Cornerlens

Guides

What to put in a local SEO report for a client

By the Cornerlens team ·

A local SEO report has one job: to tell a client what changed and what was done, in a way they can check for themselves. Most reports go wrong in two places. They sum up a whole town's rankings in one number, and they present Google's profile counts as if every one were a lead. Here is what to put in, and how to read each part honestly.

Rankings across the area, not one number

Map rankings depend on where the search is made, so "you rank #3 for dentist" is true on one street and false on the next. Our guide to why your Google Maps ranking changes from street to street shows why. A report should show rankings from many points across the area the business serves, as a map, with one summary per keyword: the share of points where the business is in the top 3. Our guide to reading a local rank grid explains that number.

Keep the measurement the same from month to month: the same points, the same keywords, at a similar time of day, and the same rule for sponsored listings, which Google now shows in the map pack for a growing share of searches. A change in how you measure shows up as a change in the ranking. When it has to change, say so in the report and don't compare across it.

Google's profile numbers, read correctly

Google's Business Profile performance report is the client's own window on their listing, and it is worth including. But each number means something narrower than its name suggests. Google's help page defines them:

Two points matter most for a report. First, Google says the performance data includes views, searches and actions from both organic results and Google Ads, so a client who also runs ads can't read these numbers as the result of local SEO alone. Second, a click is not a customer. Joy Hawkins of Sterling Sky stresses that a "call" is a tap on the call button, not necessarily a completed phone call, and that website clicks shouldn't automatically be counted as leads. She suggests reading the numbers as stages: searches, then views, then interactions, then leads, then customers.

Hawkins also notes that a Business Profile can now be linked to Google Analytics 4, so its interactions can be read beside the website's own data.

The website, from Search Console

For the website, Google Search Console's performance report is the source, with its own definitions. Clicks are the times someone clicked through to the site from Google Search; impressions are the times the site appeared in the results; average position is the average position of the site's topmost result. These measure the website in Google Search. They are a different measure from the map rankings, and the two shouldn't be mixed in one line.

The work done, with dates

Clients pay for work, and a report should say what was done and when. Joy Hawkins, answering other agencies in the Local Search Forum, listed what her agency's reports include: leads, a list of all the work done that month, what is planned for next month, and what is new with Google. The dates are what make the list useful: they let a client see which changes came before which movements on the map.

Show what changed, not why

This is where reports most often overreach. A ranking can rise in the month a profile was improved and still have risen for another reason: a rival's listing was suspended, Google changed its system, a competitor closed, or the business changed its hours. Even researchers who study ranking factors are careful here. The authors of a 2025 study of 3,269 local businesses, reported by Search Engine Journal, warn that their findings show correlation, not causation.

So put the changes beside the events of the same weeks, and let the client see the timing for themselves. "Share of the area in the top 3 went from 31% to 44%; in the same month we added two categories and the profile got 12 new reviews" is honest. "Our work moved you up 13 points" is a claim the data can't support, and the first month the number falls, it turns against you.

Make every number checkable

For each number, say where the client can see it themselves: the performance report in their own Business Profile, their own Search Console, the shared map. A number the client can open and confirm builds trust; one they can only take on faith invites the question nobody wants in month three.

An outline that works

  1. A short summary: what changed this month, in two or three sentences.
  2. Map rankings across the area: the share of points in the top 3 for each keyword, with the map.
  3. Google's profile numbers, with what each one counts.
  4. The website, from Search Console.
  5. What we did, with dates.
  6. What happened that we didn't do: Google updates, rivals' changes, anything else in the same weeks.
  7. What we plan to do next month.

Cornerlens's client report follows the same idea: it puts the agency's list of what it did in the period beside the checks from the same weeks.

The short version

Report rankings across the whole area, measured the same way every month. Include Google's profile numbers, but say what each one counts: they mix in ads, and a tap is not a customer. Add the website from Search Console, the dated work, and what else happened. Show what changed beside what was done, and never claim one caused the other.

Sources