6 Top SEO Reporting Tools for Content Marketers – Exploding Topics
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As content marketers, we learn to speak the language of SEO.
Impressions, top queries, backlinks, domain authority—these words and the metrics that go along with them all have meaning to us.
Unfortunately, they might mean nothing to your clients.
Business owners care about ROI and their bottom line. In order to help them understand the value your marketing efforts bring to the table, you need comprehensive SEO reports that communicate your impact clearly and concisely.
Use trending keywords to create content your audience craves.
I’m someone who genuinely loves charts and graphs and color-coded-everything, so I get pretty excited about a good SEO reporting tool. I’ve used several for different projects I’ve worked on, and tested out some more to share my findings with you.
These tools make reporting much faster. You don’t have to waste time gathering data from multiple sources and compiling them into a report.
Semrush is an SEO and digital marketing platform.
It’s best known for its keyword research and competitor analysis tools, but it’s capable of a lot more.
With backlink analysis, full site audits, and rank tracking all built in, Semrush has all the information you need to create comprehensive SEO reports in one place.
The My Reports feature is helpful for communicating SEO metrics to stakeholders or clients.
You can use data from many different sources, including:
There’s no extra setup, which makes this one of the easiest reporting tools to use.
You can build your report from scratch, or use one of the templates Semrush provides.
If you need to report on more than just SEO metrics, Semrush also offers several integrations. You can incorporate data from:
I especially like its AI metrics widgets. Reporting on how your brand is showing up in ChatGPT, Gemini, and other LLMs is a must.
Semrush makes it easy with premade charts for market share, sentiment, and other metrics.
The drag-and-drop report builder is super smooth. All the available widgets are organized in the sidebar, so it’s easy to find what you need.
You can also customize the formatting with columns and page breaks, and add headings, text, and images to provide more context. As far as styling goes, you can use a premade theme or create your own.
I think the flexibility of Semrush’s reporting tool is unmatched, and that it offers the best blend of customization and ease of use.
When comparing SEO reporting tools, it’s important to consider automation. Having to manually create a new report every time you need to send one is time-consuming, especially if you’re working with multiple clients.
Once you’re done building your Semrush report, you’ll click “Generate PDF report” to complete it. You’ll then see several options, including the ability to automatically run this report monthly, weekly, or daily.
You can also send your report via email. However, my favorite feature here is the option to create an online dashboard based on your report.
Even if you’re only sending your report to clients once a month, you need to keep an eye on the metrics you’re reporting on every day. Having a real-time dashboard that mirrors your client report makes sure you’re always up-to-date on those key metrics and there are no surprises when the report comes out.
One more feature I want to point out is the “Add AI summary” option. While all the charts and graphs are appealing to me, I know some people will feel overwhelmed, opening a report and seeing a page full of numbers and dots and lines.
The AI summary lets you concisely share the highlights from your report so clients understand what’s going on.
Semrush offers several pricing options. The Pro plan, which includes 3 base reports per month, is $117.33 per month when billed annually. You can purchase additional base reports for $10 each, or pro reports for $20 each.
Pro reports are required to access some third-party integrations, custom themes, AI summaries, and daily scheduling.
If you need to monitor more than just your SEO performance, DashThis is a handy solution that puts all your information in one place for easy access. It offers dozens of integrations with SEO, email marketing, and social media platforms so you can create multi-channel marketing reports.
DashThis doesn’t have access to any data itself, so you’ll have to create integrations for Google Analytics, Search Console, Semrush, Ahrefs, and any other data sources you want to include. It’s a fairly simple process, but it does require an extra step.
Once your data sources are connected, you can build your dashboard entirely from scratch, or use one of the premade templates.
I signed up for a free trial so I could test it out, and was able to create a simple SEO dashboard pretty quickly. The templates look great, and dragging and dropping widgets to rearrange them was no problem.
The premade widgets for different metrics let you add all the information you need in just a few clicks. But if you need something unique or specific, you can also create your own widgets with filters applied to narrow down the data you’re reporting on.
There are premade themes you can use to style your reports, or you can upgrade to create custom themes to match your branding.
In the sharing options for your DashThis report, you have the option to send your report via email. There is a frequency setting you can use to automate your reports and email them to your clients quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily.
Another option is to share your dashboard using a link. This will allow your client to view your dashboard whenever they want. You can password protect it for added security.
If you’d rather have more control or just need to send a one-off report, you can also export your dashboard as a PDF and share it however you like.
At $42 per month when billed annually, DashThis is a relatively affordable SEO reporting solution.
However, keep in mind that it doesn’t provide any data.
If you want to use information from an SEO platform like Semrush or Ahrefs, you’ll be paying that $42 per month on top of the cost of your other tools.
As the name states, AgencyAnalytics is built for marketing agencies to share reports with their clients. The platform is organized around Clients. Each Client in your account will have their own dashboard and reports with all the marketing metrics you want to track.
AgencyAnalytics doesn’t include any data natively, so you’ll have to integrate it with other tools to create reports. It’s compatible with Google Analytics and Search Console, Semrush, and Ahrefs, as well as several social media platforms, ad platforms, and email marketing tools.
When creating a new report, AgencyAnalytics lets you choose between slide deck and document formats.
You can then build your report from scratch, use a template, or copy an existing report. There’s also a Smart Report option that will generate a report based on the integrations you’ve connected.
Reports are completely customizable. I found the drag-and-drop functionality to be a little over-sensitive, which made it a little difficult to move widgets around.
I also think it’s a bit more difficult to find the metrics you want to include in the available widgets.
While the report builder experience isn’t quite on par with Semrush or DashThis, in my opinion, AgencyAnalytics includes a couple of unique features I really like: Benchmarks and Goals.
These are two widgets you can add to your reports.
Benchmarks show how your project’s metrics stack up against the industry average. Most clients likely aren’t familiar with what the standard is for any particular metric, so this is a great way to communicate your performance.
Goals show how close you are to meeting a specific KPI. If your client has stated a specific goal for their marketing campaigns, this is a clear and simple way to show your progress.
Ultimately, the purpose of an SEO report is communication, and I feel that these two features go the extra mile to help you show clients the value of your work.
AgencyAnalytics provided the most scheduling settings of all the SEO reporting tools I looked at. You can choose annual, monthly, biweekly, weekly, or daily schedules, customize the email message and subject line, and give clients the ability to adjust the date range for the report.
The option that stood out the most, however, was the ability to pause your schedule. I didn’t see this in any of the other tools I tried.
Pricing for AgencyAnalytics starts at $59 per month when billed annually.
Just keep in mind that, like DashThis, you’ll still have to pay for other tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to provide the SEO data you need for your reports.
Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, is a data visualization tool that lets you pull data from Google Analytics, Search Console, and other sources to create custom reports.
I really enjoy using Looker Studio because it’s completely customizable. You have total control over the data you want to see and how it’s presented.
The drawback is that there’s a fairly steep learning curve. It took me several weeks and a lot of YouTube tutorials to feel comfortable building my own reports.
Even then, I would have to do a fair amount of troubleshooting to resolve data errors, and sometimes had to find workarounds to make my charts do what I wanted them to.
There are Looker Studio templates you can base your SEO reports on, but you’ll still need to set up your integrations to pull data from Google Analytics, Search Console, and other sources. The process is a bit more complex than the other tools I’ve listed in this post.
If you’re familiar with other Google tools like Docs and Sheets, Looker Studio’s sharing settings will be easy to pick up. You can share a link to your report with your client so they can check it whenever they want.
However, if you want to send reports by email on a schedule, that’s also an option. There are weekly, monthly, and daily frequency options.
You can use Looker Studio for free to build your SEO reports. There’s also a Pro plan you can purchase for $9 per user, per project, per month. It gives you access to team collaboration tools, increased limits for automated report delivery, and Gemini integration.
SE Ranking is an SEO tool you can use for keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink auditing, and more. If you’re on the Essential plan, it’s a budget-friendly alternative to Semrush or Ahrefs.
SE Ranking offers integrations with popular social media networks, as well as publishing and scheduling tools. You can include data from these integrations in your reports, but it doesn’t support email marketing integrations.
Like the other tools on this list, SE Ranking lets you start with a blank page or create your report using one of its templates. You can also save reports you’ve built as new templates to reuse, streamlining your workflow for future clients.
SE Ranking divides its widgets pretty granularly, which makes it easy to find the information you want to include in your report.
When I tested it out, I found the drag-and-drop functionality to be a bit laggy, but it works well enough.
It also has formatting options that let you add text or images to help explain data to your clients or stakeholders.
Overall, I think SE Ranking’s report builder is more basic than the other options on this list, but definitely functional.
SE Ranking does let you automate your reports. You can send them as PDFs, Excel sheets, or HTML files on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis.
Again, nothing fancy here, but it will certainly get the job done.
Pricing for SE Ranking starts out very affordable, but it can escalate quickly if you’re not careful. The Essential plan is $52 per month when billed annually, and allows you to create unlimited manual reports, but only five scheduled reports.
Another low-cost option is to purchase the Solo plan, which is intended for individuals and freelancers. It’s $65 for three months, and includes unlimited manual reports and two scheduled reports.
If you want to send unlimited scheduled reports, you’ll have to upgrade to the Pro plan and purchase the Agency Pack add-on, which will bring your cost up to $145.20 per month, billed annually.
Ahrefs is another SEO platform that is popular for keyword research, rank tracking, and site audits.
It also includes backlink analysis, brand visibility monitoring, and other tools that are useful for guiding your content marketing efforts.
Considering how well-known Ahrefs is in the SEO industry, I was pretty surprised by the user experience of its report builder.
The interface feels dated compared to the other tools I tested.
All the widgets are hidden behind a button at the top of the screen instead of in an accessible sidebar.
And while the report builder is technically drag-and-drop, it’s not very smooth. There aren’t any formatting or styling options. You can customize the date ranges and chart types for each widget, but that’s about it.
It does appear that the Ahrefs team has plans to expand their Reports feature in the future, so there may be improvements in the works.
Anyone using the Ahrefs Report Builder can export their reports as PDFs using the Print to PDF button at the top of the screen.
According to the Ahrefs website, sharing via email will soon be available to users with the Reports Builder add-on.
Ahrefs Lite plan is $108 per month when billed annually. Every paid plan can build one report with up to five widgets—which is really only just enough access to test out the feature.
If you really want to use Ahrefs for SEO reports, you’ll have to purchase the Report Builder add-on for an additional $99 per month.
Every business is unique and has different goals, so the exact reports you need will depend on your priorities. However, these are generally speaking the SEO metrics marketers need on hand:
You can include all of these in your SEO reports. Keep in mind that your clients might not be familiar with some of them. Adding text to explain their significance or summarizing your report is the best way to make sure they understand the impact your work is having.
There are several factors to consider when comparing SEO reporting tools, such as:
You’ll have to weigh all these elements and decide which ones are the most important to you.
For myself, I prefer Semrush because I like keeping everything I need in one tool. Its report builder is on par with DashThis, and it offers all the integrations you need for multi-channel reports. I also find it much easier and faster to build reports in Semrush than in Looker Studio.
However, if I owned an agency or was a very prolific freelancer, I would consider spending the extra money to use AgencyAnalytics in addition to Semrush. I really like the Benchmark and Goal widgets, and I think its scheduling settings offer the most flexibility.
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Exploding Topics is owned by Semrush. Our mission is to provide accurate data and expert insights on emerging trends. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.
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Molly Tyler
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Molly is a technical content writer with a passion for making technology easy for anyone to understand. She specializes in content… Read more
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