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Measure fest 2020 what clients want to see
- 1. Who am I? 7 years in SEO/Digital Client Services Director Data junkie @100percentapr / #brightonSEO /
- 2. Data Clarity Due diligence for analytics @100percentapr / #brightonSEO /
- 3. Data clarity Appropriate IP Filters @100percentapr / #brightonSEO /
- 4. Data clarity Tracking code config @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / Img: https://www.simoahava.com/analytics/ga- snippet-and-ga-gtm-tag-on-the-same-page/
- 5. Key Metrics @100percentapr / #brightonSEO /
- 6. People Users and sessions @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 7. People Users @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 8. People Sessions @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 9. Top pages @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 10. Top pages Landing @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 11. Top pages Sitewide @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 12. Conversions @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 13. Conversions eCommerce @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 14. Conversions Services @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 15. Keywords @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 16. Keywords Specific set @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 17. Keywords General @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 18. Comparisons Points in time @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS
- 19. Work Summary @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / KEY METRICS What’s been done?
- 20. Working With Clients @100percentapr / #brightonSEO /
- 21. What is success? @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / WORKING WITH CLIENTS What will they look for?
- 22. Data Niches @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / WORKING WITH CLIENTS Small data, big impact
- 23. Business Education @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / WORKING WITH CLIENTS Learn about them
- 24. Rapport Build trust @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / WORKING WITH CLIENTS
- 26. Data inaccuracies Data-day errors @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / PITFALLS
- 27. Overanalysis @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / PITFALLS Too much text
- 28. Not following up @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / PITFALLS Check understanding
- 29. Dodgy data dealings @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / PITFALLS Misrepresenting figures
- 30. To summarise, reports should be... @100percentapr / #brightonSEO /
- 31. Concise Brevity is best @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / Reports should be...
- 32. Accurate @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / Reports should be... Mirror of performanc e
- 33. Clear No big words @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / Reports should be...
- 34. Honest @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / Reports should be... It’s the best policy
- 35. @100percentapr / #brightonSEO / Thanks for watching!
Editor's Notes
- Before you even consider the reporting, it is vital to ensure that the data is accurate and clear. It’s no good creating an epic report if all the data turns out to be inaccurate.
- Double check that IP filters are in place (trickier at the moment with everyone WFH) for key people and locations. This includes developers, offices, even homes of employees who will be regularly working onsite at home.
- Double check that the tracking code is configured correctly and that the data provided can be correlated with the client’s own site data, if applicable. Check for instances of duplicate GA tags, or combined GA and GTM tags which could be impacting key metrics.
- There are a few core things that should be included in all SEO reports as a matter of cause, regardless of size of client or client industry. These help to demonstrate the impact of the amazing work you have done and the results you have obtained in a way that is easily digestible and can be simply understood by clients; something that is especially important if the agency contact has to report to boards or other client executives.
- Displaying the users alongside sessions helps to create context for how those users interact, by looking at how many average sessions per user there are. You can also use the sessions p/user metric in Google Analytics, but i’d recommend graphs for this kind of stat as they can make growth over time look a lot more impressive which, when the client reports to their boss, are easily translatable and give a better impression. Clients dig graphs. Who doesn’t?
- Users are a primary focus of an SEO report because they’re the ones who will provide the return on investment for the campaign. Numbers of people visiting the site will be a key metric for any site regardless of an SEO campaign, but reporting on the organic user numbers will help quantify results.
- Sessions are key for providing context for the user behaviour and can provide an insight into the conversion journey. Using the sessions p/user metric as well as a graph with sessions specifically you can identify how often a user visits a site before conversion.
- The top pages of a site can be a big indicator into how the site is performing in search. Clients want to see their site doing well in search, but by providing accurate data on which products and services are performing best, you can give them an insight which may help them become more effective as a business.
- Landing pages are always of interest as these more directly reflect the search presence and can be directly influenced by keyword ranking improvements.
- Reporting on the top pages generally across the site can demonstrate how users interact with the site and what the most popular products and services are. This is important data as it reflects back on the relevance of landing pages and could help change or influence SEO strategy.
- Conversions are where the metal meets the meat, in terms of SEO campaigns. You could have gotten the best rankings and record site users, but if you haven’t got them more customers online and provided them with an ROI then it doesn’t mean anything. There’s the argument that of course it means something, it’s proof positive of the potential of the site to do well and perform, the conversions just haven’t come yet. But marketing managers need to provide tangible results to demonstrate the effectiveness of a campaign and the best way to do that is by providing details of transactions and revenue data.
- For ecommerce, conversions are generally straightforward: transactions and revenue mainly. But the client may want to know other metrics related to this, such as avg revenue/user or what the most popular products are. More reason to speak to the client, making yourself aware of these key data points will help to ensure the report serves up exactly what they need to see.
- Providing a solid ROI for clients who work in the services sector is trickier than the harsh black and white truths of eCommerce. Providing details of form submissions or key document downloads is a great way to demonstrate an increase in interactions, but how can this be translated into quantifiable sales? One of the best ways is to include details of the date and time of the conversions - such as form submissions. Using platforms like Google Data Studio makes this easier as these can be placed in an interactive table. Providing this information will allow the client to cross-reference with their own records to determine which organic leads resulted in success and help towards calculating that ROI.
- It’s hard to calculate the impact of SEO on search results without monitoring certain search results, so it’s imperative that some keyword reporting is given to the client on a regular basis.
- Oftentimes this is in the form of a selection of specific keywords which are chosen with the client, and serve as a static set of keywords from which to gauge progress of the campaign. These can reflect key products or services that the clients wants to target specifically, which will be a huge factor in gauging campaign success.
- It’s also worth considering a wider, sitewide position report to show how the site has been improved outside of the scope of a set of specific keywords, which can sometimes be quite limiting in what areas of the site they focus on. For example, a company selling sports equipment may choose to focus on a set of keywords related to 2 or 3 individual sports to be reported on, but by reporting on the sitewide position the client gets visibility of the benefits gained from work across all the sports including the 2 or 3 they’ve chosen to report on specifically.
- Utilising comparisons in reports is one of the best ways to demonstrate value to clients as it gives them a clear and quantifiable metric to judge performance against. Stating that there were 1000 users last month is fine, but what it is compared to is where the context comes into play. If the previous month there were 500 visitors, then great! But if it was 5000 visitors - not so good. Agreeing a historical period to report against before the campaign starts is key as it will provide a clear lens of comparison that can be consistently applied. This tends to be year on year as this removes any seasonal fluctuations and is more of an accurate reading of where the site is in comparison; but there are benfits to monthly and quarterly too. Monthly comparisons eg August compared to July can be useful for demonstrating marginal gains over time, which can be an indicator of sustainable growth over the course of a campaign. Quarterly comparisons takes a little of the incremental reporting from monthly and the big-number-impact of yearly, but they’re also more at risk of blowing seasonal disparities out of proportion.
- In an industry full of sketchy operators, reporting what you have done month to month is an excellent way of keeping your integrity as well as demonstrating to the client that you are open and honest with what you’re doing with their time. It can be very easy to take a monthly retainer and just provide some data each month, but clients want to see quantifiable work being completed on their sites that is tangible and work summaries are the best way to provide this. This doesn’t need to reveal any methodology, but it should list the work that has been completed such as content created, technical elements worked on and any other project work that has been worked throughout the month.
- As with most marketing channels, SEO is a people business. Yes we work on websites and CMS’ and weird nerdy techy stuff, but at the heart of it all is a person: the client. Working closely with them will help you understand their perspective on not only reports, but the campaign and wider marketing.
- When clients take out an SEO contract they often have expectations. It is important to work with the client from the very beginning, not only to build a relationship and trust, but to manage these expectations and keep the realistic. Finding out what success looks like to the clients is one of the best ways to cut to the chase with reporting. It could be that metrics they want to use to gauge success aren’t appropriate - for example we’ve had clients that wanted to use indexed pages as an indicator of SEO success. Learning what the client will be using as a yardstick for the campaign will help you build a report that is relevant and useful to them, along with giving you an opportunity to suggest more relevant or more appropriate data.
- Depending on what industry the client works in, there may be niche data available that would be relevant to the client or that they may find useful. This could be related to specific product data or geographic data where the client may have an edge that they want to exploit. Quite often clients have a very specific metric that they would like reported on, which can be quite tricky - or even impossible - to set up, but having the discussion is invaluable to give you foresight into what reporting expectations the client has.
- Learning about the client’s business will help furnish you with an understanding of what they need to see in order to find their reports effective. It could be learning about key target areas geographically which will lead to you including geo data in reports, or it could be learning about the highest margin products they offer in order to push those harder to get a better ROI for the client; even learning that they use an less-common attribution model in their own reports which will have an impact on how you present data. Taking an interest in the client’s business and how it works is also a great relationship builder and will help you approach the campaign with a more custom approach.
- Rapport is one of the most important elements of client management, but it’s one of the hardest things to get right. There’s a great opportunity at the very start of the campaign to work closely with the client and build a strong working relationship with your contact there. Having that person who understands your processes and what you’re reporting on can be invaluable further down the line when it comes to contract renewals or if things aren’t going to plan. It also helps create trust and respect between the client and agency, something which can have far more value over time than a massive ROI.
- Reporting is the chance agencies get to showcase what results they have, detail the work they’ve done and pass on any insights into the site or campaign that may be useful. But sometimes, reports muddy the waters and make things even more confusing or worse: get it completely wrong. I’ll go over some basic reporting errors you should avoid to make sure your reports stay classy.
- Getting the data wrong is a cardinal sin of reporting. It could be something as simple as not changing date ranges in reports to reflect the current month, or choosing the wrong segment, or it could be using an incorrect account entirely by accident to provide completely different data. Whatever the slip up, this erodes trust in the client’s faith in your ability to do a thorough job. Always always ALWAYS double check your data date ranges and sources.
- Data should speak for itself. You shouldn’t feel the need to justify what is being presented. Reports with reams and reams of text can be daunting and lose meaning, if there is a need for analysis - such as if there’s been s significant downturn - then this can be addressed in a summary or overview.
- Whenever you report - whether it’s monthly, bi-monthly or weekly - you should always follow up with a call or email. As well as promoting openness and a willingness to discuss the campaign, it also allows you to check the client’s understanding of the report. This can be important for identifying data points that perhaps aren’t clear, or making changes to keep the report relevant. All too often months can go by with clients receiving reports that don’t mean anything to them, but it should never be assumed that the client understands the report just because they’re not saying otherwise.
- With a tool like Google Analytics, it’s very easy to make the reports say what you want them to say. Toggling the date ranges, metrics and filters can easily be done to make a bad month look good to the unsuspecting client. Needless to say, don’t do this. Provide clarity on date ranges and any segments or metrics, and agree on these before the start of the campaign. If something goes wrong, discuss it.
- Reporting is the chance agencies get to showcase what results they have, detail the work they’ve done and pass on any insights into the site or campaign that may be useful. But sometimes, reports muddy the waters and make things even more confusing or worse: get it completely wrong.
- Keep it simple, keep it safe; to paraphrase Gandalf. Avoid reams of content and hundreds of slides - display key information with specific analysis where appropriate. Clients should be able to get value from every part of the report without fluff.
- Any data needs to be accurate. It should be data that the client can replicate in their own GA sessions, if the need takes them. This is essential regardless of performance - arguably even more so if the performance is poor - as this will help build the trust between client and agency.
- Any analysis, executive summaries or work summaries should be written in plain English, avoiding super-technical language where possible that may make the reports harder to understand. Where technical or industry phrases have to be used, a brief explanation should be provided in or accompanying the report. Remember that often these reports are passed upwards to people in the client’s business that may not know or understand fully what you’re doing and it will need to make sense for them.
- Being honest in reporting is key, especially if the performance isn’t as good as expected. Clients will trust and respect you as an agency more if you’re open about shortcomings or things that aren’t going to plan, rather than trying to fudge the figures and make it sound all positive, all of the time. We’ve actually retained clients on this basis in the past, where the SEO campaign hasn’t performed as well as we wanted, but we’ve been honest and open about what our plan is. The trust this builds cannot be understated.