are different sets; say which one each row uses.
• The prompt set for AI visibility: the same three facts, for the same reason.
• Page groups: which pages sell, which inform, which serve a location. The top-pages table and the gains and losses are read by group.
• The change log: each change to a definition, with its date and the first month it applies to.

The metric table is the part of the template a reader looks at first and the part that should change least. Six to eight rows are enough. With more, nobody reads them; with fewer, a change has nothing to be read against.

Define the Search Console rows in Google’s own words, because the client may open the same report and should find the same number. Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions, and average position is the topmost position of the site in a result, averaged across all the queries in which it appeared^[2]. How a total is counted matters as much. By property, all the results for one query that point to the site count as one impression and only the topmost position is reported; by page, each URL counts separately, so CTR and average position are generally higher when the data is aggregated by property^[3]. The template says which of the two each row uses, so that a chart and a table built on different counts do not seem to disagree.

Keep a row’s name tied to its definition. If the basis of a row changes, give it a new name for the month it changes, rather than letting the old name carry a new meaning.

One template serves different readers by dropping pages, never by changing its definitions. A one-page version for an owner or a board, the full monthly version for the marketing lead and a quarterly review all read from the same definitions page, so that a figure in one never contradicts the same figure in another.

For a seasonal business, the quarterly version is the one that settles arguments: a slow month next to the same month last year is a season, not a loss. When a line of the plan needs a value, such as what a group of pages could earn if they reached the first page, model it with the SEO ROI calculator and label the figure as modeled, because it is an estimate and not money the business has received.

The sections stay the same for every site; the rows of the metric table and the page groups do not. A shop counts orders, a clinic counts bookings, a software company counts trials. Choose the rows once, from how the business earns, and write them into the definitions page before the first report, because a row added in the fourth month has no history to be compared with.

A lead-generation report has one row the others lack: how many enquiries were real. Analytics counts a form sent; only the business knows whether the person was a buyer. Leave a row for the share that sales accepted, filled in from the CRM, even when it arrives a month late; mark the month it describes, not the month it was entered.

Where a business earns in several ways, one row per way is better than a combined figure. An online shop that also takes trade enquiries reports orders and enquiries side by side, each with its own source, rather than adding them into one count that means neither.

The template can live in any tool that keeps its structure. A document suits the written parts; a spreadsheet suits the tables; a dashboard tool suits the charts that refresh themselves. Most teams use two of the three: a dashboard for the figures and a document for the words, with the definitions page at the back of the document.

1. 1Write the definitions page first, before any chart, and have the client agree it.
2. 2Build the metric table and the charts against those definitions, with the source written on each one.
3. 3In Data Studio, any report can serve as a template: adding /preview to the end of its address opens it as one, and it must be copied to a new report before it can be changed or shared^[4].
4. 4Replace the template’s data source with the client’s own. A template built on a data source shared with you shows that data until you do, and Google recommends replacing a data source you can only view with one you have full access to^[4].
5. 5Leave a marked place under each table for the explanation, and never send the report with one empty.
6. 6Copy the template each month. Change the template itself only with a dated note on the definitions page.

Google’s own Data Studio templates are available only in English, though the data in them appears in the language in which it was collected^[4]. A client who reads the report in another language needs its own copy of the labels, and the definitions page translated with them.

Pulling the data and sending the report on a schedule can be automated; writing the explanations cannot. Where that line falls is set out in Automated SEO reports: what to automate and what not.

A template saves time only if it is filled in the same way each month. One person owns it, and a second person reads the result before it goes out. The order below takes the figures first and the words last, so that nothing is written about a number before it is checked.

1. 1Wait until the month is complete, then export each source once, for exactly the calendar month, and keep the exports with the report.
2. 2Paste the figures into the fixed rows. Check each one against the source it names, and against last month’s report for the same row.
3. 3Read the definitions page. If anything changed this month, a keyword added, a key event renamed, write the dated note before writing anything else.
4. 4Mark the month’s changes to the site on the charts, with their dates.
5. 5Write the explanation under each table, then the headline, then the plan. The headline comes last because it is the one sentence that must be true of everything below it.
6. 6Have the second person read the report against the definitions page: every figure sourced, every revenue figure labelled, no empty explanation.
7. 7Send it, and keep the sent copy with its exports, so that any figure can be traced later to the file it came from.

Keep last month’s report open while filling in this month’s. Most mistakes in a monthly report are a row whose figure did not change because last month’s export was pasted again, or a row whose figure changed because the export was taken differently. Comparing the two reports line by line catches both.

• Rows that change basis without a note. A keyword set that grows, or a key event that is added, breaks the comparison with every month before it.
• Tables with no words under them. If the template leaves no place for the explanation, the reader guesses, and usually guesses the worst.
• Figures with no source. Every table and chart names where its numbers come from, so that anyone can check them.
• Revenue without its label. A modeled figure printed next to a known one, unlabelled, reads as cash.
• Sections that appear only in good months. If AI visibility fell, its page still appears, with the cause.

Once the template is set, the harder part is the relationship around it: agreeing what the report is for, and saying a bad month plainly. That is the subject of How to make an SEO report for a client.