Posts Tagged "Tools"

rewrite Tracking and reporting your SEO performance is essential for measuring success and making data-driven decisions. Whether you’re a business owner, marketer, or SEO professional, having the right tools can simplify your reporting process and give you actionable insights into your website’s performance. In this post, I’ll cover the 10 best SEO report tools that provide comprehensive analytics and data, plus offer 5 free SEO report templates so you can DIY your reports and showcase your results professionally. What is an SEO report? An SEO report is a summary of how your organic search optimization efforts are performing. Typically used by agencies or internal marketing teams, it outlines key metrics that assess progress and the impact of SEO initiatives. The main metrics included in an SEO report are: Traffic: The number of visitors your site receives, often segmented by source, such as organic traffic from search engines. Rankings: A breakdown of how your site ranks on search engine result pages (SERPs) for targeted keywords. Are you making your way to page one or are you still buried deep in search results? Leads / Conversions: The number of visitors converting into leads or sales, showcasing the efficacy of your website in driving business goals. Competitive Analysis: A look into how competitors are performing in terms of SEO, identifying strengths and weaknesses to refine your strategy. Backlinks: The number and quality of external websites linking to yours, which influences domain authority and ranking potential. An SEO report should not merely list statistics but should also include qualitative insights. This means explaining not just the data but also the actions taken, the outcomes achieved, and recommendations for moving forward. Key questions your report should answer include: What has been accomplished so far? This section highlights progress, such as improved rankings or increased traffic from specific SEO activities. What activities were done and what was the impact? Detail the efforts, such as content creation, technical improvements, or backlink building, and how these actions influenced performance. What are the recommendations for growth? Provide actionable insights on what should be prioritized next to continue driving SEO improvements, whether continuing successful strategies or adjusting based on the latest results. This structured, data-driven approach offers a comprehensive view of how SEO is contributing to broader marketing efforts and how it can evolve for continued success. Further Reading: 10 Top Tips to Increase Your Blog Post SEO Why SEO Reporting Is Crucial Source SEO reporting is integral to the success of your website, because it helps you identify the aspects of your SEO efforts that are working, and which parts of your SEO strategy need additional help. Although there are a host of tools available on the market to offer SEO reporting, effective ones will include specific metrics to measure, and will be able to offer a clear picture of how your website and its SEO elements are performing. Using SEO reporting, you are better able to measure success, communicate with any clients for whom you are creating search engine optimization support, and make decisions driven by observable, verifiable data. All of these are vital to continually update and improve your website, to better reach your audience and achieve your business goals. Let’s take a closer look at each of the ways SEO reporting tools positively impact your business. Measuring Success SEO reports are able to track key metrics on your site, including organic traffic, keyword rankings, and conversion rates. When these metrics are not performing as hoped, you can alter small pieces of your site to help improve your SEO rankings. Over time, this can lead to significant increases in traffic and, consequently, conversions. When you go over your site’s metrics regularly, you may find the process becomes easier and more intuitive, and see significant improvements to your site’s performance. Client Communication SEO reporting can also help marketers communicate results and progress to clients without muddying the waters. By being able to clearly identify the success of your SEO efforts, you can illustrate to your clients exactly how well their sites are performing, and explain why. Effective client communication builds trust and solidifies a working relationship. Data-Driven Decision Making Data-driven decision making is essential for SEO success, and marketing success in general. Reports deliver insights to help marketers adjust and optimize ongoing SEO strategies. As you continue to go over and refine your SEO practices, you can make data-based changes to improve your reach and your performance. As you continue to make marketing decisions based on data, you remain competitive with the peers in your industry or niche, and witness continued success in driving traffic. If you are already subscribed to a top search engine optimization tool, this functionality is usually included in the price you pay every month. If you don’t have access to such a tool, or just want a second opinion, general overview, or SEO audit of your current efforts, check out these 10 free SEO report tools which you may be able to access without even providing an email address. These might not be the detailed reports that you can obtain from a paid tool, but they do offer value. Note that unless stated otherwise, you only need to enter your website domain to access this information. 1. SEOMATOR SEOMATOR provides the most in-depth report from the various tools listed here, analyzing a whopping 178 different items and focusing on on-page score, performance, accessibility, SEO, and best practices. This is the only tool that provides information about SEO best practices and its key performance indicators, and it is also unique in providing technical details about the digital accessibility of your website. With a simple red x or green checkmark for each of the different items, it is easy to see which items you need to work on to increase your performance in search engines. Interestingly enough, this tool also gave me the highest score (95 out of 100) when compared to other tools. This is a reminder that there is no one perfect tool and each measures according to its own algorithm. A tool that gives you a high score might be good for your client reports, but as a rule of thumb, I would rather receive monthly SEO reports for my own website that give me lots of to-do items to improve my SEO over tools that deliver fewer recommendations. 2. SEO Site Checkup This is a really fantastic report tool. It gives you a 1 to 100 score based on an analysis of 74 different items. Immediately under your score is an indication of the average SEO score of the top 100 sites, which was 74%. My 77% in perspective is an excellent score, keeping that in mind. It also lists the highest priority items, so you can be clear as to what you need to strategize for your SEO campaigns. For most of the audited items, it also lets you know how many of the top 100 sites passed, so if you see any items that you failed like I did such as keywords usage test, you can feel better knowing that only 45% of the top 100 sites passed. All of this information will allow you to make more informed decisions about your SEO, which really should be the goal of any SEO or custom report on the topic. The downside of this report is that for many items, such as related keywords test, competitor domains test, and broken links test, you are required to create a 7-day free trial account. On the other hand, there are also other items, such as the Image Alt Test, which provide a “How to Fix” button which, when pressed, gives you specific advice to follow up on its actionable recommendations. 3. SEOptimer SEOptimer provides a smart looking SEO analysis report, which you can also download as a PDF, that provides you A through D report card grades on your on-page SEO, links, usability, performance, and social. Interestingly enough, this tool found that I only had usability issues, but was able to provide me 11 recommendations, including ones I consider critical in optimizing for core web vitals, mobile page speed insights, and desktop page insights. Overwhelmed by Digital Marketing? Just released: my new book to help small businesses, entrepreneurs, and marketers master digital marketing in today’s digital-first world.Drawing on my Fractional CMO experience, Digital Threads simplifies complex strategies into clear, actionable steps for success. Transform your business today—grab your copy! Click the cover or button below to buy on Amazon. Two things that I liked A LOT about SEOptimer: Outside of the typical report you would expect from these SEO audit tools, it also provides you a plethora of additional useful information, such as plugins and other 3rd party software technologies that you use, compression rates for different elements of your website (HTML, CSS, JS, etc.), top backlinks, top pages by backlink, and top anchors by backlink. The ability to get a snapshot of your backlink profiles from a free tool is impressive! You can refresh your results after making changes without entering any additional information multiple times per day before it asks you to upgrade. 4. The HOTH I did not like the fact that, in order to access the report, you had to include your email address, and after doing so it prompted you for more information, including your phone number. Unlike other tools, the report generated here is only in PDF. It is somewhat similar to SEOptimer in scope as it looks at on-page SEO, usability, performance, and social. It also included additional helpful information such as the frequency at which you use H1 vs H2 vs H3 vs H4, keyword consistency, top keyword search rankings from organic search traffic with your average position indicated, as well as estimated traffic, and a display of your core web vitals and Google’s Page Speed Insights for mobile and desktop. The 14 page PDF is definitely in-depth. If it didn’t require so much information–and wasn’t transparent about it to begin with–this might have been my most-recommended tool. 5. WebFX This site first asks for your domain, and then after entering that requires you to enter your email address, where they say they send your report. This report was thin on coverage, as it only included 20 items. I passed 18, had one to improve upon, and had one error. The CTA to sign up for their SEO services indicated that if I got above an 80 score (which I did with an 86) meant that I already have a good foundation, so that is a good thing to see and gave me peace of mind that my marketing strategies were working. From an educational perspective, although only 20 items are judged, I did like the fact that for each one they provided how much impact fixing it would have, the solving complexity, tips on how to solve it, along with links to related blog posts on the topic in a “You might also like:” section. As an SEO report tool, it falls short because of depth, but as an educational SEO tool, it is an excellent primer. 6. MarketGoo This report also requires you to input your email address, but it also allows you to customize the country for which you are targeting as part of your SEO report. If you don’t live in the United States, or if your website is targeting people or businesses in a particular country, this might be a critical issue for your regular SEO reporting. Of all of the reports, MarketGoo gave me the lowest score, for which I am thankful. It includes information on your search visibility through showing your top keywords, a site review, core search optimization, content, mobile devices, backlink profile, and social shares. What I liked about this report is that for every section, it included recommendations when available but also listed what it thought you did well. Unfortunately, for some of the recommendations, you had to provide more information to gain access to them. 7. AIOSEO The AIOSEO report covers 22 essential SEO issues using the exact same categories as RankMath used. It also includes a downloadable report, which comes in handy. A great SEO report which covers the basics of your SEO efforts. Overall, I came away with 7 suggestions on how to improve my website, mostly focused on the performance side. Unfortunately, after you follow their recommendations and make optimizations, you are unable to get a revised report unless you enter your name and email address. Creating Your Own DIY SEO Report: What to Include and Free Templates You can use these free SEO reports to get quick snapshots of who you are doing, but if you want to monitor trends over time that are important to your company and specific SEO situation, you might want to create your own SEO report and input information directly from the information your SEO tool provides you. If you want to go this route, let me first introduce what I believe are the most important things to include in an SEO site audit report, but also provide you links to some resources offering free SEO report templates to help get you started. Note that while the free SEO reports listed above focus on primarily technical aspects, I believe that a comprehensive analysis of your SEO performance over time should focus on the more dynamic aspects of search engine optimizations over the technical aspects. Many of the technical aspects, once resolved, do not need to be fixed on a regular basis. Since search engines are constantly in flux, however, the other dynamic aspects of SEO need to be monitored and managed. What to Include in Your SEO Report Source Below is a summary of all of the different metrics that you could possibly include in your SEO report. Some are more important than others, but at least you should understand the potential scope of what you might want to consider for inclusion to showcase your work. Note that technical SEO metrics such as broken links or 404 errors were not included as these are numbers that might not necessarily show the business impact of your efforts. However, you should obviously be monitoring and resolving them on a regular basis. Sites with a lot of technical issues aren’t places where people want to linger. Web Traffic Metrics The first section of your SEO report should include information on your web traffic. As we all know, traffic is king because it not only gives us a measure of success, but the goal of SEO is to increase traffic. These metrics are produced by both basic SEO techniques and more advanced ones. Overall Traffic (Users / Sessions / Pageviews) Simply put, this part of your SEO report analyzes your total traffic from all sources; however, you should also break it down. The “users” metric tracks how many unique users visit your site. This is typically determined with a cookie or by IP address. Sessions refer to how many times people visit your site, without regard to how many pages they visit. So, if I visit your site and view three pages, this counts as one session. Finally, page views track how many times each page on your website is viewed. Traffic to Key Landing / Sales Pages Here, you’re simply telling the readers of your SEO report how many times certain pages are visited. Only, unlike with the “page views” statistic, you’re only interested in certain pages. For instance, it could be a web form, lead magnet, or promotion page. Search Engine Traffic This metric focuses on traffic that originates from search engines. In particular, we’re talking about the organic search results and paid placements. Search engine traffic is a great measure of overall interest in your company. Visit Trends By Source/Medium In short, why are people visiting your site? Is it because they saw an ad on another website, or through social media? Do customers prefer your video or audio content over what’s written? Visits to Branded vs. Non-Branded Content If you do a lot of content marketing, there is probably a mix of branded and unbranded content on your site. This section tracks when each is visited, and how often. It also helps you see which types of content are getting the most clicks or are most effective. Engagement Metrics No matter what kind of content you produce, and regardless of industry, for people to progress down your sales funnel, they need to engage with your website. Using the information in this part of the SEO report, you can fine-tune your sales funnel to be more effective and move beyond basics. Bounce Rate Your bounce rate is simply how often people navigate to your website and then leave immediately. It is compared to the overall number of visits. Average Session Duration Once someone lands on your website, how long do they linger? This is calculated as the total time on your site, regardless of how many pages are viewed. Average Page Views per Session Each time a user visits, how many unique pages do they view? Here, it doesn’t matter how long they stay on each page. % New Sessions Out of your total visitors, how many are visiting for the first time? If you’re doing a brand awareness campaign, this is a metric to watch carefully. Conversion/Sales Metrics For this part of your SEO report, you want to track how frequently site visits result in conversions or sales. Depending on your website goals, appropriate conversions can vary: lead generation is often what you want, and not an immediate sale, for example. Conversion Rate: Expressed as a percentage, how many visits result in a conversion event? Number of Conversions: How many visitors convert into customers or provide a sales lead? This could be any of several actions. Total Revenue: How much cash is your website generating? The cash can come from any revenue source, including purchases, advertising sales, and subscription fees. Average Order Value: When someone completes a sale, how much do they spend on average? For most ecommerce brands, the goal is to always be increasing this number. Abandonment Rate: Out of 100 people that place things in their cart, how many leave without completing the order? User Registrations: If you have a community or subscription, how many people sign up as a site user? Rankings Metrics When the word “SEO” comes to mind, most of us think in terms of actual search engine rankings, or how well a site performs on a search engine. Therefore, these statistics are critical to any SEO report. Number of Organic Keywords Ranking: How many keywords does your site rank for? Without paying for the privilege (i.e., no paid search)? Ideally, there should be several. If your strategy is adequate, you should see the rankings on your chosen keywords rise over time. Keyword Search Engine Ranking Tracking Visibility: Among all the keywords you’re tracking, how often do people click on your website from organic results? Search Engine Positions Breakdown: What is your exact search engine rank for each keyword you’re tracking? If you aren’t ranking high enough, then these are areas for improvement. Stellar positions need to be defended, as well. Average Search Engine Ranking: For this number, you’ll take the position number for each and average it. I might average rank ten across influencer marketing-related keywords, for instance. Competitor Search Engine Ranking Tracking: How high are your competitors placing on the SERP? Compare these numbers with your own for valuable insight on the SEO report. Search Engine Impressions: How many times does any page from your site show up in a user search? Only organic results are shown, not paid results. Search Engine Clicks: When someone sees your site on the SERP, how often do they click? This number doesn’t take keywords into account–only the number of clicks. Search Engine CTR by Keyword: When someone searches a keyword, how often do they click on ANY link? This is reported for each keyword you’re tracking. Backlink Tracking One of the most important advanced techniques for SEO is building backlinks. These are created when people cite, then link to, your website. Google and other search engines consider these to be an important measure of your website’s overall importance to the discussion around your keywords. Numbers of backlinks: This is simply how many backlinks there are to your website. It is blind to which specific site pages people are linking to. A lot of the backlinks can be barely relevant. Notable new/lost backlinks: Websites gain and lose backlinks all the time, and for many different reasons. This metric simply notes which gains and losses are important, such as those involving a thought leader’s site. Further Reading: Backlink Building Hacks & Secrets Revealed: How We Got 12,000 Backlinks in One Year User Experience Metrics Think of “user experience” as the website equivalent of sales staff at a local retailer or employees at other customer-facing businesses. In this case, user experience or UX is a measure of how pleasant people find it to visit your website. Often, this includes speed: studies show that over 47% of consumers want a site to load within 2 seconds. Much longer, and they may leave, boosting your bounce rate. Average Page Load Time: Simply put, how long does it typically take for a page to load? This should always be below two seconds, but faster is usually better. Often, the number is expressed in milliseconds. Google Page Speed: This is a tool that lets you see how fast your pages load, but also gives suggestions for improvement. Google expresses the speed as a score, rather than an amount of time, because this gives insight into how you compare with others. SEO Reporting Tools to Help You Write a Perfect SEO Report As hinted at above, the free SEO report tools listed above do primarily audit the technical aspects of your website. This information is important, but correcting many of the problems these services will find can be done by your IT department or developer. The report will miss many important metrics. To build a true SEO Report based on what I mentioned above, I recommend the following free and paid tools: Google Analytics: This is a must for any website owner. On the Analytics platform, Google gives you different statistics about your website. For instance, ranking metrics and visit-related information is found here. Google Search Console: As part of their service to developers and site owners, Google provides information to help you improve that coveted ranking. Sitemaps, for instance, are frequently recommended additions. They’ll also give suggestions on how to improve your site from an SEO perspective. Google Page Speed Insights: Another useful tool from Google that helps you improve page speed is Speed Insights. Here, they’ll indicate what might be slowing your website down. You might have too many plugins or code on your website might be conflicting with other code. SEMrush: This is an expansive platform for SEO and PPC operations, among other things. SEM stands for search engine marketing, and they have features for literally everything SEM-related. With that said, they do more than report data; rather, they help you analyze the data and improve overall metrics. Once you have gathered all the ingredients for your report, it’s time to present the data. Remember though: there may be a few less relevant numbers depending on the nature of your site. Bring all of these data points into Google’s Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) and you can completely automate your SEO report for your business or clients! 5 Recommended SEO Report Templates To get you started in creating your own SEO report, here are links to 5 recommended SEO report templates for you to check out: SEMrush provides a simple 9-page reporting template in the format of Google Slides. Ahrefs provides a more in-depth 25-page Google Slide report for which you first need to copy to make your own, but this also means it is more customizable. Backlinko has a 7-page PDF report which can also be downloaded in Microsoft Word or Google Doc. Databox provides a cool web-based template with sample data. You will need to create an account in order to populate with your own data. Whatagraph, similar to Databox, provides a web-based template that requires you to sign up for a free trial in order to completely access. Conclusion By utilizing the best SEO report tools and templates, you can create detailed, professional reports that provide valuable insights into your website’s performance. Whether you’re tracking keyword rankings, backlinks, or technical issues, these tools will help streamline your reporting process and make it easier to communicate the value of your SEO efforts. Use the free templates and recommended items to include to DIY your reports, ensuring they’re clear, concise, and data-driven. Further Reading: 11 SEO Trends Every Marketer Should Know Actionable advice for your digital / content / influencer / social media marketing. Join 13,000+ smart professionals who subscribe to my regular updates. in spanish