Knowing how to read an SEO report will put you leagues ahead of your competition. If you don’t know how to read and interpret the data in your SEO reports, how will you know what needs improvement? In this guide, we’ll walk you through what’s in an SEO report, the 9 local SEO metrics to track, the tools to use, and how often to check them. Let’s cover the important things.
What We’ll Cover
- What Is an SEO Report?
- The 9 Local SEO Metrics to Track
- How to Read Your SEO Report, Section by Section
- A Common Local SEO Problem (and How We Help Fix It)
- Tools to Track Your Local SEO Metrics
- How Often Should You Check Your Local SEO Metrics?
- RebelFish Local SEO Audit Checklist
1. What Is an SEO Report?
An SEO report gives you an overview of your SEO metrics and shows how your website and online presence are performing. For local businesses, a good report also shows how you’re doing on Google Maps and your Google Business Profile.
It typically covers the following areas:
- Organic traffic
- Keyword rankings
- Google Business Profile performance
- Conversions (calls, form fills, bookings, and sales)
- Backlinks
- Overall site health
SEO reporting is an effective way to show stakeholders, your boss, or your clients the impact SEO is having on the business.
A good SEO report should:
- Focus on the key metrics that tie back to your goals
- Be easy to understand
- Recommend actions to drive further growth
And on the flip side, an SEO report shouldn’t overwhelm you with too much data, use too much technical jargon, or set unrealistic expectations. Are you rolling your eyes at that? Yeah, me too. I can’t even believe I just said it. But the truth is, it’s a line-by-line kind of thing. If this isn’t in your wheelhouse, you’ll get it if you learn a little bit at a time. You will get it, we promise.
And here’s the good news: you don’t need to be a data scientist or an analytics guru. Local SEO metrics are simply numbers that show how your business is doing in search, how much traffic you’re getting, and how well you’re turning that traffic into customers. Tracking the right ones helps you make smarter decisions and spend your time and budget where it counts.
Don’t worry. We’ve got your back. Let’s go!
2. The 9 Local SEO Metrics to Track
A great website and outstanding products aren’t enough on their own. You need to know which parts of your strategy are working and which need improvement. Here are the 9 local SEO metrics to track and why each one matters.
1. Google Business Profile Performance
Where to Find It: The Performance report in your Google Business Profile.
Metrics to Watch:
- Profile views: How many people viewed your profile on Google Search and Maps.
- Searches: The search terms people used that showed your profile.
- Interactions: Calls, website clicks, direction requests, and bookings.
Why It Matters: Your Google Business Profile is often the first place local customers find you, so this is one of the most telling local SEO metrics. Look at the search terms. If most people find you by searching your business name, work on showing up for more general searches like “[service] near me.” If you get lots of profile views but few calls or direction requests, check that your hours, photos, services, and contact info are complete and accurate.
2. Local Pack Rankings / Map Pack Visibility
What It Is: Your business’s position in the Google 3-Pack, the top local results shown with a map.
Tools to Monitor:
- BrightLocal
- Whitespark
- Local Falcon or other grid-based rank trackers
Why It Matters: The local pack gets a huge share of local clicks and calls, so earning a spot there can make a big difference. Keep in mind that local results change based on where the searcher is standing. A quick search from your office won’t show you how you rank across town. Grid-based trackers check your ranking from many points around your area, which gives you a much more accurate picture.
3. Organic Traffic to Location and Service Pages
Focus On: Traffic to pages that target local keywords (for example, “best bakery in Austin”).
How to Track: Use Google Analytics (GA4) to see organic traffic to each page.
Why It Matters: This shows how well your pages attract local searchers. Strong organic traffic to your location and service pages means they’re well-optimized for local searches. Low traffic could mean a page needs better keywords, more helpful content, or a stronger connection to the area you serve.
4. Click-Through Rate (CTR) from Search
Found In: The Performance report in Google Search Console.
Why It Matters: CTR is the percentage of people who saw your page in search results and clicked on it. A high CTR means your page title and meta description make people want to click. A low CTR is a chance to rewrite your titles and descriptions so they better match what searchers are looking for.
5. Customer Reviews and Ratings
Focus On:
- Number of reviews and average star rating
- How recent your reviews are
- Your response rate to reviews
Why It Matters: Reviews affect your local rankings, and they shape whether people trust you. Recency matters, too. 74% of consumers only care about reviews left in the last 3 months (BrightLocal, 2026). Responding to reviews can boost your reputation and encourage more customers to leave feedback.
6. Local Keyword Rankings
Tools to Use:
- Google Search Console (free)
- Ubersuggest
- Semrush or Ahrefs
Why It Matters: Tracking keywords with local intent shows whether you’re visible when and where it counts. Ranking high for “dentist near me” or “plumber in [city]” means more visibility and more leads. It’s the digital version of being the first shop people see on Main Street.
Decision-Making: If certain keywords drop, review the content on those pages and your backlink profile. For small businesses, longer, more specific keywords are often easier to rank for and bring in visitors who are ready to buy.
7. Backlinks from Local Sources
Focus On: Links from local partners, sponsorships, community organizations, local news, and chambers of commerce.
Why It Matters: Backlinks are a fundamental part of SEO, and links from local sources strengthen your relevance and authority in your area. That can improve your local rankings and send more traffic to both your website and your door.
8. Engagement Metrics
Key Metrics in GA4:
- Engagement rate: The percentage of visits where people stayed at least 10 seconds, viewed more than one page, or took an action.
- Bounce rate: The opposite of engagement rate. It’s the percentage of visits that weren’t engaged.
- Average engagement time: How long people actively spent on your page, especially your local landing pages.
Why It Matters: Engagement metrics show the quality of people’s visits. A low engagement rate could mean your content isn’t meeting their needs or the page is slow or confusing. Use these numbers to improve your content strategy, revise landing pages so they match what visitors expect, and give people a clear next step.
9. Conversion Rate
What It Is: The percentage of visitors who complete an action you care about, like calling, filling out a form, booking, or buying. In GA4, these actions are called “key events.”
Decision-Making: A low conversion rate despite high traffic could point to a user experience problem or an unclear call to action. Try simplifying your contact forms, making your phone number easy to tap, and refining your landing pages. For most local businesses, this is one of the most important metrics of all, because it’s the one that ties directly to revenue.
3. How to Read Your SEO Report, Section by Section
Most SEO reports are organized into four main sections. Here’s what each one tells you.
Performance Metrics
Performance metrics show how your website is doing and whether you’re making progress toward your goals. Most of this data comes from Google Analytics (GA4). Here’s what you’ll usually see:
- Users and new users: How many people visited your site, and how many were visiting for the first time.
- Sessions: How many visits your site got during the report period.
- Engaged sessions and engagement rate: How many of those visits were meaningful (see metric #8 above).
- Average engagement time: How long people actively spent on your site.
- Key events: Conversions like contact form submissions, calls, and online purchases (see metric #9 above).
These metrics show the quality of people’s visits, not just the quantity. Over time, you want to see progress in each of these areas. If numbers drop, your current strategy may need adjusting. Compare the same time periods (for example, this month vs. the same month last year) to account for seasonal ups and downs.
Organic Keyword Performance
This section shows which keywords your site ranks for and where. A keyword position distribution chart shows how many of your keywords appear on page one, page two, and beyond. A detailed keyword list ranks your top keywords by the traffic they bring in.
SEO tools like Semrush and Ubersuggest also give estimates, such as the number of keywords you rank for, your estimated monthly organic traffic, and estimated traffic value (what that traffic would cost if you paid for it in Google Ads). These are useful for spotting trends, but remember they’re estimates, not your real numbers. For your actual clicks and impressions, use Google Search Console. You can find it under “Performance,” then “Search results.”
Competition Metrics
Competition metrics compare your site to competitors targeting the same keywords. Tools like Semrush and Ubersuggest show your top competitors, how many keywords you share, and how visible each of you is in search. Use this section to find keywords your competitors rank for that you don’t, and to see who you’re really up against in your area.
Earned Links
This section looks at the backlinks your site has earned, usually over the last 12 months. Links from trusted, relevant websites can increase your credibility and help your rankings. Quality matters much more than quantity.
What about spammy links? Every site picks up some random, low-quality links over time, and Google is generally good at ignoring them, so you don’t need to panic over every one. Focus on earning good links, and if a trusted site links to a broken page on your site, fix or redirect that page. Google says most sites will not need to use its disavow tool. It’s really only for sites that have a lot of spammy, paid, or manipulative links pointing to them, especially if they’ve received a manual action.
Tools to check your backlinks:
- The Links report in Google Search Console (free)
- Ahrefs
- Semrush
- Ubersuggest
If you’re still with us, a huge heartfelt thank you and congratulations! We appreciate your dedication to understanding this algo-craziness (that’s a word now). There’s a learning curve, but we promise you’ll reap the rewards if you stick with it.
4. A Common Local SEO Problem (and How We Help Fix It)
RebelFish Local starts with an in-depth audit, beginning with a citation report. A business citation is any listing of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) that’s not on your own website, like Yelp, Facebook, Apple Maps, or an industry directory. We search for every listing of your business, anywhere and everywhere. So a citation audit is finding anything outside of your website that could affect your local rankings.
Here’s the problem: Google doesn’t like it when your name, address, and phone number are mismatched, incomplete, or wrong across the web.
Google likes to be organized; frankly, it’s high-maintenance. Yes, we said it. It wants everything lined up properly. When Google finds 10 different versions of your business name and a couple of old phone numbers, it gets less confident about which information is correct. And when Google isn’t confident, it’s more likely to show the next business instead. You know, the one who is equally annoyed but knows how to work with the high-maintenance’ness (that’s a word now, too) of the snarky search engine.
The takeaway: if Google can’t tell whether your business information is accurate and trustworthy, it may send potential customers elsewhere, even if you’re the best choice. We know YOUR business is the BEST CHOICE. That’s what we specialize in: making sure Google recognizes your business as the best match for the searcher.
Follow this link if you’re still not ranking well on Google.
Poor SEO Rankings Are Not Always Your Fault
Here’s some good news: poor rankings aren’t always the business owner’s fault. It’s always nice to be let off the hook. The bad news is that it can take some digging (we call that auditing) to find the problems so we can fix them. If you don’t know where you are, how can you know where you need to go?
Sometimes a directory won’t let you edit your listing unless you pay for a premium plan. Sometimes the site has an error, and you can’t even get access to it. And sometimes the site doesn’t have anywhere to edit your profile at all. We know… that’s too many “sometimes” to deal with.
Our goal is to get as many of those listings corrected or removed as possible. If we can hit a 60-70% correction rate while building new, accurate citations, it can change the tide in your favor. Accurate citations help Google trust your business information, which supports your local rankings.
Generally speaking, SEO companies will do a surface-level analysis first, and the in-depth audit happens once you become a client. That’s what RebelFish Local does as well.
5. Tools to Track Your Local SEO Metrics
Whether you’re a small business owner or part of a larger team, the right tools to track local SEO metrics make the job much easier. Here are free and low-cost tools for beginners and experienced users alike.
Free Tools
- Google Search Console: Shows how your site performs in Google search, including clicks, impressions, CTR, average position, the searches people used to find you, and the links pointing to your site. To set it up, verify that you own your website.
- Google Business Profile: Manages how your business appears on Google Search and Maps. Its Performance report shows profile views, search terms, calls, website clicks, direction requests, and bookings.
- Google Analytics (GA4): Shows what people do once they reach your website, including where they came from, how engaged they are, and whether they convert. GA4 has a learning curve, but the insights are worth it.
Setting Up Google Analytics for Your Local Business
- Create a GA4 property for your website and add your business information.
- Add the Google tag to your website. Many website builders and WordPress plugins make this a copy-and-paste step.
- Set up key events for the actions that matter most, like form submissions, phone number clicks, bookings, and purchases.
- Link GA4 to Google Search Console so you can see search data alongside your website data.
- Add UTM tracking to the website link on your Google Business Profile. That way, visits from your profile show up as their own source in GA4 instead of blending in with other Google traffic.
Optional Paid Tools
- Ubersuggest: Tracks keyword rankings, generates content ideas, and shows competitor performance. Its user-friendly layout makes it a good fit for beginners.
- BrightLocal: Specializes in local SEO, with reports on local rankings, citations, and reviews.
- Whitespark: Offers local rank tracking and citation building and cleanup.
- Moz Local: Helps keep your business listings accurate and consistent across the web.
- Semrush: A full SEO toolkit with keyword tracking, competitor research, site audits, and local listing tools.
Quick Tip: If you’re just starting out, focus on the basics. Verify your website and profiles, explore the default reports, and move to advanced features as you get more comfortable. You don’t need to be an SEO expert to start making smart decisions.
6. How Often Should You Check Your Local SEO Metrics?
For most businesses, checking your local SEO metrics once a month is enough. That gives you enough data to spot meaningful patterns without getting caught up in day-to-day ups and downs. If you’re actively making changes, like updating your Google Business Profile or launching new pages, a quick weekly check can help you see whether those changes are working.
When you review your data, focus on trends rather than single data points. Trends give you a clear picture of long-term growth and the areas that need attention, while one-off numbers can be misleading.
Keep it simple and consistent. Build a routine that doesn’t overwhelm you or your team. Start by choosing 2 to 3 metrics to track consistently, like your local keyword rankings, your reviews, and your conversions. Once that feels easy, add more.
Remember, SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. Small, consistent steps usually beat trying to tackle everything at once. Stick to a few priorities, refine your approach, and watch your local SEO grow over time.
7. RebelFish Local SEO Audit Checklist
We know this can be overwhelming, especially the more problems you find, or the more an SEO company tells you need fixing. As a business owner, you’re expected to wear many hats, and this can be one of the heaviest ones to sport. But fear not; we’ve got you covered.
SEO Audit Checklist:
- Check your Google Business Profile for accuracy and completeness.
- Audit your citations and fix NAP inconsistencies.
- Identify link-building opportunities.
- Find potential site structure and navigation improvements.
- Find (and fix) thin content.
- Identify (and nix) duplicate content.
- Scan for keyword optimization.
- Optimize metadata (page titles and meta descriptions).
- Identify page update opportunities.
- Run a page speed and Core Web Vitals check.
- Know your top competitors and the keywords they rank for.
Expert Tip: Check Your Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is one of the most important signs that your SEO is working. To see it, open Google Search Console, go to “Performance” in the menu, and select “Search results.” You’ll see your clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position, plus the searches that brought people to your site.
Understanding your website’s analytics will help guide you to make better business decisions.
How are you feeling about your ability to understand SEO reports and analytics? Schedule A Call with us today, and we’ll start your audit so you can stop worrying about where you are and get some solid direction. Your business will benefit greatly from a quality audit.
Robert & Liz, RebelFish Local CoFounders, doing local volunteer work.
We are RebelFish Local and are here to help you with all your SEO needs. Download our free resource for 5 Hacks That Will Get You On Page 1 Of Google today, and start climbing to the top of Google!