What is an SEO report, and how do you create one?

An audit is a check of the site at one moment: what keeps its pages from being found, counted and put in order (what is an SEO audit). A report follows the site over time and says what the work did. A monthly report usually carries the latest audit inside it, as the part about the site’s health.

• How the site did in search: clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position, from Search Console, against the period before.
• Indexing: how many pages Google indexed, and why it left out the rest. Search Console’s Page indexing report gives the reason for each; Google’s advice is not to expect every address indexed, only the ones that matter (Page indexing report). What each status means: Search Console statuses, explained.
• The state of the site: the audit’s grade and how it moved, the problems fixed and the new ones, each problem counted once with the pages it covers.
• What was done since the last report, and what it changed, if anything yet.
• What comes next: the few things to fix before the next report, in order, each with the pages it covers and who does it.
• What was not measured: pages the audit could not read, numbers that were not available. A report that leaves them out reads as if it saw everything.

Search Console’s Performance report has four numbers, and each is narrower than it sounds (What are impressions, position, and clicks?):

• Impressions: a link to the site appeared on the page of results someone saw, even below the fold. In a carousel it usually has to be scrolled into view.
• Clicks: a click that took someone from Google to a page outside Google.
• CTR: clicks divided by impressions.
• Average position: for each search, the topmost position a link to the site held, where 1 is the top, averaged over every search the site appeared in. A position is only recorded when the link got an impression.

The last one is worth a sentence in any report. Because it is an average over every search the site showed up for, a site that starts appearing for many new searches, far down the results, sees its average position get worse while its clicks go up. Report position next to impressions and clicks, never on its own.

1. Decide who reads it. The person who pays reads a summary; the person who fixes things reads a list. Give the first a page, and the second the full list behind it.

2. Pick the period, and what to compare it with. A month against the month before; for a seasonal site, also against the same month a year earlier. Google suggests weekly or monthly views to see longer-term trends without the daily swings, and says the newest data is preliminary and can still change (Performance report). So close a monthly report a few days after the month ends.

3. Take the numbers from Search Console. The four numbers for the site, then by page and by search: which pages gained, which lost, which searches came in or dropped out. Google notes that the chart’s totals can differ from the table’s, because they are counted differently, so take the headline numbers from the chart.

4. Run an audit. The grade and how it moved, what was fixed, what is new. Count each problem once: most pages come from a few templates, and one problem on a template is one line, not one per page.

5. Write what was done and what comes next. This is the part no tool writes for you, and the part the reader is paying for: what you changed, what it did, and the three things that matter most before the next report.

6. Say what was not measured, and send it the same way every month, in the same order, so the reader can follow one report to the next.

To fill one in by hand, the SEO report template is free in Word, with an Excel tracker. What a finished one looks like: an SEO audit report sample.

• Is every number compared with something? A number with nothing beside it can’t say whether things got better.
• Are clicks there, and not only impressions? Impressions can climb for searches nobody clicks on.
• Is average position next to impressions and clicks? On its own it can get worse while the site does better.
• Does it say what was done, and what it changed? And what will be done before the next report.
• Does it say what was not measured?

Google’s list of questions to ask an SEO before hiring one includes what results to expect, in what timeframe, and how they measure success (Do you need an SEO?). The report is where those answers should show up each month.

Every Trakis audit makes a client report: a single A4 page with the grade and how it moved since the last audit, a score for each area, the three things to fix this month with the pages each covers, and the pages kept out of search, put as a question for the client. It goes out as a PDF, or as a link that opens without an account and always shows the latest audit. An account can audit the site on its own, every day, every week or every two weeks, so the link stays current between reports, and, with Search Console connected, it shows your searches by position, week by week. An agency can send it under its own name and logo: white-label SEO reports.

How often should an SEO report be sent? Monthly suits most sites: weekly search numbers swing too much to say much on their own. The audit underneath can run more often, so a problem doesn’t wait for the report.

What do I need to make one? Search Console for the site, which is free; an audit; and somewhere to write it, such as the template.

Can an SEO report be automated? The numbers and the audit can. What was done, and why, can’t: that part is yours.

What is the difference between an SEO report and an SEO audit report? An audit report is the state of the site at one audit. An SEO report covers a period: the search numbers, the work done, and usually the latest audit too.

The audit is free, up to 200 pages, no card, and makes the client report on its own: create an account and add your site, or see the report it makes first.

Google’s pages, read on 4 November 2026.

• Search Console Help, What are impressions, position, and clicks?: the four numbers and how each is counted.
• Search Console Help, Performance report (Search results): weekly and monthly views, preliminary data, chart and table totals.
• Search Console Help, Page indexing report: what it shows, and not expecting every URL indexed.
• Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO?: the questions to ask an SEO.