What should a monthly SEO report for a small business include?
Reports range from a 2-page summary to a 40-page export. What belongs in a monthly report so that an owner reads it and acts on it?
AI visibility
AI visibility Nine AI engines, tracked Prompt research Find the questions worth tracking Competitor analysis Who wins on Google and in AI answersSEO
SEO tools Rank tracking, backlinks, and more Keyword research Volume, difficulty, and intent Site audits A health score and ranked fixes Local SEO Map pack grids and reviewsWorkflow
Closed-loop marketing From finding to task to report Ask Doily Answers and tasks from your data Reporting Branded reports that send themselvesReports range from a 2-page summary to a 40-page export. What belongs in a monthly report so that an owner reads it and acts on it?
Aim for 1 to 2 pages that an owner can read in 5 minutes. Lead with the story, then show the evidence.
1. A short summary at the top. 3 or 4 sentences: what changed this month, why, and what happens next. If you cannot write it, you do not understand the data well enough yet.
2. Business results. Calls, form submissions, orders, or booked jobs from organic search and from the map listing, compared with the previous month and the same month last year. This is the number the owner cares about.
3. Visibility. Rankings for the target keywords, grouped by page or service. Map pack position for local searches. Mentions and citations in AI answers for your tracked prompts. Show direction and the biggest movers, not a table of 200 keywords.
4. Traffic and engagement. Organic sessions and the pages that bring the most, with a note on any page that dropped.
5. Work completed. What you shipped: pages, fixes, links, profile updates. One line each, tied to a goal.
6. Issues and risks. Anything blocking progress, such as a slow template or a page not indexed.
7. Next month. 3 priorities, each with the reason.
What to leave out: metrics that never lead to a decision, long lists of keywords with no position change, and vanity scores with no explanation.
Keep the format the same every month so trends are easy to see. Send it on a schedule. Doily's reports can be scheduled, sent as a PDF or a live link, and carry your logo on the Starter plan and above.
If the owner never replies to the report, the report is not answering their question. Ask what they would do differently if it said something else, and rebuild around that.
AI answers vary from run to run, so the numbers jump. How do you present them to a client without losing their trust or overpromising?
Search Console shows more people searching for the business by name, while searches without the name are flat. Is that a good sign or a warning?
This is the community for people who work on search and AI visibility: business owners, small teams, and agencies. Ask a question, share what you see in your data, and answer what you know. What you can do. Reading is…