The Small Business Guide to SEO Reporting: What to Track and What to Ignore
The Small Business Guide to SEO Reporting
What NOT to track
- Domain Authority (made-up metric by Moz)
- Total backlinks (one quality link beats 1,000 spammy ones)
- Rankings for irrelevant keywords
- 'SEO score' without context
- Traffic from countries you don't serve
What TO track
1. Organic traffic (Google Search Console) Is it going up? This is your #1 metric.
2. Keyword rankings for money terms Track 5-10 keywords that actually bring customers. Not 100 random ones.
3. Click-through rate (CTR) Are people clicking your result? Low CTR = bad title or description.
4. Conversions from organic search Phone calls. Form submissions. Online orders. Direction requests. This is what actually matters.
5. Google Business Profile insights Profile views. Calls. Direction requests. Website clicks.
6. Page speed Is your site getting faster or slower?
7. Indexed pages Is Google finding and indexing your new content?
How often to check
- Weekly: GBP insights, keyword rankings
- Monthly: Organic traffic, conversions, page speed
- Quarterly: Full audit, competitive analysis
The only report that matters
'This month, X people found us on Google. Y of them called or visited. That's Z% more than last month.'
Run a free audit and start tracking what matters.