SEO reporting goes beyond throwing numbers onto a page and hitting the send button. Agencies that basically want to impact their clients’ businesses need to tell a story of growth and engagement while communicating tangible results.
Struggling to prove your marketing agency’s value to clients? You’re not alone. Many agencies face the challenge of demonstrating their SEO success in a way that resonates with clients who won’t understand the depth of SEO. It’s easy to wander off in a sea of knowledge, unsure which metrics truly reflect your agency’s efforts and which of them will make clients sit up and take notice.
Whether you’re coping with skeptical clients who need reassurance or savvy clients who want to see a transparent return on investment, the secret is to highlight the suitable metrics and present them in a way that aligns with their business goals. Easier said than done.
This task is especially difficult given SEO’s ever-evolving nature, where today’s best practices won’t hold tomorrow.
In this text, we’ll break down essentially the most impactful ways to showcase your agency’s SEO success. From selecting the suitable metrics to crafting compelling reports, we’ll give you practical insights that clearly communicate your value.
In this text:
- Why Demonstrating SEO ROI Matters to Your Clients
- 3 Ways To Communicate SEO Results to Clients
- Key Metrics To Include in an SEO Report
- Key Takeaways & Summary
Why Demonstrating SEO ROI Matters to Your Clients
Demonstrating SEO return on investment keeps clients completely satisfied and assured in your services. After all, clients want to know that their investment in SEO is paying off. They expect their report to show how their money was spent getting them results like increased traffic, more leads, and better revenue.
When clients see the actual advantages of SEO, it builds trust and transparency. They see how your efforts are driving their business growth, making it easier for them to justify the expense and commit to long-term partnerships. Clients who see positive results are more likely to stick around.
Agency Tip: Use a pre-built SEO report template to avoid spending time making one from scratch every month. Add or remove sections to tailor each report to a person client’s needs and white label your complete experience along with your agency’s branding.
3 Ways to Communicate SEO Results to Clients
To make your data resonate and ensure clients understand the impact of your work, think about using these three strategies.
1. Use Visuals
Data visualization makes complex data easier to understand. Graphs, charts, and infographics illustrate trends, highlight successes, and make your reports more engaging. When clients quickly grasp the important thing points, they’re more likely to appreciate the outcomes. Visuals help to break down the information into digestible pieces, making it clear how your SEO efforts are driving traffic, improving rankings, and boosting conversions.
“It’s very difficult to explain the worth of a service to a client without visuals. Using the online analytics report and the SEO reports side by side helps us show our clients a correlation between SEO and Traffic. We merge this data with a custom template that tracks conversions and Stripe data to show that traffic growth from SEO and PPC does, in actual fact, have an effect on the variety of conversions and revenue (their bottom line).”
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Ruben Roel, President, Investigator Marketing
2. Use Storytelling
Storytelling turns data right into a narrative that clients relate to. Instead of presenting raw numbers, explain what those numbers mean for his or her business. For example, tell the story of how increased organic traffic led to more sales or how improved search rankings put them ahead of competitors. By framing your results throughout the context of their business goals, you make the information more meaningful and impactful.
“We conduct extensive market research, including competitor evaluation firstly of a recent campaign, to ‘discover the why’ of our client and choose where they’re likely to succeed online, after which from there we discover what metrics will lead directly to that success.”
Daniel Noakes, Founder, UClimb
Agency Tip: Use the summary section of a report to keep clients informed about your agency’s achievements and description the steps you propose to take for continued progress.
3. Create Custom Goals
Custom goals tailored to each client’s specific needs show that your agency understands their business and is committed to their success. Work along with your clients to define what success looks like for them, whether it’s increasing website traffic, boosting online sales, or improving local search visibility. By setting and measuring custom goals, your agency provides reports which are directly relevant to a client’s objectives, making your SEO efforts more transparent and useful.
Clients don’t at all times have the time to undergo detailed reports or don’t want to be overwhelmed with acronyms and confusing data. These three approaches keep their marketing KPIs easy and straightforward to understand exactly how your agency has helped their business succeed.
AgencyAnalytics makes it easy to report SEO results to your clients. Drag and drop features, 80+ marketing platform integrations, and white labeling capabilities streamline your complete reporting process.
Key Metrics to Include in an SEO Report
We’ve all been there–thick within the weeds of selling data and unsure where to go next. Fret not. Here is an inventory of key SEO metrics that provide a comprehensive view of a client’s SEO performance, highlighting areas of improvement and tangible results.
1. Organic Traffic
- Total Visits: Track the variety of visits from organic search. This shows how well the content attracts visitors from serps.
- New vs. Returning Visitors: Analyze the ratio to understand user engagement and loyalty.
2. Keyword Rankings
- Top Keywords: List the keywords the client’s site ranks for and their positions. Highlight any significant improvements.
- Keyword Movement: Show changes in rankings over time to show progress.
3. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- Average CTR: Measure how often people click on the client’s site after seeing it in search results. The next CTR indicates effective meta titles and descriptions.
4. Conversion Rate
- Goal Completions: Track specific actions like form submissions, downloads, or sales. This metric ties SEO efforts directly to business outcomes.
- Conversion Rate by Landing Page: Identify which pages are driving essentially the most conversions.
5. Bounce Rate
- Overall Bounce Rate: Monitor the proportion of holiday makers who leave after viewing just one page. A lower bounce rate often indicates a greater user experience.
- Bounce Rate by Page: Identify high-exit pages to improve content and engagement.
6. Backlinks
- Total Backlinks: Count the variety of external links pointing to the client’s site. Quality backlinks significantly boost search rankings.
- Referring Domains: Track the variety of unique domains linking to the client’s site. More referring domains often indicate a stronger backlink profile.
7. Page Load Time
- Average Load Time: Faster load times enhance user experience and positively impact search rankings.
8. User Engagement
- Average Session Duration: Measure the common period of time visitors spend on the positioning. Longer sessions typically indicate useful and interesting content.
- Pages per Session: Track the variety of pages a user views in a single session. More pages per session often signals that visitors find the content compelling and price exploring.
9. Mobile Usability
- Mobile Traffic: Analyze the proportion of traffic coming from mobile devices. Ensure the client’s site performs well on all screen sizes.
- Mobile-Friendly Issues: Identify and fix any mobile usability problems.
10. Local SEO Metrics
- Google Business Profile Insights: Track views, searches, and actions on a client’s Google My Business profile–all very essential metrics that local business clients want to see.
- Local Keyword Rankings: Monitor how a client’s site performs for location-specific searches.
Use a live dashboard to communicate results to your SEO clients. Create Smart Reports and Dashboards with AgencyAnalytics in 11 seconds or less!
Key Takeaways & Summary
Well-made SEO reports are one of the best ways to illustrate a client’s ROI out of your agency’s SEO services. By presenting concrete results and actionable insights, you strengthen client relationships and highlight your agency’s expertise.
Here are some key takeaways from this text to take note the following time you’re constructing an SEO report:
- Highlight SEO ROI: Help clients understand the worth of your services. Clear evidence of success makes it easier to justify ongoing investment in SEO.
- Effective Communication Methods: Use visual aids, regular updates, and plain language to communicate SEO results to clients. Try tailoring your communication style to each client’s preferences to ensure a greater understanding.
- Essential Metrics: Include key metrics in your SEO reports, corresponding to organic traffic, keyword rankings, conversion rates, and engagement metrics. These metrics provide a comprehensive view of your SEO performance and its impact on the client’s business.
No one enjoys spending long hours creating client reports. AgencyAnalytics helps marketers construct SEO reports that clients actually look forward to receiving.
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