How to Track and Report on Your SEO Campaign

Working effective SEO campaign tracking into your strategy means setting up tools to collect data, evaluating that data, and recording it in a clear way.

Why is SEO campaign tracking important?

SEO campaign tracking is important because you need to be able to understand and build on your results. SEO reporting and the way you incorporate it into your strategy can make or break your campaigns.

The true value of SEO lies not just in its implementation, but in its measurable impact on your business.  SEO is not about chasing arbitrary numbers or vanity metrics – it’s about driving real, tangible results that contribute to your bottom line.

What does campaign tracking and reporting actually do for you?

• Measure ROI/success: It’s important for you and your team to see that your efforts are worthwhile. That changes based on your goals. You can measure if the amount of money you’re earning is justifying the cost. Or just how close you’re getting to ranking #1 for that keyword you want. What’s the point if you don’t know if it’s working?
• Keep track of ranking position: You probably won’t start ranking immediately. But keeping track if ranking positions over time helps you see what keywords rise, how quickly, and when. This helps you build patterns and understand how your content is effecting your position.
• Keep track of visibility: Keeping track of your impressions and traffic can show you what Google is showing to users and what they search to get there. This information is gold; it tells you where to place more effort vs. where your work is paying off.
• Evaluate user actions: Are people seeing you, but not clicking? Are they clicking, but not converting? Are people finding you by social much more than direct traffic? Tracking and reporting helps you answer these questions and more.
• Analyzing successes and failures of competitors: Review what your competition is doing so you can learn from their successes and capitalize on the areas they miss.
• Making strategic changes: Take ALL this information and revisit. your strategy. What new information might mean a shift? What wins signal success and what stagnant progress means you need a tighter focus?

So, how do you go about tracking and reporting on the details that will help you grow in the future?

What Tools Should You Use to Collect Data?

First, decide what tools you’d like to use to collect data. It’s a good idea to use more than one tool so you get different insights. Depending on your budget, it’s a good idea to weigh free tools against paid ones. Paid doesn’t necessarily mean better. But paid tools often give you more information. Decide for yourself whether that information is worth the cost.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is free and helps you track tons of website traffic metrics. Set up custom reports and dashboards to automate reports and updates on your website’s performance. With Google Analytics, you can:

1. Track traffic, organic and paid. Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition to get this information.
2. View success of certain landing pages. Go to Engagement > landing page report to evaluate traffic, bounce rates, etc. for specific pages on your site.
3. Measure ROI/conversions: You can set up powerful conversion points, like forms and purchases, to see where the site is actually bringing in revenue and where those users came from.
4. Learn about users: Use the Demographics Details and Tech Details sections of Google Analytics to learn what devices your visitors use, where they are in the world, and much more.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console can help you track your website’s search engine rankings, click-through rates, and impressions. It’s similar to Google Analytics – and often uses the same dashboard – but gives you information more focused on organic search. Use it to set up email alerts to notify you of changes to your website’s performance.

Semrush

Semrush is one of our favorite places to get deep into SEO optimizations, reports, research, and more. We use it for the keyword tool, competitor analysis, technical issue audits, and for tracking the success of our campaigns. Pricing for this tools begins at $117 per month.

Third-party SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz help you track your website’s rankings, backlinks, and other SEO metrics. 

Use custom scripts and plugins. If you have coding skills, you can create custom scripts or plugins to automate the tracking and reporting process. You can also incorporate automated reporting services. There are also services available, such as Data Studio and Klipfolio, that can help you automate the reporting process.

What metrics should you track?

Looking at general website traffic alone (like in Google Analytics) tells an incomplete and often contradictory story. A website’s traffic can spike for any number of arbitrary reasons that just clog up your bandwidth without increasing your sales and conversions. If you want to track metrics that matter, focus on analyzing the traffic that you care about. 

Here are some important key metrics to consider tracking that go beyond just page visits:

1. Organic Search Impressions. This is the increase in the number of times that your website appears in a search engine’s SERP (Search Engine Results Pages), regardless of whether or not it results in a website visit.
2. Organic SERP clicks. This is the increase in the number of website visitors coming from search engine SERPs and as opposed to paid sources like ads.
3. Keyword Rankings. This metric tracks positions for target keywords in SERPs.
4. Conversion Rate. This measures the percentage of organic visitors who complete desired actions such as purchases, sign-ups, downloads, etc. 
5. Revenue from Organic Search. This tracks the actual revenue generated from organic search visitors. So, if someone finds you via an organic search and makes a purchase, that counts toward your organic search revenue. 
6. Return on Investment. The ROI compares how much you’ve spent on your SEO efforts compared with how much you’ve made as a result. For example, you invested $1,000 in paid ads and made $10,000 as a result, your ROI would be 90%.
7. Page Load speed. Monitoring page load speed tells you how your website speed and performance is improving, which can affect both rankings and user experience.

This is not a comprehensive list, but if you’re just starting to track your SEO efforts, this is a good place to start.

Things to remember when tracking data

Get a baseline

Whatever you decide to track, you should collect this information thoroughly at the very beginning of the project so that you have something solid to compare to later. Having a baseline is extremely helpful for spotting early growth.

Be consistent

Then, make sure to record the same data again on a regular basis. Monthly is a good idea, but quarterly reporting can also be useful. (We’ll review this more below.) You may even choose daily rank tracking to keep up with every single change.

Set goals

It’s not enough to just say, “I want the numbers to go up.” Instead, observe what your numbers already say and determine how you’d like each metric to improve. For example, if you rank on page 2 for a keyword, setting a goal to get it to page 1 within 3 months gives you something measurable and binary to work toward: either you accomplish that goal or not, there’s no gray area.

Base those goals on what will actually bring tangible results to your company or brand. If you rank for a keyword, it’s important that that traffic pay off. Research your industry and see what is a reasonable or average expectation. Remember that broad keywords are often harder to rank for than specific ones. Keep track of these numbers so you always have something to work toward.

Now that you have your data, where do you go from here? When a metric has been met, is that a finalized win for your team or do you want to set a new tighter metric? Should they create systems and documentation to make sure this metric remains steady?

How do you Keep Track of Data?

Now that you’ve started tracking the website’s metrics, you need to use that data wisely. Build out a spreadsheet that shows you all of the relevant numbers and how they change. Keep in mind that this is not your report, but a way to keep track of raw data.

Base this layout on on your strategy. For example, if you’re using a Pillar/Cluster method to try to rank for a high-value keyword, you may want to lay your spreadsheet out this way.

Create a spreadsheet like this for every week, month, or quarter you want to monitor. Here’s how you’d fill out a spreadsheet like this.

1. Add your main keyword/pillar page to 4A.
2. Add all of your related long-tail keywords/cluster pages to 5A – 11A.
3. Record the publishing date of each page or post to column B.
4. Use 4C – L11 to show the date range you’re recording from. Record from the last interval.
   • For this one, we’d record month-to-date (meaning a month ago to now.) If this is a weekly sheet, it would be week-to-date (meaning a week ago to now). In this sheet, we’re including year-to-date as well.
5. Use row 2 to determine which metrics you want to record. You may also want to include organic traffic, bounce rate, average session duration, domain authority, and page load time.
6. Repeat the spreadsheet in the next interval.

Use this raw data to find patterns and show growth. Using the numbers to make line graphs or bar graphs helps you analyze the data and find causalities to test. Remember that a report should be an analysis of the raw data, not just the numbers alone.

Here are our suggestions on how to build a repeatable and measurable reporting system around your key SEO metrics based on frequency. With each report, use what you’ve learned to build out tasks to address any issues.

What would you include in a Weekly Report?

On a weekly basis, report on the results of the following things:

1. Sudden drops in rankings or traffic
2. Website metrics for ongoing campaigns
3. New or lost backlinks
4. Changes in search engine algorithm updates.
5. Keyword rankings for target keywords.
6. Crawl errors or other technical issues.
7. Online reviews or feedback.

What would you include in a Monthly Report?

Monthly reports are typically most popular. They often be more helpful than weekly reports because they give a better “big picture” view. You can use these to more accurately view patterns and changes. On a monthly basis, report on the results of the following things:

1. Keyword rankings, traffic, and conversions.
2. Website metrics according to the ones you’ve chosen.
3. Changes in search engine algorithm updates and their impact on the website’s performance.
4. Target keywords and backlink profile. 

What would you include in a Quarterly Report? 

It’s usually a good idea to do quarterly (or 6-month) reports in order to get a broad idea of success. At these points, you will want to actually update your SEO strategy based on data and changing industry trends. On a quarterly basis, report on the results of the following things:

1. A comprehensive website audit to identify issues and areas for improvement.
2. Major changes in search engine algorithm updates.
3. Target keywords and adjust strategies accordingly.
4. A full backlink analysis.
5. Should your strategy be changed or updated based on these findings?

Most SEO tools also provide effective great collaborative and reporting tools that make them easy to use with a team. This can help keep up engagement with your stakeholders and keep your SEO project running smoothly. 

Tracking and reporting on SEO progress can feel tedious. Many businesses skip it altogether, but it is an essential part of your strategy. If you aren’t tracking data and using it to improve, you’re taking stabs in the dark which can waste time and money.

Learn more about SEO reporting in our eBook – Breaking the SEO Code. We’ve dedicated an entire chapter to tracking and SEO reporting alone!
If you want a more actionable solution, download the free Breaking the SEO Code workbook. It comes with handy templates and layouts to help you organize your tracking and reporting information.