The Value of SEO Reports

Search Engine Optimization reports can be a very helpful tool in assessing your website and determining areas that you may need to improve in (in order to achieve SEO success).

In this article the three main types of SEO reports will be discussed. The reports are the "Link" report, the "Rank" report and the "Optimization" report. The names of these reports will differ depending on the type of SEO software you use. 

The "Link" report

This report will be used to provide you with: 

• A summary of the current links to your site.
• The value of these links.
• The anchor text used in the link linking to you.
• The page rank of the site the link is generated from. 

Various SEO software may provide additional information but all of them should provide the above mentioned information about the links to your site. 

The "Rank" report

This report will be used to provide you with: 

• The current ranking of your keywords on Google, Yahoo and Bing.
• The movement in ranking over a set period (day/week).
• The overall visibility of your keywords. 

Various SEO software may provide additional information but all of them should provide the above mentioned information about the ranking of your keywords.

 The "Optimization" report

This report will be used to: 

• Assess the on-page optimization of your website based on your keywords.
• Assess the on-page optimization of your main competitors based on your keywords.
• Provide a detailed report on the various optimization factors (title, H1 - H3, keyword density, mega tags) and your score per keyword. 

Various SEO software may provide additional information but all of them should provide the above mentioned information about the on-page optimization of your site. 

The information provided by these reports is very helpful in improving your SEO performance and strategy. The information can be used to: 

• Keep track of the ranking of your keywords to ensure that  you reach and maintain a page 1 or 2 ranking.
• Keep track of the links to your site.
• Sometimes sites will remove your link after a period of time and if it is a reciprocal link then you need to remove the link to their site.
• Ensure that the sites that promised to link to your site comply.
• Keep track of the value of the links to your site to measure the success of your link strategy.
• Optimize your website effectively with the guidelines and information supplied by the "Optimization" report.
• Keep track of the optimization levels of your competitors (if your competitor has an overall optimization percentage of 80% and you sit on 60% then your competitor will be ranked higher). 

There are more uses for the information supplied by these reports and if used correctly these reports will become a valuable tool in your SEO success.