Topics: SEO & AI search
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Quick answer: A useful monthly SEO report proves three things: more of the right people found you, more of them got in touch, and the agency did identifiable work to cause it. It opens with a two-minute summary, then covers visibility, traffic, enquiries, site health and a dated work log. Keyword rank lists and authority scores are supporting detail, not proof.
If you pay for SEO, a report probably lands in your inbox every month. Plenty of them are long and colourful: forty keywords with green arrows, an authority chart, a pie chart of traffic sources. After reading one, you should be able to answer a plain question: is this working, and what happens next? If you can't, the report has failed, however many pages it runs to. This checklist sets out what a good report contains and what to ask when something is missing.
What should a monthly SEO report prove to a business owner?
That search is bringing new customers, and why. Every section should feed one of five areas:
| Area | The question it answers | Typical sources |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility | Are more people seeing us in search? | Search Console impressions (non-branded), Google Business Profile views |
| Traffic | Are the right people arriving, on the right pages? | Search Console clicks, GA4 organic sessions, top landing pages |
| Business outcomes | Are they getting in touch, and buying? | Form submissions, calls, WhatsApp clicks, bookings, sales |
| Site health | Is anything broken or at risk? | Indexing report, Core Web Vitals, crawl errors |
| Work done | What did the agency actually change? | A dated log with links to every page or asset touched |
Above all of this sits the summary: three to five sentences you can read in two minutes. A good one reads something like: "Non-branded clicks rose 18% on last month, led by the new kitchen renovation page. Organic enquiries went from 21 to 27. Next month we're expanding the bathroom pages and fixing slow mobile load times on the gallery." Those numbers are illustrative, but the shape is what to expect: what changed, why, and what's next.
Which numbers matter more than keyword rankings?
Clicks, enquiries and the pages that produce them. Rankings are a weak headline for three reasons: they vary by location and device, AI Overviews and map packs can push a "number three" result well below the fold, and a top position for a phrase nobody searches is worth nothing.
The numbers that deserve the front page:
- Non-branded clicks and impressions from Search Console, month on month and against the same month last year to cancel out seasonality
- Top landing pages from search, with the enquiries each produced
- Google Business Profile actions: calls, website clicks and direction requests
- Click-through rate on key pages, which shows whether titles and descriptions earn the click
- New queries you've started appearing for, a leading indicator of growth
Our guide to the analytics that actually matter explains which website metrics are worth watching beyond SEO. For local businesses, profile actions often move faster than website traffic; our Google Business Profile checklist covers what drives them.
How do you separate branded from non-branded growth?
Filter your business name out of Search Console and report the two lines separately. Branded searches come from people who already know you; non-branded searches are the new customers SEO is supposed to find.
In the Performance report, add a Query filter, choose "Custom (regex)", select "Doesn't match regex" and enter your brand name with its common misspellings, separated by vertical bars. Then read the two trends together:
| Branded | Non-branded | What it usually means |
|---|---|---|
| Up | Flat | Word of mouth, ads or offline marketing are working; SEO isn't finding new people yet |
| Flat | Up | SEO is doing its job |
| Up | Up | Both are working; check which pages drive the non-branded gain |
| Down | Down | Seasonality, a technical problem or a competitor; investigate before the next report |
An agency that reports only total clicks can take credit for growth your other marketing created.
What should the report say about leads and enquiries?
How many enquiries came from organic search, through which channel, and how many became customers. Expect a table like this:
| Channel | This month | Last month | Same month last year | Became customers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Website forms | ||||
| Calls from the site | ||||
| Calls from Google Business Profile | ||||
| WhatsApp clicks | ||||
| Bookings or sales |
The last column needs your input, because the agency can't see who paid. Ten minutes a month sharing that figure turns the report from activity into return. It also lets you work out cost per organic enquiry: your monthly retainer divided by organic enquiries. Our breakdown of what SEO retainers cost puts Indian retainers from ₹15,000 a month, and Australian ones typically run A$1,500–A$10,000.
How should AI Overviews and AI assistant visibility be reported?
With referral data and repeatable prompt checks, plus an honest note about the limits. Search Console counts AI Overview and AI Mode appearances inside its overall web search figures without a separate filter, so a report can't show "clicks from AI Overviews" as a clean number.
What a report can show:
- Referral traffic from AI tools in GA4, such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com, with the landing pages they sent people to.
- A fixed set of prompts, ten to twenty questions your customers genuinely ask, checked monthly in ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Perplexity. Record whether you're mentioned or cited, with screenshots.
- Changes in mentions over time, rather than a single month's snapshot, since AI answers vary between runs and users.
Our guides to tracking visibility in AI answers and measuring clicks from AI Overviews go deeper on method.
What are the red flags in an SEO report?
Padding that looks like progress. Be wary of:
- Rankings for phrases with no search demand, or only for your own brand name
- Domain authority or similar third-party scores used as a headline result; Google doesn't use them
- "Links built: 40" with no list of the actual URLs
- A work section full of vague entries such as "on-page optimisation" with no pages named
- Traffic totals that blend every channel, so ads or direct visits inflate the SEO story
- Different metrics each month, which makes trends impossible to follow
- Comparisons against an unusually bad month chosen to flatter the result
- No mention of enquiries at all
- A PDF that arrives with no commentary and no offer of a call
Which questions should you ask on the monthly call?
Questions that force specifics. Keep this list next to you:
- What moved most this month, and what caused it?
- Which pages brought enquiries, and what are you doing to get more from them?
- Show me the work: which pages changed, with links?
- Which links or mentions did we earn? Can I see the URLs?
- Is anything broken or at risk, such as indexing, speed or errors?
- What are competitors doing in search that we should respond to?
- What do you need from me next month: photos, reviews, approvals, answers?
- What's the plan for next month, and what result do you expect from it?
If the answers keep coming back general, the work probably is too.
Frequently asked questions
What should be included in a monthly SEO report?
A short summary, then visibility, traffic, enquiries, site health and a dated log of work done. Non-branded search performance and organic enquiries should be prominent, with rankings as supporting detail.
Are keyword rankings a good measure of SEO success?
On their own, no. They vary by location and device and say nothing about enquiries. Use them to diagnose specific pages, and judge success on non-branded clicks and leads.
How do I know if my SEO agency is doing any work?
Ask for a work log that names every page changed, every piece of content published and every link earned, with URLs. If the agency can't point to specific changes, assume there weren't many.
Can SEO reports show traffic from ChatGPT and AI Overviews?
Partly. Visits referred by tools such as ChatGPT or Perplexity show up in GA4, but Search Console doesn't separate AI Overview clicks from other web results. Good agencies supplement referral data with monthly prompt checks.
How long should an SEO report be?
Long enough to answer whether SEO is working and what's next: usually a one-page summary plus a dashboard or a few pages of detail. Length is not evidence of effort.
Want a report you can read in two minutes?
When we run SEO, the monthly report leads with enquiries and keeps the work log right behind them. Our websites with SEO built in start from the same principle. If your current report leaves you guessing, book a free call and bring it along; we'll tell you what it does and doesn't show.