Is Your SEO REPORT FAKE?

The SEO Report Checklist for Small Business Owners

Do you get an SEO report that tells you what your team is doing? When you open it, do you understand what it’s saying? NO. Is what we hear all the time and yea — that’s the problem. A lot of times, digital marketing companies send out SEO reports just so they can tick that box. But when you open it, it’s like you’re reading a foreign language. That’s not your fault. You’re not a digital marketing expert — they are. A real SEO report should tell you what the numbers mean, what’s working with the current strategy, what’s broken, and what they plan on doing next. When you work with us, we also coach you and tell you what you can be doing as well. Anything else is just lazy.

Here’s the SEO report checklist for small business owners who want to know if they’re getting the truth… or just paying for a pretty PDF.

1. What Real Analytics Should Include

If your team isn’t doing these things — which are pretty standard even with a small SEO marketing plan — then you should consider changing marketing teams, first off. But if they are doing these things, a legit SEO report should give you a clear picture of your marketing. At a minimum, you should see:

Traffic by source — Where people are finding you: search, social, direct visits, ads. (Side note: This might show up in tools like Ahrefs, but honestly, I don’t always see it there. It depends on the reporting setup.)
Keyword rankings — Your SEO team should have given you a list of keywords they planned to rank you for right from the start. You should have approved that list before they began. Your report should then show you the progress of that same list over time — not just one or two random keywords they think will look good.
Conversions — And this depends on your goals. If you’re doing lead generation, that’s calls, form submissions, purchases. If it’s brand awareness, it might just be visits or views.
Google Business Profile insights — Views, clicks, and actions on your local listing. (For nationwide companies, this is going to vary.)
Action items — A plan for what to do next based on the data. Basically: What is your team going to do to improve?

If you can’t find these in your report, your marketing team needs to cough up these results for you.

2. How Fake Reports Hide Under Buzzwords

Bad reports are just smoke and mirrors. They’re loaded with industry buzzwords that sound smart but mean nothing without context — and sometimes even the person sending the report doesn’t fully understand them.

Auto-generated – These are reports the system spits out and sends to you weekly or monthly with no thought or analysis. They’re full of industry terms with no explanation of what they mean for your business.
Overloaded charts and graphs – Fancy visuals that look impressive but don’t tell you anything. A real SEO team should tell you what those charts mean and what they’re going to do about it — not just dump visuals in your inbox.
Fluff metrics – Impressions, reach, or visibility score with no context. These numbers can be useful for comparison, but your team should explain them at least once — ideally in your first meeting or a monthly check-in — so you actually understand them.
No trends – If your marketing team can’t explain why a number went up or down, they’re guessing. A real report should tell you the reason for changes, good or bad, so you know whether to keep going or make adjustments.up or down.

If it’s all style and no substance, it’s not a real report.

3. Why Your Provider Should Explain It Without Jargon

No tech dictionary required. If your SEO team can’t explain what’s in your report in plain English, that’s a red flag.

Plain-English walkthrough – Your SEO person should be able to walk you through the report without drowning you in jargon. At Shelley’s Social Media, we give clients a meeting to review their reports, explain everything in plain English, and keep a definitions section on our website for reference.
Explain how metrics were achieved – They should give you a clear summary of the work that was done to get those numbers — not a full play-by-play. A good summary tells you enough to understand the effort and strategy without turning the report into an SEO training manual.
Explain what the numbers mean and why they happened – Sometimes changes happen because of Google updates, AI shifts, or platform tweaks. Even if there isn’t a clear reason right away, they should research it before writing the report.
Explain what they’re doing next – Reports should end with, “Here’s how we’re fixing it” or “Here’s how we’ll make it better.”
Own what they don’t know – It’s fine if they don’t have the answer right away, as long as they say, “I’ll find out and get back to you” — and then actually follow through.
No dodging questions – If they keep changing the subject, burying you in acronyms, or avoiding your calls, that’s a huge red flag.

4. Request a Real-Time Report Review

Free Report Review – Here at Shelley’s Social Media, we aren’t above helping you with questions you may have while you’re working with another team. If you’re working with our competitor, we still want you to get the best results possible. So if you open up a report and you just have questions about it, like you don’t know what it means or what it’s saying, you’re welcome to send it my way. I’ll get on the phone with you or schedule a meeting with you and just walk you through it.

If they are doing their job- I’ll be like, yeah, they’re doing their job here. I’ve done it many times before. Some SEO companies are bigger than us and they don’t always have time to talk to somebody right away, and that’s fine. I’m not dogging them. I’m just letting you know that if you have questions on your analytic report and you want us to look at it, we’re more than willing to do that. I’m not going to pitch you sales. I’m not going to dog the competitor. I’m not going to make you sign something. I’m just going to help you. That’s just the way I do things. You’re welcome.

-Shelley Iverson

Contact me today 608-218-4747