Free local SEO reporting template generator.
Use this tool to build a client-ready local SEO report structure. It supports the reporting tools and agency software pages.
Best next step
Pick the page that matches your workflow, not the tool with the longest feature list.
Generate the outline
Why most local SEO reports get ignored
The standard monthly report is a tool export with a logo on it: forty pages of keyword positions, a traffic graph, and a crawl summary. Clients do not read it, cannot act on it, and quietly conclude they are paying for a PDF.
The failure is not effort. It is that the report answers the agency's question — what did we do — instead of the client's, which is always the same three:
- Am I more visible than last month? Not "is position 6.4 better than 7.1", but visible where customers are.
- Did that produce anything? Calls, direction requests, form fills. Rankings are a proxy; these are the point.
- What happens next, and what do you need from me? Every report should end with one thing the client must do.
What to leave out
| Common section | Why it should go |
|---|---|
| Full keyword position table | Two hundred rows nobody reads. Report the three to five terms that generate enquiries and drop the rest into an appendix, or nowhere. |
| Domain authority scores | A third-party metric Google does not use. It looks scientific and predicts nothing. |
| Raw crawl error counts | Relevant to you, not to the client. Fix them and mention it in one line. |
| Total organic traffic | For a local business this is dominated by irrelevant national traffic. Local pack interactions are the signal. |
| Screenshots of dashboards | If a chart needs explaining in the meeting, it is not a report, it is a prompt for a meeting. |
Two pages. If it needs to be longer, the extra belongs in an appendix that exists for the one client in ten who asks.
The one section everybody skips
"What we need from you." Local SEO stalls on client-side blockers more than on anything an agency controls: the Google Business Profile owner who left the company, the photos nobody sent, the review request email that was never approved, the opening hours that changed without telling anyone.
Putting one specific, small, named request at the end of every report does two things. It moves the work forward, and it makes visible that progress is a shared job — which is the conversation you want to have already had before a renewal discussion, not during one.
When to automate it
Up to about five clients, building this by hand in a document is faster than configuring a reporting tool, and the writing is better because a human decided what mattered. Past that, the manual version starts eating a day a month and consistency slips.
What to look for when you do automate: white-label output, geo-grid images embedded rather than linked, scheduled delivery, and the ability to delete sections. That last one matters most — most reporting tools are generous with what they add and stingy about what they let you remove.
Reporting-capable platforms:
Visit BrightLocal → Visit Semrush Local → Opens the vendor site in a new tab. Disclosure: affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no cost to you. This never changes which tool we recommend.FAQ
How often should local SEO reports go out?
Monthly for retainers. Local results move slowly enough that weekly reporting mostly reports noise, and quarterly is too long a gap to catch a problem such as a suspended profile.
Should the report include competitor data?
For agency clients, yes — it is the clearest way to show that standing still is losing. For a single-location owner it is often demoralising rather than useful.
White-label or branded as the agency?
White-label if you resell through another agency. Otherwise your own branding, because the report is the main artefact the client sees each month and it should be recognisably yours.