Monthly SEO Report Template for Clients: What to Include and What to Cut

A monthly SEO report template has one job: let a client understand in five minutes what happened to their search visibility this month, why it happened, and what you will do next. Many client reports fail that test because they are built from whatever the tools export, not from the questions the client actually asks. A client-ready keyword ranking report covers the rankings page of the template below; the rest comes from your own data.

Below is the template I use, section by section, with what goes in each slot and what to leave out. The ranking figures come from our public sample report, an anonymised hotel-software company with 100 keywords checked on four Google engines, so you can see real numbers in every slot. Copy the checklist and keep the order.

The monthly SEO report template: six sections in order

The order matters. A client reads from the top and stops as soon as they have an answer. Put the answer first, the evidence second and the plan last.

That fits on two to four pages. Everything else goes in the appendix or stays out.

Section by section: what to write in each slot

1. The summary in three lines

Write it last and put it first. Three sentences: what changed, why, and what you will do about it. For the sample report, a fair summary would read like this:

Since the previous check, 25 keyword rows entered Google’s top 10, which now holds 78, 17 more than before. That gain was offset by 17 fewer rows anywhere in the top 30, so overall visibility stayed level at 22.8%. Next we repeat the format of the PMS migration guide, which went from not ranking to positions 1 and 2, and review the pages that lost ground.

No adjectives, no “great month”: the client can forward those three lines as they are.

2. Rankings: bands, not averages

This is where many SEO reports for clients mislead without meaning to. Here is the sample report’s KPI strip as it would sit in this section:

The average improved by 2. On its own, that line says “things got a bit better”. The bands say something more useful: 17 more rows sit on page one, while 17 fewer rows sit anywhere in the top 30. Two opposite movements, and the average hides both. Averages also shift when keywords enter or leave the depth you checked, which is not progress at all.

So lead with the bands. If you want one picture, use the distribution bar: in the sample, 16 rows in positions 1–3, 62 in 4–10, 43 in 11–20, 28 in 21–30 and 251 outside the top 30.

3. What moved and why

Pick three to five movers, not twenty. For each one, give the keyword or page, the move, and a cause you have checked. Two lines from the sample show the difference between a finding and a number:

• “hotel pms systems data migration steps” went from not ranking to position 1 or 2 on all four engines. When a keyword climbs everywhere at once, one page usually did it. Name the page and what changed on it.
• “pms system” fell from 3 to outside the top 30, but only on google.com mobile. On the other three engines it was outside the top 30 in both checks. That is a “watch” item, not a reason to rewrite the page.

If you don’t know the cause yet, write “cause not confirmed, checking” and say what you are checking. Never guess in a client report. Our walkthrough on how to read a rank tracking report shows how to find these movers in a few minutes.

4. Traffic from Search Console

Rankings tell you where you appear. Search Console tells you whether people clicked. Google’s Performance report shows four metrics: clicks, impressions, CTR (clicks divided by impressions) and average position, which Google defines as the average position of the topmost result from your site.

For the client report, two numbers and one chart are enough: clicks and impressions for the month, against the month before. When you compare two date ranges, Google’s own help on filtering and comparison suggests weekly or monthly granularity, because it removes the day-of-the-week effect. And pull the figures a day or two after the month closes: the Performance report help notes that the newest data can be preliminary and might still change.

Don’t put Search Console’s average position next to a rank check’s positions without a sentence. They measure different things: one averages over every search where you appeared, the other records one position on a named engine on a named day.

5. Conversions, if available

If the client tracks leads, calls or sales from organic search, put two or three numbers here: this month, last month and, for seasonal businesses, the same month last year. If nothing is tracked, say so in one line and make “set up conversion tracking” one of next month’s actions. An empty slot that admits the gap is better than a proxy metric dressed up as revenue.

6. Actions for next month

Three actions, each with an owner and a date. From the sample, they could be:

1. Repeat the migration guide’s format for two related topics (content team, by the 15th).
2. Review “adr vs revpar”, which slipped two or three positions on all four engines (SEO, this week).
3. Shortlist five of the 43 rows in positions 11–20 for internal links and content updates (SEO, by month end).

If the last section of your report has no names and no dates, the report is not finished.

How a ranking report slots into the template

You don’t need to build sections 2 and 3 by hand. A rank check report already compares every keyword with its previous check, so the work is choosing what to show:

• At a glance (improved, declined, unchanged, new in the top 10) is the raw material for your three-line summary.
• The KPI strip and the ranking distribution fill section 2 as they are.
• What moved gives you the eight biggest gainers and losers to pick from for section 3.
• The full keyword table, SERP features and AI Overview citations go in the appendix. Attach the PDF or the Excel file; don’t paste 400 rows.

With our pay-per-check rank reports, the web report and PDF carry your client’s logo and brand colour, so you can forward them without giving anyone a tool login. Each repeat order adds a point to every keyword’s trend line. If you report for several clients, our piece on white label rank tracking covers the branding side in more detail.

What to cut from a client SEO report

Every item below costs the client attention and gives nothing back:

• Vanity metrics. The total number of keywords a tool says you rank for, third-party authority scores, impressions without clicks. If a number can rise while the business gets nothing, it doesn’t belong in the main report.
• 40-page exports. Nobody reads them, and they bury the five lines that matter. Summarise in section 2 and attach the file.
• Unexplained charts. Every chart gets one sentence that says what it shows and whether that is good or bad. A chart without that sentence is decoration.
• Average position as the headline. As the sample shows, it can improve while the top 30 shrinks.
• Dashboard screenshots. A screenshot of a tool with no context makes the client do your job.
• Silent setup changes. If you changed the keyword list, the Google edition or the depth, say so, or don’t compare the months at all.

Keep the setup fixed from month to month

A monthly SEO report is only as good as the comparison underneath it. Keep the same keyword list, the same Google editions, the same devices and the same depth, and run the check on roughly the same day each month. Keep a short changelog of what you changed on the site; you will need it every time you write “why” in section 3. When you add keywords, report them separately in their first month, because they have nothing to compare against yet.

If you’d rather have someone read the report and turn it into actions every month, our SEO rank tracking service does exactly that. If you write the report yourself, you can order a branded rank report for each client when you need one and drop it into this template.

FAQ

What should a monthly SEO report include?

Six sections: a three-line summary, rankings in bands, what moved and why, clicks and impressions from Search Console, conversions if they are tracked, and three actions for next month. The full keyword table goes in an appendix.

How long should an SEO report for a client be?

Two to four pages for the main report, plus attachments. If the client needs more than five minutes to find out what happened and what you will do next, the report is too long.

Should I show average position in an SEO report?

Show it, but never as the headline. Lead with the number of keywords in the top 3, top 10 and top 30, because an average can improve while keywords drop out of the results you checked.

What do I need to fill this SEO report template?

Search Console for clicks and impressions, a rank check on the same keywords and Google editions every month, and analytics or a CRM if you report conversions. Your own notes on what changed on the site supply the “why”.

Can I share rankings with a client without a tool login?

Yes. Send a report instead of a dashboard: a web report or PDF with the client’s logo, plus an Excel file if they want the raw data.