Most local businesses aren’t interested in technical SEO jargon… But they care about real results: More customers walking through the door. 🛒
That’s why a clear, actionable local SEO report is key.
A local SEO report is crucial for tracking progress and proving the impact of your efforts, especially if you’re an agency working with clients.
It helps set a baseline, monitor key metrics, and make data-driven decisions to improve rankings and drive more local traffic.
This ultimate guide will explain exactly what a local SEO report is, give you three free Looker Studio templates to get you started, and even show you how to automate comprehensive reporting using a local SEO software with a free trial.
We’ll make it easy to understand and, most importantly, useful for growing local businesses! 🏪
What Is a Local SEO Report?
Local SEO reporting is the process of tracking, analyzing, and presenting data to understand how well a business is performing in local search. Its goal is to turn data into clear, actionable insights that help businesses get more customers through their doors.
In short, a great local SEO report highlights what’s working, what needs improvement, and where new opportunities lie.
At its core, local SEO reporting focuses on key metrics like local rankings, organic traffic, customer reviews, and more.
These act as a pulse check for your online visibility. For example:
- Tracking local rankings shows whether your business appears for important local searches.
- Monitoring organic traffic helps you see which pages attract potential customers.
- Analyzing reviews can reveal trends in customer sentiment and areas for improvement.
Why Is Local SEO Reporting Important?
A local SEO report gives businesses a clear roadmap of what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus next. It’s not just about rankings, it’s about understanding how customers find and interact with your business online.
Whether you’re an SEO agency or a business owner, here’s why local SEO reporting matters:
- Discover high-performing keywords that drive local traffic
- Optimize for better visibility in Google Maps and local search results
- Monitor and respond to reviews to improve your online reputation
- Identify which strategies deliver the best ROI and adjust accordingly
SEO takes time, and clients may not always see instant results. Reporting bridges the gap by showcasing progress, tracking long-term trends, and proving the value of your work.
With a data-driven approach, you can refine campaigns, maximize the business’ or the agency’s profitability, and stay ahead of the competition.
The best part? You don’t need expensive tools to get started. You can create a local SEO report for free using Looker Studio templates, or try an enterprise SEO platform with a free trial for more advanced, automated reporting.
What is Looker Studio?
Looker Studio, originally known as Google Data Studio, is a free tool that transforms your data into dashboards and reports. You import datasets into specific templates, and the templates then format that data into specific dashboards that make it more visually appealing and easier to digest.
We’ll see some examples of what that looks like further down on this page.
3 FREE Looker Studio Templates for SEO
First, you need to set up Looker Studio. If you have a Google account, you can log into Looker Studio and start creating reports right away.
You have two options:
- Build from scratch: Click “Blank Report” to start fresh, connect your data sources, and customize the layout. Google even offers a step-by-step guide if you need help.
- Use premade templates: The easier option! Looker Studio has ready-to-go templates where you simply import your data, and the dashboard is automatically formatted for you.
Looker Studio offers 100+ free templates, but we have selected three of the best Looker Studio templates for local SEO reports!
Google Analytics Audience Overview
Track your organic search performance by location, device, and date—all in one place.
The Google Analytics Audience Overview pulls visitor data directly from Google Analytics (GA4) and shows who’s visiting your site, where they’re from, what language they speak, and which devices they use.
Google Analytics Behaviors Overview
See how organic visitors engage with your site.
The free Google Analytics Behaviors Overview focuses on behavioral data, showing how users interact with your content. It tracks page views, bounce rates, and top-performing content, helping you understand what’s working and what’s not.
SEO Keyword Audit Template
This free SEO Keyword Audit Template is from Porter Metrics. It helps you analyze keyword performance, spot ranking opportunities, and detect keyword cannibalization, so your pages don’t compete against each other.
How to Set Up the Templates?
Setting up Looker Studio templates is quick and hassle-free:
- Click the template link.
- Make sure you are logged into your Google account.
- Hit “Use my own data.”
- Select the business you want to pull data from.
- Click “Add.”
Within seconds, your report is ready.
But while these templates are easy to use, they often fall short on comprehensive data and deep insights.
Why Looker Studio Templates Aren’t Good Enough?
Looker Studio templates are great for a quick data snapshot, pulling info from GA4 and Google Search Console (GSC).
But when it comes to local SEO, they often fall short… Giving you numbers without the insights behind them, leaving you to figure out the “why” on your own. 😵💫
This is where local SEO tools shine. Enterprise SEO tools take things up a notch by offering:
- AI summaries that automatically highlight key insights and opportunities.
- Customizable dashboards focused on local SEO, like keyword rankings and Google Business Profile stats.
- Automated reporting to save you time with scheduled updates.
- Actionable insights that tell you exactly what to do to improve.
The best platforms even have AI SEO agents that automate local SEO tasks, like updating Google Business Profile (GBP), answering reviews, creating GB posts, and more.
6 Steps to Create the Best Local SEO Report (With Free Trial Tool)
Let’s help you create local SEO reports that are useful, easy to understand, and drive action.
We’ll break it down into six simple steps to deliver impactful insights, and then show you how to present them effectively. Plus, we’ll explain how to automate local SEO tasks.
1. Use Customizable and Automated Reports to Improve Efficiency
Automated and customizable reports are tools that automatically collect and organize data. You don’t need to manually update or collect data every time you want to generate a report. And they’re not one-size-fits-all, you can customize them to show exactly what you need, like a tailored suit for your data.
Here’s how they make life easier:
- Save Time: Automation pulls data for you, freeing up time for strategy and analysis.
- Client Customization: Tailor reports to highlight key local SEO metrics based on each client’s goals.
- Consistency: Generate reports regularly, keeping everyone updated with minimal effort.
- Easier Collaboration: Clear, organized reports help teams and clients make faster, better decisions.
In practice, you need to find an enterprise tool that offers automated reporting tools with a free trial that has the following perks:
- Google Toolkit Integration: Link Google Search Console and Analytics to include website data in reports.
- Key Metrics: Track keyword rankings, backlinks, traffic trends, and site performance for data-driven insights.
- Local Heatmap Tracker: Optimize your presence on Google Maps for the best SEO ROI.
- Keyword Rank Tracker: Monitor keyword positions with daily updates and email alerts.
- GBP Performance Tracker: Analyze GMB metrics like views, clicks, and calls to improve visibility.
- Real-time Order Tracking: Stay updated on link building, content, and SEO order progress.
2. Use AI Report Summaries to Quickly Highlight Key Insights
AI summaries are automated overviews that quickly highlight the key points of your report, making it much easier for both you and your clients to understand the results.
Instead of sifting through detailed data, AI can provide a clear, digestible summary that captures the most important insights.
In your report, the AI summaries should come in the top and provide a quick recap of your progress toward goals. 🎯
This section should be concise but informative.
For busy execs, this helps them quickly grasp what’s been accomplished and what’s coming next without getting bogged down in the details.
3. Choose the Right Metrics to Focus on What Matters Most
When telling a story with data, it’s crucial to pick the right metrics that support your narrative. For most local businesses, the key focuses are simple: traffic and conversions.
But that doesn’t mean you should ignore other important data points, just make sure every metric ties back to the story you’re telling. For example, overall traffic doesn’t show how qualified that traffic is or where it’s coming from.
That’s why we like to include these key metrics from GBP (Google Business Profile) insights like:
- Impressions
- Website clicks
- Call clicks
- Direction request
- Historical trends
- Platforms and devices
- Searches breakdown
We also highly recommend adding the heatmaps for the major focus keywords, showing how they have improved.
As for Google Analytics metrics, some crucial metrics are:
- Views
- Sessions
- Total users
- New users
- Engage sessions
These help clients see which campaigns are driving the most valuable traffic and where it’s coming from.
4. Segment Keywords by Location to Understand Regional Performance
Segmenting keywords means categorizing them based on specific factors like location, search intent, or relevance to tailor your SEO strategy and track performance more effectively.
To segment keywords by location and understand regional performance, you should:
- Set Up Location-Specific Projects: Create a project for your target area (e.g., Houston) and track keywords relevant to that region.
- Filter by Location: Use location filters to see how keywords perform in different cities or regions.
- Tag Keywords: Organize keywords by location or type (e.g., “near me,” city-based, service-specific).
- Analyze Regional Performance: Review rankings, traffic, and competition in each area to identify opportunities.
- Compare Regions: Track and compare performance across locations to refine your strategy.
5. Schedule Automated Emails
Scheduling automated emails means setting up emails to be sent automatically at predetermined times, saving you time and ensuring consistent communication.
This is super helpful for keeping your clients or team updated on key metrics without having to manually send out reports.
To set it up, just do the following in your reporting tool:
- Choose the recipients that will receive the reports, which can be you, your clients, or both
- The email frequency
- On what date should the email be sent
- Check the dispatch status to confirm it
- Hit update mailing settings and it’s done
6. Provide Actionable Information to Drive Better Decision-making
Actionable insights are recommendations or conclusions drawn from data that help guide decisions and drive improvement.
For local SEO reports, it’s super important for you to wrap things up with a clear summary of how things went and a plan for what’s next.
But sometimes campaigns hit snags. Maybe there’s not much budget to work with, or a client is nervous about making big changes to their site to improve SEO user experience, for example.
That’s where you can gently explain why those updates are so important and how following your advice can lead to better local SEO and long-term growth for their business.
How Do You Present SEO to Clients?
You should be sending local SEO reports monthly. Often enough to keep clients in the loop without overwhelming them.
Think about it: your clients are busy. They don’t have time to sift through endless charts and metrics. What they really want to know is:
- Are we getting closer to our SEO goals? Lead with clear results using goal trackers.
- What have you been working on, and is it making a difference? Add quick annotations to highlight key wins.
- What’s next? If rankings aren’t where they should be, show them the plan to fix it.
The best reports make SEO feel simple. But if your client is an analytics nerd, great, go deep. 🤓
The reports can be sent in a shorter period of time if you are automating your local SEO tasks.
Local SEO used to take months to show results, but with automation, we’ve seen real wins in as little as 17 days, where a local electrical company improved 100% of its local ranking.
This client ranked in #1 for 14X more locations and in #2 and #3 for 3X more locations. Check out the full electrical company case study if you are curious about how they did that.
How to Automate Local SEO Tasks?
Local SEO used to be a slow game. But automation has changed everything. 🤖
AI local SEO tools rank faster and drive conversions in a fraction of the time, all without the hefty price tag.
Search Atlas makes this possible by automating key tasks, cutting costs while delivering results in as little as 17 days. Here’s how it works:
- Local Heatmap Tracker: Track keyword performance across locations with interactive heatmaps.
- Local Citation Builder: One-time purchase for lasting citations on top directories like Foursquare and Neustar.
- GBP Automations: AI-powered tools for GBP posts, Q&As, reviews, and optimizations.
- Location Spoofing: Simulate searches from different regions to check rankings.
- GBP Reporting: Generate detailed reports to track performance and growth.
With the free trial, you can also leverage OTTO, you get the first AI SEO agent on the market.
OTTO automates all local SEO tasks, from GBP updates and review responses to citation building and content optimizations. Different from other AIs that just make recommendations, it actually makes changes to your website and GBP.
OTTO becomes more cost-effective as you scale. You’ll start with 1 to 3 free OTTO activations (even during the free trial) so you can experience its AI automation firsthand.
But if you manage multiple local business clients and need additional OTTO activations, you can unlock bulk pricing, making each activation more affordable. The more websites you add, the lower the cost per activation, dropping as low as $39 per site. 🤯
More Than Just a Local SEO Report: Automate Your Workflow
Sure, you can build free local SEO reports with Looker Studio, but let’s be real, it only scratches the surface.
It won’t give your clients the full picture or the insights they need to take action.
Search Atlas goes beyond basic reporting, providing comprehensive data while also automating key local SEO tasks, saving you time, money, and effort.
The best part? You can try it all for free. Get started today with your free trial! No commitment, cancel anytime!
