How to Set Up Automated SEO Reports (5 Steps)

Let me guess.

You’re working on your SEO and rank tracking, but you just can’t find a system that works for you that DOESN’T take up your entire day.

Join the club!

Almost everybody who has anything to do with SEO spends loads of time analyzing data and adapting their strategies. Just how much time? About 12-104 hours PER WEEK!

But there’s a solution: Automated SEO reports.

Automated reports help you stay on top of your ranking data WITHOUT taking up all of your time or increasing your workload. Automation means 3 MASSIVE improvements:

• Save time
• Improve client retention
• Improve your SEO strategy

Let’s talk about how you can set up your own automated SEO reports to get these benefits (and more) for your business.

We’ll cover:

• Step 1: Pick the Right SEO Reporting Tool
• Step 2: Develop a Well-Rounded SEO Reporting Strategy
• Step 3: Gather Ranking Data: How to Use ProRankTracker to Set Up Automated SEO Reports
• Step 4: Set Up and Automate Your Reporting Strategy
• Step 5: Improve Your Strategy
• FAQ

Step 1: Pick the Right SEO Reporting Tool

The first step toward automating your reporting process is to find the right tool for your business.

Unfortunately, this step is anything but straightforward.

Just take a quick look online at all the available SEO tools. There are dozens of options, and all claim to be the best.

With so many options available, it can be challenging to determine which tool to use. What features should you prioritize? How should you decide which tools you definitely WON’T use?

Let’s discuss the essential features to look for when choosing an SEO reporting tool that fits your needs.

White-Label Ready Reports

If you provide SEO services to clients as an agency, branding your SEO reporting tool is crucial to present your data professionally.

White-label-ready reports enable you to add your:

• Logo
• Company colors
• Other branding elements

This feature presents your report as if you designed it in-house. If you use a white-label-ready tool, your clients don’t have to know your report was generated by a third-party tool – you’ll look like you have the resources of a much larger company.

For this reason, you should heavily consider an SEO reporting tool with white-label ready reports that’ll enable you to present data professionally and accurately. 

Various Report Types

When it comes to reporting, a one-size-fits-all approach does not apply.

So your tool shouldn’t force you to use the same report template every other business uses.

The right SEO reporting tool should offer various report types tailored to many different business goals. In other words, you should be able to make the tool work for YOU and your clients.

For example, you should choose a tool with many report templates you can use regularly. If it only has 1 report template (even if it’s highly customizable), you may spend a ton of time trying to make it work for your needs.

On the other hand, a tool with many templates could have you up and running in minutes (and the result will be closer to what you and your clients need).

Customizable Reports

While various report types are crucial, having an SEO reporting tool that allows you to tailor your reports to your clients’ needs is equally important.

Every client is unique and has specific SEO demands. Customizable reports are essential because they allow you to tailor your reports to ANY client’s needs and wants.

Some customization options you should consider include:

• Reordering data
• Choosing what data makes it into a report
• Customizing the report file type (XLSX, PDF, etc.)
• Customizing the email that the report sends from (so your clients receive their reports from YOU instead of from your tool)

Consider other ways you might want to customize your reports and ensure that the tool you choose allows you those customization options.

Easy to Use

Simplicity is another factor when you consider which SEO reporting tool to choose.

The more you enjoy using your tool, the more you’ll ACTUALLY use it. Conversely, complex tools are rarely enjoyable to use. That means you should look for simple tools that are easy to learn and use.

An easy-to-use SEO reporting tool should have a user-friendly interface and save time. The more time you spend figuring out how to use the tool, the less time you have to take care of your business or clients.

Step 2: Develop a Well-Rounded SEO Reporting Strategy

Finding the right tool is half the battle, but just finding the right tool won’t do you any good.

Before putting that tool to work for you, you have to determine which reports to use to populate your reporting strategy.

In other words, which reports do you need to receive (or send to your clients) daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly to achieve a well-rounded understanding of your ranking data?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of how to generate and automate SEO reports, let’s discuss which reports you should consider adding to your reporting strategy.

Automated Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Breakdowns

One of the best ways to stay on top of your business metrics is to generate automated daily, weekly, and monthly overviews.

Think of it this way: if you don’t know what’s happening with your ranks, can you make sound strategic decisions? 

Of course not!

Historical breakdowns can highlight key changes (like which ranks are going up and which are going down). Sending them daily, weekly, and monthly ensures that you and your clients have a complete view of their ranking success. 

You could generate these manually, but automated reports save you time and ensure you get up-to-date information at a glance.

ANY ProRankTracker report can be exported in multiple ways such as PDFs, XLSX, and via email. For most clients, sending their reports directly to their email inbox is the best option.

When choosing the export options, select “Email,” then customize the recipient and sender email addresses.

Customizing the sender email means customers will get their reports from YOU instead of from ProRankTracker.

Your clients will then get their reports directly in their email inbox WITHOUT you needing to manually send them each time:

Comparison Reports

Comparison reports are ideal for comparing different scenarios and helping you understand why your ranks perform well in certain areas and poorly in others.

For instance, you might want to compare:

• How the same keyword ranks for 2 different URLs
• How the same URL/keyword combo ranks in different search engines, locations, or search devices.

• How 2 of your Projects (discussed below) compare to one another–especially if you’ve set up your projects to help you stack up your performance against your competitors.

Are you getting more traffic from certain areas in your city than others? Try using a comparison report to figure out why you’re ranking better in one location than another.

Notifications

Notifications are essential to any reporting strategy because they reduce the time it takes to act on new information. They alert you to important events or trends IMMEDIATELY, allowing you to take action without delay.

For example, you might set up notifications for:

• Your ranks dropping or increasing by a certain number or percentage
• One of your URL/keyword combos reaching a certain rank
• One of your tracked terms falling off the first page of Google

Automated notifications save you time and ensure you stay on top of critical events. They can even help you avoid disasters by alerting you before a problem goes from bad to worse.

Shared Reports

Shared reports allow you to give clients or other members of your team access to a live website with current ranking data.

In other words, a shared report gives others 24/7 access to their ranks WITHOUT needing to ask you for updates constantly.

Needless to say, these reports are incredibly valuable and can dramatically increase client satisfaction by giving them more access to their ranking data.

In ProRankTracker, you can even set up shared reports to share specific Project data with people. Sharing Projects gives you specific control over what data you share while still giving your clients a broad picture of their ranking progress.

Of course, Projects aren’t the only thing you can share in a shared report! Use these reports to share anything you choose–even down to a few specific URL/keyword combos. You get to decide EXACTLY what information goes into a shared report!

MyRanks Client App

Want to really wow your clients?

How about delivering their ranking data on a fully customizable mobile app?

Since so many people use their phones for everything, delivering your clients’ ranks through a mobile app helps you stand apart from your competition.

The MyRanks App is a fully white-label-ready app that allows you to give your clients access to their ranks in the form of an app branded with your company’s logo and info.

Giving your clients a branded mobile app makes you look more professional and better resourced than your competitors.

Sub-Accounts

If you have clients who are highly involved in their SEO strategy, you can give them direct access to their ranking data in ProRankTracker by creating a sub-account.

Sub-accounts in ProRankTracker are called users, and they are controlled by the account holder. You can customize almost everything about these user accounts:

• Email address and password (so clients can use their own email and password to access ProRankTracker data)
• Data manipulation permissions
• Which data the user has access to

In other words, you can give your clients enough access to please them but not so much that they can see EVERYTHING you may be working on!

Anything Your Clients Want

Finally, you need to consider what reports your clients need. Understanding their needs can help you stay competitive and retain business.

In other words, you shouldn’t just assume that the reports YOU pick will satisfy your clients. You should ask them if their business has any specific reporting needs, then go out of your way to set up automated SEO reports to fill those needs.

Here are some specific questions to ask as you develop your client’s reporting strategy:

• What reports would you like daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.?
• What ranking events would you like to IMMEDIATELY know about (so you can set up notifications for those events)?
• What information would you like access to 24/7 in a Shared Report (live webpage)?
• What other reports/notifications would help you feel in the loop about your ranking health?

Customizing reports to their needs can build stronger relationships and improve customer satisfaction.

A good reporting tool like ProRankTracker makes this infinitely easier by giving you quick access to premade report templates that save time setting up the perfect reporting schedule.

Step 3: Gather Ranking Data: How to Use ProRankTracker to Set Up Automated SEO Reports

Monitoring your ranks can be time-consuming. Thankfully, ProRankTracker streamlines the process and makes it much easier to manage a large number of ranks.

ProRankTracker is a top choice for over 60,000 SEOs and website owners worldwide with its state-of-the-art algorithm, daily automatic updates, and powerful reporting tools.

To get the most out of ProRankTracker’s reporting tools, you first must configure the tool with your keywords, URLs, projects, and other ranking details.

In this 3rd step, we’ll discuss how to set up ProRankTracker correctly so that you can generate high-impact automated reports that will WOW your clients and help you improve your business.

Add Your Keyword/URL Combos

The first step is to add all your keyword/URL combos to ProRankTracker, and the easiest way to do that is within the Add Wizard tool.

1. Click on the Add Wizard tool in the left-hand toolbar.
2. Fill in the URL, Keywords, and Group/Tag fields
3. Click “Next Step.”
4. Select your desired options for search device, search engine, location, language, and Snack Pack
5. Click “Save.”

That’s all there is to it!

Repeat that process for each URL/Keyword combo you want to add. If you have a lot to add at once, try using the Advanced Add tool for its bulk add feature.

If there are any critical URL/keyword combos, we recommend highlighting them using ProRankTracker’s Star feature.

To do so, go to the Project View, Term View, or URL View (after adding the keywords as shown above), and enable the Star column in “Columns and Sorting.”

Then, select the star next to your most important keywords/URLs.

This allows you to sort future reports by your most critical strategic keywords and URLs (discussed below)!

Edit Your White-Label Settings

If you’re an SEO agency, you’ll want to customize your reports with your branding and colors. It gives you a more reputable look and helps you impress clients.

ProRankTracker offers white-label report settings, which allow you to add:

• Your agency’s logo (for Shared Reports and the MyRanks app)
• A custom domain (for Shared Reports)

You can access these settings under the White Label tab in the settings menu. To get to the settings, click the gear icon in the top right corner, then click “PRT Settings.”

You can further customize reports in the “Templates” tab in the Reports Center (which we’ll discuss more in-depth in the next section).

Create Projects

Now that you’ve added the keywords and URLs you want to track on ProRankTracker, you can create a Project (or multiple Projects) that helps you keep track of that data.

Projects allow you to separate large sections of the data you’re tracking from one another. In other words, they help you split ALL your data into manageable chunks that you can later use in reports, notifications, and other areas.

Go to the Projects menu under the “Manage” tab and select “Add New Project.”

Here, you’ll select which tags, groups, URLs, and keywords you want to put in the Project.

When making a Project, consider your goals.

• Trying to separate clients’ data from each other? Make a Project per client
• Trying to split up your SEO campaign by location? Make a Project for each location.
• Want to understand how mobile and desktop results vary? Make a mobile Project and a desktop Project.

The point is to make the Project that fits your needs (there’s no limit to how many you can make), so use your creativity to drive you here!

Step 4: Set Up and Automate Your Reporting Strategy

You’ve added your URLs and keywords, you’ve created your white-label customization settings, and you’ve organized your data into Projects.

Now, we can start generating unlimited ranking reports using ProRankTracker’s 20+ customizable reports.

Let’s talk about how to create amazing reports in ProRankTracker.

Customize Reporting Templates

As mentioned above, you can save EVEN MORE time by using reporting templates, which allow you to apply customization presets to any reports you create.

You CANNOT ignore templates because they will save you a TON of time in customizing and designing your reports to send to clients.

To create a template, click “Templates” under the “Reports” tab in the toolbar. Click “Add New Template,” then determine what you want your template to look like, including:

• Logo for PDF/email reports
• Colors
• Text styles
• Header
• Footer
• Cover letter

Again, you can create as many of these as you need, so you can create different styles for each client or each type of report for some extra pizzazz.

When you create a new report, select the template you want from your templates drop-down menu, and your style will automatically be applied to your report!

Create and Customize Your Reports

As mentioned earlier, ProRankTracker offers more than 20 pre-designed reports, which you can customize with your branding and data. Select the reports you decided on when creating your reporting strategy and customize exactly how you want the report to appear.

For example, the Overview Report above requires you to select particular info like:

• Organizational info like email, file type, template, and language
• What data the report will draw from
• What columns the report will include, and in what order it will display in

To display your starred data points first, select the “Star” option in the “Columns and Sorting” field of any report you generate. This option will display your most important data points at the top of the report, making them even more efficient.

You’re in complete control of what the report includes and how it arranges it, so take some time getting these just how you want them.

Set Up Your Trigger Notifications

If you want to stay on top of any significant changes in your website rankings, set up trigger notifications in ProRankTracker. Getting notifications when anything important occurs is the best way to stay completely current.

You can receive a notification via email when your website rankings increase or decrease beyond a specific limit. You can also use other criteria to set precisely when a notification will be sent.

This feature will help you avoid major issues or manage changes (like Google updates) by making necessary adjustments before bad goes to worse.

Create Your Automated Report Schedule

Based on the information you gathered from your client, you should be able to establish a slam-dunk reporting schedule.

To create your automated reporting schedule, just repeat the steps above to create reports until you’re happy with the number and type of reports you send to your clients.

Each time you generate a report, customize the schedule to send it on the right day and time.

Customizing each report’s sending schedule allows you to create a fully automated reporting schedule you can totally forget about–the reports will keep sending at the right time!

Step 5: Improve Your Strategy

Now that your reporting schedule is fully automated and on auto-pilot, you’ll have A TON more free time to improve the basic strategy behind your SEO efforts.

Before we wrap up this article, let’s discuss using ProRankTracker’s other tools to improve your SEO strategy and help your pages reach the top of the SERPs.

If you’re working with clients, improving their SEO is why they’re paying you! Don’t stop at reporting–ensure you’re taking advantage of your new free time to improve your clients’ SEO!

Use Keyword Tools to Expand Your Reach

ProRankTracker offers 2 major tools to help you improve your keyword strategy:

• Keyword Suggestions
• Rankings Discovery

The Keyword Suggestions tool provides users with a list of high-value long-tail keywords based on their current keyword strategy. 

In other words, ProRankTracker doesn’t simply guess which keywords might be beneficial–it considers your current strategy. It then suggests keywords with a reasonable search volume and competitiveness that will be good targets.

On the other hand, the Rankings Discovery tool reveals keywords already ranking for your URLs.

In other words, this tool analyzes your URLs to discover what terms they are already ranking for, which can be helpful for quickly boosting online visibility.

For example, you might find that you’re already ranking in the top 20 for a keyword you aren’t yet targeting. You could add that keyword to your list and spend some effort boosting it into the top 10 or 5.

Then, you could head over to the Keyword Suggestions tool and have ProRankTracker generate a list of high-value keywords based on the new keyword you just added!

Combining these tools allows users to quickly generate lists of dozens of high-value keywords based on keywords that ALREADY generate traffic and revenue.

Use Ad-Hoc SERP Checks for Research

Insta-Check is a pay-as-you-go system that allows ProRankTracker users to simply buy credits and use them to check the SERPs for any keyword they’re interested in.

These SERP checks are quick and give you key data to act on WITHOUT needing to add new keywords/URLs to your long-term tracking list.

To generate an Insta-Check SERP report, go to the “Tools” section, select “Insta-Check,” and specify the keyword/URL you want to check.

There are multiple types of Insta-Check reports:

• Single position check (just tells you the current rank for the given URL/keyword/location combination)
• Top 10/20/etc. check (gives you the entire SERP up to the selected number for the given keyword/location combination)

Using Insta-Check gives you quick data to help you further improve your keyword strategy, meaning you can increase the impact of your automated reporting strategy.

Connect ProRankTracker’s API with your other reporting software

Finally, if you’re already using different SEO and organizational tools, you may want to integrate ProRankTracker’s API (offered at the agency level) with those tools to get even more comprehensive data. 

For example, many businesses benefit from integrating ProRankTracker with the following types of tools:

• Spreadsheet/data management tools like Google Docs
• Data visualization tools like Google Data Studio
• Social media management tools

ProRankTracker offers easy API integration, allowing you to pull website ranking data into your existing software or upload data from your other tools directly into ProRankTracker.

FAQ

What is an SEO report?

An SEO report is a snapshot of key ranking data from your SEO strategy. In other words, an emailed SEO report allows users to quickly see how their URLs are performing for their targeted keywords on the SERP.

How do you generate an SEO report?

The best, fastest, and easiest way to generate an SEO report is with a tool that specializes in them like ProRankTracker or a similar tool.

How to automate SEO reports?

You can automate your SEO reports by using a tool that is capable of sending out reports on a schedule. ProRankTracker (discussed above) and Google Data Studio are 2 tools that come highly recommended by successful SEO managers.

Ready to Automate Your SEO Reporting?

SEO is time-consuming no matter which way you slice it, but it doesn’t have to be all-consuming.

Setting up automated SEO reports, as outlined in this article, makes time management easier and improves your SEO by keeping you up to date.

Additionally, agencies can benefit massively from automated SEO reports because they impress clients and improve retention and client acquisition.

What are you waiting for? Try signing up for a free 14-day trial of ProRankTracker today and see how much automated SEO reporting can revolutionize your SEO efforts.

Good luck!