On this page
- Key takeaways
- 1. A short summary in plain English
- 2. Leads and conversions from organic search
- 3. Organic traffic to the pages that matter
- 4. Rankings — for the right keywords
- 5. Google Business Profile performance
- 6. Work completed
- 7. Technical health
- 8. AI visibility
- 9. Next month's plan
- Red flags in an SEO report
- How we report at VASP Digital
If you pay for SEO, your monthly report should answer one question clearly: is this bringing in more business, and what happens next? Many reports bury that answer under pages of charts. Here's what a useful report contains.
1. A short summary in plain English
The first page should say, in a few sentences:
- What changed this month
- What we did
- What's coming next month
- Anything we need from you
If you have to read ten pages to find out whether things are going well, the report isn't doing its job.
2. Leads and conversions from organic search
This is the number that matters most. Depending on your business, that's:
- Phone calls from your website and your Google Business Profile
- Contact form and quote request submissions
- Bookings or online sales
- Direction requests on Google Maps
These should be tracked properly, with conversions set up in Google Analytics 4 and call tracking where it makes sense, and compared with previous months.
3. Organic traffic to the pages that matter
Total traffic is less useful than traffic to your service and location pages. A jump in visits to a blog post about something unrelated looks good on a chart and brings no customers. A good report shows traffic to your money pages, and what share of it turns into enquiries.
Free download
Find out what's stopping local customers from finding you on Google
The Ontario Local SEO Checklist
- 32 practical checks across your Google Business Profile, reviews, listings, website, tracking and AI answers
- A simple scoring guide that shows where you stand and what to fix first
- Plain-English steps you can do yourself, most in under an hour
PDF · 5 pages · printable
Free download
When customers ask AI for a recommendation, does your business come up?
How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI
- A 10-minute self-test to see what ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews say about you
- 10 practical actions that make your business easier for AI tools to find, understand and trust
- A one-page action plan for your first week, first month and beyond
PDF · 7 pages · printable
4. Rankings — for the right keywords
Rankings are a leading indicator: they move before leads do. The report should track the searches that bring customers ("emergency electrician Oakville"), not vanity terms.
For local businesses, rankings should also show where you rank. A geo-grid report shows your Google Maps position across a grid of points around your business, because your ranking in one neighbourhood can be very different from the next.
5. Google Business Profile performance
For local businesses, the profile is often where most enquiries start. Look for calls, website clicks, direction requests, searches you appeared in, and review count and rating over time.
6. Work completed
A clear list of what was done: pages optimised, articles published, technical fixes, citations built, links earned. You should be able to see your money turning into work.
7. Technical health
A short check on indexing issues, site speed, broken links and errors in Search Console, with anything new flagged and fixed.
8. AI visibility
More customers now ask AI tools for recommendations. A modern report can include whether your business is mentioned for key prompts in tools like ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews, and how that's changing.
9. Next month's plan
The report should finish with the priorities for next month and why. SEO is a long game, and you should always know what the next move is.
Red flags in an SEO report
- Only rankings, no leads or conversions
- Rankings for terms nobody searches, or that don't bring customers
- No list of work completed
- Unexplained jargon, and no one available to walk you through it
- The same report every month with the numbers changed
How we report at VASP Digital
Every VASP Digital SEO and Local SEO plan includes a monthly report and a review call. The report covers leads, traffic to your money pages, rankings, geo-grid maps for local clients, work completed and next month's plan. See SEO packages.
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Written by
VASP Digital teamVASP Digital · London, Ontario
Articles written by the VASP Digital team: the strategists, content leads and client success managers who do the work every day.
