“Let’s hop on a call to go over this report.”
Did you hear that?
That was the collective sigh of SEOs everywhere.
If we’re being honest, most of us probably view reporting the same way we view taking out the trash or folding the laundry. It’s a chore that robs us of time we could have spent on more important or enjoyable things.
Adding to the frustration is the reality that many clients don’t even read their reports. That’s right. All that time you put into pulling together your data and the report might be forever resigned to the dusty corner of your client’s inbox.
In the words of Mama Boucher, reporting is the devil[1].
Hear me out though… have you ever thought of reporting as a client retention tool? While reporting is something that takes your time away from SEO work that moves the needle, reporting is also critical if you want to have a campaign to work on at all.
In other words, no reporting = no value communicated = no more client.
The good news is that the reverse is also true. When we do SEO reporting well, we communicate our value[2] and keep more clients, which is something that every agency and consultant can agree is important.
That all sounds nice, but how can we do that? Throughout my six years at an SEO agency, I picked up some reporting tips that I hope you’ll be able to benefit from as well.
P.S. If you haven’t seen it already, Moz’s own Meghan Pahinui wrote an amazing post for the Moz blog on creating relevant and engaging SEO reports[3]