Enterprise SEO Reporting: Tips for Developing Effective Dashboards
An SEO dashboard gives you a clear, data-driven view of key metrics, helping you make informed decisions, track performance, and gain actionable competitor and audience insights.”
Enterprise SEO Reporting: Tips for Developing Effective Dashboards
SEO dashboard is a powerful tool that provides a customizable, data-driven overview of key SEO metrics, for making informed decisions, optimizing strategies, gaining competitor and audience insights, and improving overall SEO performance.
An SEO dashboard can be a central hub for all your data sources so that you can get a full understanding of SEO performance.
Setting Goals and Identifying KPIs
Enterprise dashboards are customizable.
Setting search engine optimisation goals without a proper framework is like trying to hit a target whilst blindfolded, as setting proper SEO goals isn’t just about creating nice-looking spreadsheets or impressing stakeholders. It’s about giving your optimisation efforts the structure they need to actually succeed.
SMART framework changes everything, transforming vague aspirations like “get more traffic” into concrete, actionable objectives that actually move your business forward.
The companies that consistently win at SEO are those that treat it like any other business function – with clear objectives, defined success metrics, and realistic timelines. They don’t chase shiny objects or get distracted by the latest algorithm update.
Start with your business needs, work backwards to SEO objectives, then create the measurement framework to track progress.
How To Categorize KPIs
Identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) and setting clear goals is followed by determining how to organize and group them in the dashboard.
- Traffic performance
- Page type performance
- Query category performance
- Linkbuilding performance
- Content performance
- Striking distance report
- Date range comparison report
- SERP market share report
- Google Business Profile insights
- Cannibalization report
Where to Gather Data for Your Dashboard
It is important for determining which data sources (like GSC, Goole Analytics, etc.) and data visualization platforms would be most beneficial for offering valuable insights.
Examples of data sources include:
- Google Search Console
- Whatever analytics tool you use
- Google Business Profile insights
- Third-party rank tracking data
- Proprietary data
- Other custom datasets
Warehousing most of this data, such as Google Search Console, Traject, and Semrush data in Google BigQuery, enables data flexibility and speed.
For data visualization and dashboarding, Looker Studio is used, which is free and has a share of trade-offs, pretty flexible to use.
Examples of Reports for Different Use Cases
Various modifications are important for industries to accommodate metrics and customizing reporting.
These use cases can provide a better understanding of how to fine-tune the reports that might be best to create and the data and KPIs that could be included.
Of course, there are an infinite number of reports you could create, but here are some of the basics we like:
- Monitor local pack appearance and performance over time
It is especially advantageous for businesses with multiple locations, as it allows for quickly showing and measuring map pack performance.
This can be valuable as it helps in identifying challenges and opportunities at the local level.
- Filter Traffic by Branded Vs. Unbranded Keywords
Non-branded traffic can be valuable for enhancing brand awareness and reaching new customers, while branded traffic is typically valuable for driving sales or conversions, as these visitors are already familiar with your product or service.
By stripping away brand queries, we can start to get a picture of how the SEO program really performs, making non-brand-only reports the default filter on every report.
- Report on Custom Keyword Categories
This type of report can be particularly helpful in tracking how search engines are treating you on specific topics.
- Report on Market Share by Location
The report gives you the ability to demonstrate effective growth in an existing or new market and can be locally focused, like a city or state, or it can be nationally focused.
- Report on Google Analytics Goals
Ranking data from Google Analytics shows and measures the performance of customized goals for better reporting.
- Segment Data By Country
The report is useful for brands seeking to expand their reach and gain more visibility. By overlaying and filtering these markets, you can get a clear idea of how they stack up against each other and how the initiatives are performing as a whole.
- Striking Distance Reporting
The report provides an idea of which pages to emphasize based on how close they are to ranking well for high-potential queries/topics.
- Reporting and Monitoring Domain Migrations
9.Benchmark Reporting of Before Vs. After Making Changes to your Site
Make the Dashboard Reporting Digestible
Whatever is included in the dashboards, balance it using detailed reports to show how your SEO initiatives are progressing, using your reporting to tell a story for key stakeholders.
Most of the stakeholders do not check your reports regularly, so make sure that the front page has the most digestible, valuable information. In addition, make sure deep reports are useful for the actual user, who is usually not the CMO.
Should You Build or Buy an Enterprise SEO Dashboard?
Having skills and expertise for building enterprise dashboards is well worth.
Communication with stakeholders is a key challenge, especially for less technical stakeholders who nevertheless often control the budget. The ability to quickly and effectively display what they care about has tremendous value in both the short and long term.
If you do not need complex custom reports, there are plenty of out-of-the-box solutions. For out-of-the-box solutions, you might consider options such as Klipfolio or Databox. They are simple and easy to use, but the drawback is that they cannot customize reporting.
It would be wise to have a system for gathering feedback from users and iterating on the dashboard to ensure it’s designed or arranged in a way that is most useful to everyone.
Final Thoughts
Enterprise SEO dashboards provide various benefits, aiding in tracking, managing, and reporting on key performance indicators.
A centralized dashboard can organize priorities, gather data, and provide powerful data insights. This enables agencies and stakeholders to effectively communicate progress on business objectives and the overall value of each facet of the SEO program.
