SEO is key to creating a solid digital marketing plan for your business.

It is essential to attract organic traffic to your website, gain leads and sales, and increase brand recall and recognition.

It also provides tools that collect various data and information that let you know what brings in customers and what needs to improve. This is known as SEO reporting and analytics.

What is SEO Reporting & Analytics?

SEO reporting & analytics is the process of collecting vital information to determine the best ways to attract organic traffic and then using these metrics to make an actionable plan to work on the areas that need improvement. It uses tables, graphs, and other forms of visual representation to show pertinent data.

A comprehensive SEO report should address various questions, such as “where is the traffic coming from?,” “Have sales goals been achieved?,” “Which part of my website gets the most organic traffic?,” “How long does my webpage take to load on a desktop or mobile?,” and “How much time does each visitor spend on my page?”

What is the importance of SEO reporting & analytics?

There are many good reasons companies should include SEO reporting in their strategy. Below are some of them:

To increase traffic to your website

Why is your website not getting as much traffic as you hoped for? Is it because of the theme or design you chose? Are people having a hard time navigating through pages? Does it not work properly if opened on mobile devices? Through SEO reporting and analytics, you can get answers to these questions and start working on fixes and improvements as soon as possible.

To create the right
content

Not all content is created equal. Yes, a few of your blog posts might get hundreds of hits, some of your social media posts might get over a thousand likes, or a couple of your videos might make it to the trending page. But the truth is, most of your content is likely to receive a lukewarm response. Unless you have unlimited marketing resources, it is best to focus your time and energy on content that gets people’s attention. Through reporting and analytics, you can determine what type of content engages your audience the most and work on that type more.

To increase conversion rates

Taking into consideration what content attracts more attention is crucial to the number of conversions. If you create a blog post about your product or service and provide an in-depth look at the features, benefits, and others, along with photos and videos, you can keep your reader interested and make them see why they should spend their money on you. Quality content leads to higher conversion rates, and reporting and analytics can help you achieve that.

What information should an SEO report provide?

SEO reports are not all the same. To be comprehensive and effective, an SEO report should include the following:

Quantity and quality of traffic

It is not only about getting a large amount of visitors, but also about attracting organic visitors. By keeping track of the movement of organic visitors to your website, you can know what you are doing right and what needs to be improved.

Time on site

Knowing how much time visitors spend on your pages can tell you which ones are effective in keeping them engaged. According to experts, a good average time on site is around 2 to 3 minutes. If you see that your readers spend less than that, you have to act now and think of ways to improve visitor retention. For example, if your SEO report shows that pages with pictures and videos get considerably more traction on the site, include more media into your content.

Bounce rate

If your homepage has a high bounce rate, this means a lot of people just click on your site, take a quick look at that one page, and leave without exploring further. They might not be satisfied with what they see welcoming them, so you have to find ways to keep them interested the moment they first land on your page and make them want to check out the rest of your website.

Keywords

Determining which keywords are effective in driving traffic to your website is key to your search engine results rankings. By studying your keyword rankings and monitoring their progress along the way, you can make the necessary adjustments to stay at the top.

Leads and sales

The goal of any business is to generate sales and revenue, so information about the impact of your SEO plan on your leads and sales has to be available. With that knowledge, you can figure out what your next step is to be on the path to success.

Strategic plan

Using the data collected, a thorough SEO report should also provide a plan moving forward. Those parts of the strategic plan that are working should remain. If there are parts that are not, what should be done? Along with the graphs and numbers, there should also be insightful and valuable commentary.