How to Create a Local SEO Report (& Automate Them!)

Hopefully, you’re already tracking your local ranks.

But what should you be doing with that data?

Even more importantly, how do you use that data to improve your or clients’ ranks?

Local SEO reports help you collect all your essential data in one place and use it to improve your SEO strategy. These reports are critical for several reasons:

1. Every keyword’s SERP varies by the searcher’s location
2. Google Maps and the Snack Pack drive TONS of traffic, meaning they can’t be ignored
3. Your competitors are targeting the local SERPs, so you must also target them if you want to compete for those customers.

This article will show you how to create and use local SEO reports with ProRankTracker.

Let’s get started!

We’ll cover:

• What Should a Local SEO Report Include?
• How to Create a Local SEO Report With ProRankTracker
• How to Keep Clients Happy With Reports
• FAQ

What Should a Local SEO Report Include?

There are many different types of local SEO reports, but are there specific data points and features you should include in EVERY local report?

YES!

Including these critical bits of information will ensure your reports are as helpful as possible without overloading them with information. It’ll also help you pick the best reporting tool for your SEO business.

Relevant Keyword/URL Information

First, reports should include the most relevant keyword/URL information.

In other words, each line of data should include the following:

• URL
• The keyword being tracked for that URL
• The device type being tracked
• The search engine that the keyword/URL combo is targeting
• Any relevant rank changes
• Search volume

Why do you need all this data?

Because it can drastically change how you approach your data. If you look at your reports and learn that your Bing keywords rank better than your Google keywords, that might change your strategy!

Don’t settle for reports that don’t give you ALL the relevant info on each keyword!

Customizable Data

The best reports are customizable. 

As we discussed earlier, you should be able to customize reports to fit your client’s needs. But what data should you customize on each report?

One type of data essential for local reports is the location data of each keyword/URL combo. You should be able to customize a report to show only ranks from a particular location or 2 locations.

You should also be able to customize the report to show specific details like:

• Search language
• Search volume
• Search engine
• Campaigns to which each report belongs
• Any other data point that appears on a report

For example, here’s what the ProRankTracker report customization screen looks like:

 

You can customize what data appears on the report and in what order. This gives you total control over what you send your clients!

Local Data 

Finally, your local reports should (obviously) include local data.

In other words, what area/s are you tracking for each URL/keyword combo?

Your reports should show that information to help you compare and contrast different target areas.

For example, you might be targeting 2 neighborhoods in the same city. Showing local data on your reports allows you to make that comparison effectively.

This goes hand in hand with the customizable data since you should be able to change each report’s locations. For example, you should be able to issue one report that compares 2 locations and another that compares 2 different locations.

How to Create a Local SEO Report With ProRankTracker

ProRankTracker offers 20+ different types of reports that you can generate with just a few clicks. 

Beyond that, ProRankTracker has reports that are white-label ready, meaning it’s fully customizable to show your company’s:

• Logo
• Colors
• Header
• Cover letter

If that sounds like a lot of information to consider, don’t worry. It’s pretty easy to generate reports on ProRankTracker. 

In this section, we’ll show you how to create, customize, and send a local SEO report with ProRankTracker. We’ll also show you some unique reporting options for your clients.

Add Location Data to Your Keyword/URL Combos

Before generating any local SEO reports, you need to have some keyword/URL combos with location data attached.

There are 2 places you can do this: 

• Add Wizard
• Advanced Add

In the Add Wizard tool, type in the location you want to attach to the combo and select from the dropdown menu.

You should track your URL/keyword combo in the Google Maps Snack Pack and Local Finder. You can easily do this by clicking “Also track Google Snack Pack ” and typing in the name as it appears on your Google Business Profile.

If you want to add your URLs in the Advanced Add tool, scroll down to Step 3 and follow the same steps. For the location box to appear in Step 3, you must have one of the localized options selected in Step 1.

Create Projects

Now that you’ve added your URLs and keywords, you’re ready to group them into Projects.

In ProRankTracker, Projects are the highest level of organization, and they’re incredibly important if you want to keep your whole tracking system neat and organized.

To create a new Project, click on “Projects” under the “Manage” tab in the left-side toolbar. Then, click “Add New Project.”

Specify the Groups, Tags, URLs, and keywords you want to include in your Project. If you want to get more granular than that, you can also narrow it down by location, language, search engine, etc., but you don’t have to. When you’re done, click “Save.”

Note that when you create a Project out of a URL that has location data attached like the ones we added above, the location-based ranks will automatically become part of the Project view. In the photo below, the same URL is being tracked in multiple locations, including Google Maps and Local Finder.

Finally, this entire Project View can be exported as a report, which we’ll discuss next.

Select the Report You Want to Generate

ProRankTracker has reports for almost anything you might want. 

Go to the Reports Center, and you’ll find a list of all the available reports, along with a short description of each report.

Select the report you want to generate, then click “Add New Report.”

While there are plenty of great reports, some of them are particularly useful to local SEO:

• The Different Locations report allows you to compare the same Keyword/URL across multiple locations. This helps you see how your performance compares in 2 or more areas.
• The Project View report allows you to automate the export of the entire Project View. This is perfect for receiving regular client project updates or monitoring your business’s progress.
• The Daily View report makes it possible to export a day-by-day chart of how your ranks have changed over a selected period. This is incredibly important for seeing how your local SEO strategies affect your ranks in real time.

You should consider adding others to your local reporting strategy, but these 3 are a great place to start.

It’s worth noting that all the reports are white-label ready, meaning you can fully customize the branding and design.

Customize the Report

After you click “Add New Report,” you’ll go to a page with many customization options. 

In the top half, you’ll see many options to change the ranks in the report.

These options allow you to filter the report to include only certain ranks meeting your criteria. For example, you can filter the report to include only ranks that match a specific location. This makes your reports much more potent for understanding your local SEO.

In the bottom half, you’ll see options to help you include or remove specific columns of data from the report. 

Use these options to show only the data points your client is interested in.

Regarding white-label reports, you can customize the look of these reports by selecting a template. You can make templates in the Reports Center, which you can then apply to any white-label report in the future.

MyRanks 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.

Live Reports

Live Reports use a unique web page (with a URL you can customize to show as hosted under your domain) to give your clients access to fresh ranking data anytime. The report can also display your brand’s logo and colors.

Go to the “Shared Reports” tab on the left-side toolbar to generate a Live Report.

Click “Add New Report.” Here, you’ll select what data you want to include for your clients in the Live Report.

For example, you can create a Live Report out of your Project View, allowing your clients to see the freshest data you have on their project (without bothering you for an update every 5 minutes).

You can also selectively remove or include data from the Live Report, meaning you only have to show your clients the portions of the SEO data that you want to share.

The Live Report web page features a search bar, an interactive interface, and a dropdown menu for selecting the ranks you want to examine.

Like the other reports ProRankTracker offers, the Live Reports are white-label ready, and you can customize their colors by applying templates like with the other reports (the colors you set in the template will be applied).

Examples of Local SEO Reports

Before we wrap this post up, let’s review some of the powerful SEO reports you can generate with ProRankTracker.

Note: All of these reports are ready for white-label use, meaning that you can customize them to include your business’s colors, logo, header, footer, and other designs if desired.

The Different Locations report is an incredibly powerful report that shows you (in a very easy-to-understand format) how your URL/keyword combo ranks in various locations of interest.

For example, the user below wanted to compare their rank in the USA to that in Canada. However, these reports can also be much more granular – even down to various neighborhoods within the same city.

The Project View report, as mentioned above, is incredibly important for staying up to date on the movement in your various SEO projects. You can automate these reports (just like you can with all PRT reports) to send on a regular basis, allowing you to keep track of multiple projects with ease.

Another critical SEO report is the Progress Report. This report shows a graphic representation of how your ranks have moved across the SERP over a selected period.

Even better? You can isolate your Snack Pack and Google Map ranks and look at how your URLs have moved around in the Local Finder/Maps SERPs. This helps you get a detailed look at how your local SEO strategy affects your ranks.

Most of PRT’s reports are highly applicable to local SEO. Still, these examples show that a reporting strategy with a variety of reports can drastically improve your understanding of your real standing on the SERPs.

How to Keep Clients Happy With Reports

If you’re an SEO provider, you’ve got to think about how to keep your clients happy.

For many businesses, that means you must keep your clients updated with reports.

Put yourself in their shoes: you’re paying money to some other business to help you get more page views and make more money.

Wouldn’t you want regular updates to see if it’s helping or hurting?

I know I would.

You can do a few key things to keep your clients happy. Happy clients = referrals. Referrals = more clients. More clients = more money.

Send Frequent Reports

Probably the biggest area where new SEO providers fail is in providing ENOUGH information to their clients.

Most clients want AT LEAST daily overview reports showing how their ranks have improved, worsened, or stayed the same that day.

Many will also want weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly reports showing changes over time, comparisons, and other vital details.

The best way to ensure you send enough reports (and not too many) is to communicate with your clients. Ask them if they’d like more or fewer reports or if there’s anything they think you should update them on more frequently.

Send Detailed Reports

What if I sent you a report that looked like this?

• 5 ranks improved
• 3 ranks dropped
• 2 ranks stayed the same

Would you feel like you got a better understanding of your ranks? 

Of course not!

Ensure you’re treating your clients well by sending them reports with LOTS of essential information.

We’ll talk about this more in a moment, but you shouldn’t even consider using a white-label SEO reporting tool that doesn’t allow you to extensively edit the type of data you include in every report. This is why!

Vary Your Reports

Just like you should send frequent reports, you should also send various reports to give your clients a complete understanding of their ranks.

For example, consider sending the following:

• Weekly Overview Reports and Project Reports
• Weekly Historical Reports
• Monthly reports comparing ranks this month with last month
• Quarterly reports comparing ranks with the same quarter the previous year

You can (and should!) send so many other reports to your clients.

Customize Reports to Fit Your Clients’ Needs

Here’s the bad news:

No SEO tool on the market will have ready-made reports perfect for your clients’ needs.

Here’s the good news:

Some well-made SEO tools give you complete control over what you include in each report. That means you can take a solid, ready-made base report and turn it into the exact report that your clients need.

You should communicate with your clients to ensure that you include the information they want in each report.

FAQ

Is local SEO still relevant?

YES! Not only is local SEO still relevant, but it’s getting MORE relevant every year. Local and organic searches make up about 70% of all Google searches, so you can’t afford to skip this crucial SEO step!

How do I check SEO locally?

There are two ways to check local SEO rankings: manually and automatically. Doing it manually is time-consuming and inaccurate, so we highly recommend using an automated rank tracker like ProRankTracker for the best results.

How do you track local SEO performance?

The best local SEO performance tracker is one that allows you to quickly and accurately compile your ranking data into reports and easy-to-read summaries. Use a local SEO tracker like ProRankTracker to accomplish this goal.

Ready to Build Your Local SEO Report?

Reporting local ranks effectively can make the difference between keeping your best clients and losing them. That’s why it’s worth investing in a good reporting tool to ensure you can meet your client’s expectations.

ProRankTracker offers industry-leading white-label reporting features so you can satisfy even the most stringent clients. We recommend trying a 30-day free trial to try out the reporting features for yourself.

Following the steps in this article should help you generate excellent local SEO reports for your clients or your own business. You’ll be on top of the local SERP in no time!

Happy tracking!