A keyword performance report is a document that consolidates data from multiple sources (e.g., Google Search Console, SEMrush, Ahrefs) to track and display key performance indicators (KPIs) (e.g., keyword rankings, search volume, click-through rate), enabling teams and agencies to monitor keyword performance and create presentations for clients and executives.
Keyword performance reports are typically created using flexible tools like Google Looker Studio, Power BI, Google Sheets, or platform-specific solutions to enable high customization and integration of multiple data sources.
An actionable keyword performance report balances context and specificity based on the audience (executives, managers, and analysts) and their use cases.
Executive reports for CMOs, CEOs, and clients show the impact of keyword strategies on business goals. Reviewed weekly, monthly, or quarterly, they include:
Manager reports have cross-channel views with drill-downs to see performance by keyword, region, team member, and campaign. They help align teams, define tactics, and include:
Operational reports for analysts and SEO managers have granular, customizable KPIs to solve technical issues. Monitored hourly, daily, or weekly, they cover:
Operational keyword performance reports are highly customized, built in flexible tools like Google Sheets or Looker Studio to enable data cleaning, blending, annotations, and integrating multiple sources.
To build a keyword performance report, connect your data sources, choose a template on Looker Studio or Sheets, build your queries by selecting metrics and dimensions, choose charts to visualize your data, customize the report, design and share via link, PDF or email.
Here’s the breakdown:
Define and connect the data sources to bring to your report. Common sources are Google Search Console for keyword data, SEMrush or Ahrefs for competitive analysis, and Google Analytics for traffic data.
To connect your data sources, go to portermetrics.com, choose the data sources to bring to your report.
You can follow these tutorials on connecting your data:
Choose from dozens of keyword performance report templates in Google Sheets or Looker Studio, designed for use cases like keyword tracking, competitive analysis, and content performance.
Learn to copy Looker Studio templates.
While templates are the starting point. Make them specific for your business or agency. Map your specific metrics, especially custom keyword conversions, search data, and all the fields and metrics that you define as "conversions" and "revenue".
Depending on your reporting tool—Google Sheets or Google Looker Studio, pick any of the dozens of templates created by our team and customers to solve your keyword performance reporting use cases, such as keyword tracking, competitive analysis, and content performance.
Once your report template is downloaded, you may 1)modify it or 2) create a blank page to build it from scratch. Whatever the case, setting up a query always follows these steps:
You can follow these tutorials on adding data to your reports
To make your keyword performance reports truly white-label you can add logos, colors, fonts, and styling to mirror your brand.
Follow these tutorials to design your keyword performance reports:
Share your keyword performance reports via links, PDF, schedule emails, and control permissions.
Keyword performance reports should include a mix of visibility, engagement, conversion, efficiency, effectiveness, and cost metrics and KPIs to fully understand the performance of keyword strategies towards business goals. They include:
Keyword performance KPIs measure the effectiveness of keyword strategies across channels:
Efficiency KPIs compare your keyword outputs to the cost, including:
Effectiveness KPIs compare the input with the output from one stage to another
Sales and cost KPIs show the bottom-line impact of your keyword performance:
To analyze these keyword performance KPIs, segment them by:
