What is an SEO performance dashboard
An SEO performance dashboard is visual software that collects your SEO data from scattered SEO tools — from keyword rankings to new/lost backlinks to page performance and more — in one place. It allows you to monitor all the KPIs you need to see the results of your organic searches optimization.
What a really useful SEO client dashboard should look like?
A user-friendly SEO dashboard should be designed with the client’s experience in mind. It should make it easy for them to access, understand, and act on the displayed data. Here are the features that best SEO dashboards for clients share:
1. Clear and intuitive layout
The dashboard should have a clean, declutered UI that allows clients to quickly find what they need. Every key section should be labeled clearly and the overall structure should flow logically, presenting the most important information first with detailed analysis to follow. Related metrics should be grouped together to help clients easily find what they are looking for. If you can also use tabs to present different types of data, e.g. organic traffic, technical SEO, overview, etc.
2. Focus on key metrics
The focus of your SEO KPI dashboard should be the most critical SEO metrics that align with the client's business goals, such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, conversion rates, and ROI. The last thing you need is to overwhelm the client with too many metrics. Start with a high-level summary that provides a quick overview of overall SEO performance. There you could include top-level metrics, such as total organic traffic, top-performing keywords, and a brief note on any significant changes or trends.
3. Customization options
The dashboards should allow you to easily adapt it to each client's specific needs and preferences. A customizable SEO dashboard lets you select which metrics to display, adjusting date ranges, or highlighting specific campaigns or keywords that are important to the clients. The personalization that includes client’s branding and color theme increases their engagement and strengthens the agency-client relationship.
4. Contextual explanations
Your SEO dashboard software should make it easy to provide brief textual explanations for each metric so clients can understand what each data point means. This is especially helpful for clients who are most likely nor familiar with SEO terminology. Also, use these text widgets to offer brief recommendations based on data. For example, if the SEO ranking dashboard shows that a certain keyword is rising in rankings, suggest optimizing more content around that keyword. This way you are not just presenting the current state but also offering next steps.
How to make your agency SEO dashboard even more useful?
A really useful SEO dashboard should include helpful features and data that allow your team to track clients’ organic traffic, analyze conversions from SEO, newly built and reclaimed links, and overall make smarter choices while you execute your SEO strategy. But why not connect more data sources? Instead of looking at multiple dashboards, connect all your client’s social media platforms, plus Google Analytics 4 and even e-commerce and PPC platforms like Google Ads or Facebook Ads, to monitor the entire digital marketing strategy from one place.
What does our SEO dashboard template include?
Organic traffic
One of the most important goals of a SEO strategy is to drive more search traffic to your client’s websites. A solid organic strategy makes a website more visible to potential customers without them feeling as if they are being sold something. Organic traffic shows how many sessions to the client's website are coming from search engines.
Conversions from organic
Measuring the number of conversions your client gets from organic traffic is directly related to the success of your SEO strategy. Conversions are leads who have completed a campaign’s call-to-action (CTA). They are counted when a lead comes to your client’s website from organic search and performs a specific action, like filling out the register form. This simple number gives you and your clients a general idea if your SEO efforts are bringing fruit. However, to get a bigger picture, you need to compare the goal completions to other metrics, to better understand the potential bottlenecks in your funnel.
Keyword rankings
Keyword rankings of a website are essential to the success of your SEO campaign. It’s simple — if a client’s website doesn’t rank high, it won’t be visible to customers, it won't have many visitors, and won’t see many conversions. Our SEO dashboard allows you to measure change in keyword rankings across different search engine platforms. While it’s possible that this metric will have its ups and downs, you should look for an overall upward trend. This way, you can easily tell your clients where their website ranks.
New and lost backlinks
Search engines rank sites of authority higher than others. This is why part of your SEO strategy is to make your client’s sites more authoritative. One way to do this is by getting other websites to link back to their website through guest posts or blog links. In Whatagraph, you can easily see how many new backlinks you’ve gained and how many existing backlinks you lost over a period of time with data coming directly from Ahrefs. If you are losing a lot of links, you may reevaluate your outreach strategy. On the other hand, if you’re getting a lot of new backlinks but your SEO rank isn't improving, you probably need to dig deeper to find the real issue.
Links built
At some point, clients will ask how many backlinks you have built for their website. This figure may also be in your agency contract and even determine whether you get pain from your services. Tracking the number of backlinks gives your clients an idea of how much effort you put into their campaigns and the success that is coming because of it.
Top landing pages
Your client’s landing pages are perhaps the most important part of the website. They are often the first point of contact for a potential customer and can lead to conversions or bounces. Our SEO dashboard template uses Google Analytics 4 data to identify which pages drive the most organic traffic for your clients. This information helps you decide which landing page strategy is most effective, which helps you create more pages with the same strategy to replicate success.
Tracking SEO goals
Our goal widget is a handy way to show your clients how your SEO efforts align with their objectives by tracking organic goals and revenue. By measuring progress against set goals, you provide a clear insight into the value of your agency’s work. This level of transparency builds trust and helps clients understand the value of your efforts on their business success.