What you receive in the last week of every month
A worked example of the report structure for a Growth plan. The figures are illustrative, chosen to show what each section looks like; they are not a client's data. The structure, the order and the honesty are what you can expect. No vanity metrics, no 40-page PDF.
Illustrative example. All numbers below are made up to demonstrate the format.
1. Headline numbers Organic + AI referrals · vs previous 28 days
| Metric | This month | Last month | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic clicks (Google) | 8,410 | 7,920 | +6.2% |
| Impressions | 176,300 | 168,900 | +4.4% |
| Average CTR | 4.8% | 4.7% | +0.1 pt |
| AI referrals (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot) | 212 | 148 | +43% |
| Leads attributed to organic + AI | 61 | 54 | +13% |
| Pages indexed / submitted | 1,204 / 1,210 | 1,171 / 1,206 | +33 indexed |
2. What we did Hours: 41 of 40 planned
| Item | Status | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Rebuilt 6 category pages with answer-first intros and visible FAQ text | Shipped | 4 of 6 gained impressions; 2 cited in AI Overviews |
| Fixed canonical loop on paginated listings (312 URLs) | Shipped | Index coverage +33 pages |
| Published llms.txt, opened OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot in robots.txt | Shipped | First ChatGPT referrals 9 days later |
| Product schema with offers on 480 listings | Shipped | Eligible listings validated; rich results appearing on recrawl |
| Data study: "Average response time by category" for PR | Drafted | Outreach next month |
3. Where we are cited Tracked weekly across 40 prompts
| Assistant | Prompts where cited | Last month |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews | 9 / 40 | 6 / 40 |
| ChatGPT search | 11 / 40 | 7 / 40 |
| Perplexity | 14 / 40 | 12 / 40 |
4. What did not work We say it here, not in month six
The two "near me" service pages lost positions after a local update; the profile category was wrong and has been corrected. The blog cluster on pricing has impressions but no clicks; titles are being rewritten and the pages consolidated from five to two.
5. Next month Decision list for the call
- Approve the PR study for outreach.
- Choose between refreshing the 20 oldest guides or building the new location pages first.
- Grant Bing Webmaster Tools access (ChatGPT search uses Bing's index).
Shown for a plan at the Growth level. Starter reports are shorter; Scale reports add an executive summary and forecast.
How to read each section
Headline numbers compare the last 28 days with the 28 before, and the report also states the same period last year where the history exists, because seasonality explains more month-to-month movement than SEO does. Clicks and impressions are from Search Console. AI referrals are GA4 sessions whose referrer is an assistant, so they undercount visits where the referrer is stripped. Leads are the key events you and we agreed count as a lead. Indexed against submitted pages is the quickest health check for the site's foundations.
What we did lists each item shipped with its status and the effect we can see so far. Where an item has not had time to show, the effect column says so instead of claiming one. Hours are stated against the plan's allowance.
Where we are cited is a fixed panel of prompts per topic, run on a schedule across the assistants. Because AI answers change between runs, this is a sample and a trend, not a rank. We say that in the report every month so nobody reads 11 of 40 as a fixed position.
What did not work is the section most reports leave out. It exists because a bad month that is explained in month two is a plan; a bad month discovered in month six is a dispute.
Next month is a short decision list. The call is spent on those decisions, not on re-reading the numbers.
What is not in the report
- A ranking table as the headline. Rankings appear as one trend line for a fixed keyword set, further down.
- Percentages without base numbers, or charts without a period and a source.
- Traffic from paid channels counted as organic, or a seasonal peak reported as growth.
- Any figure we cannot show you the source for in your own accounts.
How the report is produced
The numbers come from Search Console, GA4, Bing Webmaster Tools, the rank tracker and the prompt panel, pulled in the last week of the month. A person writes the commentary; nothing in sections two, four and five is generated automatically. The analytics and reporting page explains the measurement setup behind it, and the results page explains the timelines we plan around.
Want this for your site?
Month one starts with the audit and the plan; the first report arrives at the end of month one.