Basic SEO Report: The Numbers a Small Business Should See Every Month

A basic SEO report should answer one question each month: is search bringing the business more of the right visitors and enquiries, and if not, where is the problem? Most small businesses get either nothing or a thirty-page export they never read. Neither helps.

I have worked in SEO and digital marketing for more than 16 years, and the reports I find most useful are short. The owner reads them in five minutes and knows whether to act. This article lists the numbers I would put on that one page, where each one comes from, and what I would leave out.

If you produce reports for clients as an agency or freelancer, our monthly SEO report template covers that side, with sections and layout. This article is for the business owner reading the report, or building one for themselves.

What a basic SEO report is for

A report is not proof that work was done. It is a tool for deciding what to do next month. That changes what goes in. Every number on the page should lead to one of three answers: keep going, look closer, or fix something.

For a small business, two free Google tools cover almost everything. Google explains the difference in its guide to using Search Console and Google Analytics data: Search Console “Provides data about how your website is performing in Google Search results” and “focuses on activity that happened before a person arrived at your website from Google Search.” Google Analytics “Provides data about visitors’ interactions with your website”.

So Search Console tells you how you appear and how often people click. Analytics tells you what they do after they arrive. A basic report needs both halves.

The five numbers in a basic SEO report

These are the five numbers I would put at the top of the page, in this order:

Each number is shown for this month, the previous month and the same month last year. That third column matters more than people expect. A garden business or a tax adviser has strong and weak months, and a drop against last month may be perfectly normal against last year.

1 and 2. Clicks and impressions

Google’s help page on the Performance report defines clicks as “The number of times a user clicked your site from Google Search results” and impressions as “How many times your site appeared in Search results.” Read them together:

• Impressions up, clicks flat: you are appearing more but not being chosen. Look at titles and descriptions for the pages involved.
• Impressions down: you are appearing less. Look at which queries and pages lost impressions before anything else.
• Both up: keep going, and check that enquiries rose too.

Note that “The newest data can be preliminary, meaning it’s still being collected and might change in the next few hours.” Run the report a few days after the month ends, not on the first morning.

3. Top queries and pages

The Performance report can group data by queries, pages, countries, devices, search appearance and dates, with one tab for each above the table. For a basic report, the top ten queries and the top ten pages by clicks are enough, with the change against last month. They show which services people find you for, and which pages do the work.

What I look for here: a service the business wants to sell that never appears in the list. That is usually the most useful finding in the whole report.

4. Indexed pages

The Page indexing report “shows how many URLs on your site have been crawled and indexed by Google.” Google is clear that the goal is not every URL: “You should not expect all URLs on your site to be indexed, only the canonical pages”.

So the number to watch is not the total. It is whether your important pages (services, locations, main products) are indexed. A sudden fall in indexed pages, or a key service page that is not indexed, goes straight to the “fix something” pile.

5. Enquiries from organic search

Traffic does not pay the bills. Enquiries do. In Google Analytics 4, an action that matters to the business is marked as a key event. Google’s help page on key events defines one as “an event that measures an action that’s particularly important to the success of your business.”

For a small business that usually means a contact form sent, a phone number tapped, a booking made or a quote requested. Mark those as key events once, then report how many came from organic search each month. If the report shows more clicks but no more enquiries, the problem is on the pages, not in the rankings.

If a number in your report cannot change what you do next month, it does not belong on the first page.

Why Search Console and Analytics never match

Owners often worry when clicks in Search Console and organic sessions in Analytics differ. They always will. Google’s guide says “these tools use different metrics and systems, which means the data won’t match completely”, and gives reasons:

• “Clicks and sessions are calculated differently”.
• “Google Analytics automatically excludes traffic from known bots”, while “Search Console doesn’t necessarily filter them out”.
• “Search Console reports only on the Google Search canonical URL”, while “Google Analytics reports on any URL that includes the tracking code”.

The practical rule: use Search Console for search visibility and clicks, Analytics for what happens on the site, and compare each tool with itself over time rather than with the other one. A report that tries to reconcile them to the last visit wastes everyone’s time.

Adding a ranking check

Search Console gives an average position, defined as “The average position of the topmost result from your site.” Averaged across all queries, devices and locations, that number moves for many reasons, and on its own it rarely tells you where a specific service ranks. Our article on average position versus a rank tracker explains why.

For a small business, a monthly ranking check on the keywords that matter most (your main services, in the places you serve, on desktop and mobile) fills that gap. I would keep it to the keywords that bring enquiries, not hundreds of variations. If you are choosing how to do it, our guide to SEO ranking report software covers when software is worth it and when a one-off check is enough.

What to leave out of a basic SEO report

Long reports are often long because the numbers are easy to export, not because they help. These are the items I would remove from a small business report, or move to an appendix:

Each of these can be useful in a deeper review. In a monthly report for an owner, they bury the five numbers that lead to action.

How to read the report in five minutes

Once the page is set up, the monthly routine is short:

1. Check enquiries from organic search against last month and last year. Up, flat or down?
2. If down, look at clicks and impressions. Did fewer people see you, or fewer choose you?
3. Look at top queries and pages for the ones that moved most.
4. Check the indexing report for important pages that dropped out.
5. Check the ranking check for your main services, on desktop and mobile.
6. Write one line: what you will do next month because of what you saw.

That last line is the point of the whole report. If you find a fall you cannot explain, our list of causes I check when organic traffic decreases is a good next step.

FAQ

What should a basic SEO report include?

Clicks and impressions from Google Search, the top queries and pages behind them, whether important pages are indexed, and enquiries from organic search, each compared with last month and the same month last year. A ranking check for your main services completes it.

Can I make a basic SEO report for free?

Yes. Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 are free, and they provide all five numbers. You can lay them out in a spreadsheet or in Data Studio (formerly Looker Studio). Only a ranking check for specific keywords and locations usually needs another tool.

How often should a small business look at its SEO report?

Monthly is enough for most small businesses. Search data moves from day to day, and weekly reports tend to show noise rather than change. Look sooner only after a site launch, a redesign or a sudden drop in enquiries.

Why is my average position in Search Console different from what I see in Google?

Average position is “The average position of the topmost result from your site” across all the queries, devices and places where you appeared. What you see in your own browser is one search, at one moment, from one place.