what an seo agency should report every month.

A monthly SEO report should show five things: how many of your pages are indexed, how often you appeared in search, where you ranked and with which page, how many clicks that produced, and which pages led to inquiries. Then it should say what the agency did and what it will do next month. If a report has numbers but no actions, or actions but no numbers, it is not doing its job.

This is a checklist you can hold any agency’s report against, ours included.

the measures that matter

These are the core SEO KPIs. Each one answers a question you should be able to ask.

• Pages indexed, and any important page missing. Google cannot rank a page it has not indexed. The report should state how many pages are in the index and name any page you care about that is not.
• Impressions for your target queries. This is how often you appeared in results. It moves first, so it is the earliest sign that work is landing.
• Positions, and which page ranks for each query. An average position means little on its own. You need the query, the position and the page that is showing, so you can see whether the right page is doing the work.
• Clicks. The visits that came from search. They follow impressions and positions, so judge them last.
• Which pages produced inquiries. Traffic is not the goal. The report should connect pages to form submissions, calls or booked meetings, even if the count is small.

Every figure needs a comparison: this month against last month, or against the same month a year earlier. A number without a comparison period tells you nothing.

what changed and why

The second half of the report is the work. It should list what was done in the month, in plain terms, and tie each action to a number it was meant to move.

“Rewrote the pricing page to answer the questions people search for” is an action. “Improved on-page optimisation” is not. The test is whether you could check the change yourself.

It should also say what was fixed on the technical side. If the report lists problems and hands the list back to you, someone still has to do the work. We fix technical issues with our own developers rather than handing back a PDF.

what happens next month

A useful report ends with a plan: the pages to be written or improved, the problems to be fixed, and the reason for each. You should be able to read it and know what you will see in the next report.

If something did not work, the report should say that too, and what changes as a result.

red flags

Watch for these:

1. Ranking screenshots with no clicks. A page ranking for a term nobody searches, or ranking without producing visits, is not a result.
2. “Domain authority” as the headline. It is a third-party score, not something Google reports, and it does not tell you whether you gained customers.
3. Traffic totals with no query or page breakdown. A single line going up could be anything, including visits from branded searches you would have had anyway.
4. No actions listed. If nothing is recorded as done, you cannot tell whether anything was.
5. Numbers with no comparison period. Without last month or last year beside them, they cannot be judged.
6. Data you cannot check. If the report cannot be matched against your own Search Console, ask why.

Timing matters too, but that is a separate question. If you are wondering what to expect in the first few months, read how long SEO takes. Our website SEO service reports pages indexed, impressions, positions, clicks and which pages produced inquiries every month.