2024 Guide to SEO Reporting and Tracking

SEO reporting and tracking is a big deal for everyone in the industry.

Data that you think is important may not be of much value to executives.

Or maybe you don't have enough data to clearly and concisely show growth, change, or important events.

Reports should tell a story. Without proper data, you'll end up with confusing plots that won't be well-received.

Before you can start reporting and tracking your data, you need to collect it. For that, you need to use the right tools.

Most SEOs use a combination of different tools to properly collect, track, and report data.

The main ones include:

You can also track keyword growth, ranking, and more using third-party tools, such as:

There are many paid third-party tools available to help with reporting and tracking.

However, you should be aware of the limitations of each tool.

For example, Google Search Console only retains data for 16 months, so you'll need to take this into account if you plan to provide long reports showing data above this threshold.

It is assumed that these tools are already in place. However, if you don't have these tools, check them out and add the necessary coding to your website to start tracking.

Otherwise, you'll start doing SEO blindly without the data these tools provide.

Dig deeper: SEO reporting to impress: How to successfully report on your SEO processes, efforts, and results

Impact of AI and data analysis with AI

With the introduction of AI, the industry is adapting and changing to the ever-evolving SEO ecosystem.

Artificial intelligence can be used for data analysis to extract important data points that would normally be done manually or omitted because they would take too long.

Tools like ChatGPT allow you to:

Create a regular expression for a query filter

Create custom regular expressions in GSC's query filters. For example, you can enter the following command in ChatGPT:

• “Create regular expressions to list keywords that include how, what, and when in Google Search Console.”

Add the required keywords that match your information purpose.

You can now add regular expressions to GSC to filter useful content and better understand its performance. Adding these charts to your report will give your audience a clearer picture.

Connect Google Analytics to ChatGPT

The paid version of Google Analytics can connect to ChatGPT via a plugin. Once connected, you can retrieve important data in seconds, including:

• Lists visitors from each country in the past month.
• View user growth for each country over the past 6 months.
• Create a table showing page growth over the past six months.

If you, like most of us, are struggling with GA4, connecting to a third-party service can give you new and exciting ways to work with your data.

You can also combine data from Google Ads, Instagram Ads, Facebook Pages, and other sources into one.

Tracking events (including non-SEO events)

Once you have your tools and analytics in place, start tracking key events.

SEO is all about driving organic traffic to your site and generating revenue, but you also need a way to track your progress.

Here's what I recommend tracking:

Tracking changes and updates to your site will demonstrate the value of your work and provide invaluable information as your site continues to grow.

Learn more: Event tracking in Google Analytics 4: What marketers need to know

Distinguish between branded and non-branded keywords

Now that you can track events, it's time to get into the nitty-gritty of keyword separation.

You can't show your clients value by giving them a long list of thousands of keywords. Many of these keywords may not bring much value at all.

What you should do is try splitting your keywords into:

• brand keyword
• non-branded keywords

Brand keywords include company and product names and are something many businesses want to track as they focus on branding.

Nike is a great example of a strong brand where people might search for “Nike running shoes” or “running shoes” to find their products.

However, when working with large keyword datasets, we recommend breaking down your keywords further by:

• Useful keywords.
• Transaction keyword.
• General keywords.

If you want to see your data even more clearly in your reports, you can split these keywords by page, URL, or section.

Working with your keyword list takes time, but it's the bulk of the work you'll do in your report.

Clients want to see what keywords they are ranking for and where their traffic is concentrated on their site.

However, there is one piece of data that is more important than the others to track. That's revenue.

Track revenue drivers

Earnings are an eye-opener for all parties and are the most eye-catching part of the report.

There are a few things you need to do here to display your earnings in a way that everyone can understand and appreciate.

Compared to previous period

Comparisons are a great way to show growth over a period of time.

For example, companies derive much of their fourth quarter revenue from Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday.

This is the period when everyone is looking for deals and there is a wealth of valuable data for reporting.

We recommend looking at two years of data to find out:

• Weekly growth rate (amazing or same week as last year).
• Monthly growth rate (month-over-month or year-over-year).
• Quarterly growth rate (quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year).
• Growth every year.
• seasonal growth.

When creating a report, it would be invaluable to show that this year's Black Friday sales increased by 25% compared to the previous Black Friday due to higher search engine rankings.

sales driver

Sometimes it can be difficult to decipher which keywords drove sales.

When viewing traffic, tools may not allow this level of adjustment. In this case, your IT team can help.

Your IT team can help with:

• Examine the logs.
• Identify sales.
• Tag the keywords you're responsible for selling (may require customization).

Showing how investing in SEO increases revenue by showing that X keywords rose from ranking #19 to #2 and product sales increased by 17%.

You can also segment data for events such as traffic that led to calls, email registrations, consultations, etc.

Predictive analytics and machine learning

Machine learning and AI bring advanced predictive analytics to SEO that was once only available to large companies. Using this type of analysis, you will be able to:

• Which keywords are most likely to be clicked?
• Pages that appear to have the highest click-through rates.
• Understand the trends of your site users and change your strategy accordingly.

Using machine learning and predictive analytics, you can better understand which pages will be most popular three months from now, and which types of keywords will drive traffic down three months from now.

AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics help predict the future of your site based on ranking and traffic data. Stakeholders want to know what will happen if current traffic trends continue, for better or worse.

Predictive analytics can show you what the future holds for your site based on microdata trends hidden in your analytics and keyword rankings.

Machine learning can also be used to capture data and learn when something anomaly occurs in your traffic. Based on site- and page-specific data, you can establish a system to identify major algorithm changes and ranking increases.

Micro conversion data

Key KPIs show a direct relationship between your site's SEO and increased revenue.

Stakeholders always want to see: dollar sign. Clients and employers will be happy if you can show them how your efforts are contributing to increased conversions and sales.

However, the site is evolving and there are many moving parts.

For example, many micro-conversions happen behind the scenes and lead to future conversions, but not immediate conversions. An example of this is:

• A user clicks on one of your Facebook ads, explores your site, and eventually leaves.
• A week later, that person remembers your brand, but forgets your website URL, so they Google your company name and visit your site. That person may also see your product demo or download a free ebook.

These microconversions are more likely to result in future sales, but are difficult to track. In 2024, SEOs will need to set up campaigns that track micro-conversions and show stakeholders that rankings are driving people into the sales funnel.

Creating these unique campaigns will allow you to digest the data and better target your audience. Most people will probably watch a product demo but not buy it.

why? You can use data to identify weaknesses in your funnel and make changes to improve them. do leading to more difficult conversions.

Dig deeper: 3 overlooked SEO conversion metrics to consider

Provide the right data to the right parties

You've collected and segmented your data in a meaningful way.

However, while some data points are valuable to you and your marketing team, executives may ignore others.

For example, suppose you create a report like this:

• Technical SEO changes.
• 10% increase in organic traffic.
• Your site will be faster.
• The time spent on the page increases.
• etc.

Marketing teams will appreciate this data, but executives will be interested in how a 10% increase in traffic translated into increased revenue.

Executives won't be interested in your report unless you meaningfully link this information to the company's bottom line.

You may want to create reports that touch on important data that specific stakeholder groups want to see.

Dig deeper: What stakeholders should expect from SEO

Save your SEO data for future use

Today's report will be referenced over the next year or two and will help tell your company's SEO growth story.

Save the data you collect, as it contains valuable information for future use.

We've created our own custom tool to back up your Google Search Console data so you can view it even beyond the 16-month limit.

Even if you change companies, it's a good idea to do the same for most reporting tasks you'll do in the future.

You can also start using tools like ChatGPT to dig deeper into your data and extract valuable information you might have missed.

Dig deeper: 7 proven ways to explain the value of SEO