A good monthly report lets someone who was not involved understand what happened in five minutes. Many SEO reports do the opposite: forty pages of charts and no explanation of what was done or why it matters.
These are the questions a report should answer.
1. What was completed?
A plain list of the work delivered in the period, compared with what the plan said would be delivered. Technical fixes released, pages published or updated, emails and posts sent. If something was planned but not done, the report should say so and why.
2. What changed in performance?
Organic clicks, impressions and positions from Search Console, organic sessions and registrations from analytics, compared with the previous period and the same period last year where seasonality matters.
Numbers should be split by market when you operate in more than one, and by page group: categories, products, services, articles.
3. Why did it change?
Movements need an explanation: a released fix, a new page, a search engine update, a seasonal peak, a competitor's campaign, a tracking problem. When the cause is unknown, the report should say that rather than claim credit.
4. What did each channel deliver?
For content, social and email, show what was published and what it achieved: visits, engagement, sign-ups or sales. Activity on its own is not a result.
5. What happens next?
The priorities for the next period, what needs approval from you, and anything blocked on your side, such as a development ticket waiting for release.
What to leave out
- Vanity metrics with no connection to the plan.
- Rankings for keywords nobody agreed on.
- Charts without a sentence explaining them.
If your current report does not answer these five questions, ask for a version that does.