This accompaniment piece to our SpyFu RECON Files SEO Dashboard report walks you through the report, helping you understand how to present your results. Learn how to report and improve your SEO ranking on Google, and impress your clients with your SEO mastery.

2016 Update: Since this was published we added a new look to the report, but the benefits inside still stand.  See it for yourself!

We hope to help you understand each report section (starting with this first page) so you can emphasize the value you created. With that, selling SEO services becomes a breeze.

Next--watch Part 2, Showcasing Gains in your ROI

Welcome to the first page of your new SpyFu Recon report.

This is the place where you will, first and foremost, melt your clients’ faces off with your godlike ability to make the money.

Those ranks and click you’re gaining are now only starting blocks to the true value you provide, which is money in the bank.

Recon Files calculates and highlights this dollar sign, finally showing your client that you are, in fact, a hell-bent, moneymaking rock star.

Let’s get started.

The report opens with your Keyword Portfolio broken out into groups, based on how they rank.

Your core keywords are in red, ranking in the top five spots.

This is what you’ve been working towards, the section where you can tell your client, here is living proof of the success of our link-building and optimization efforts.

The blue section is base group, ranking 21 and lower.

When you see this growing, it shows that the new content you’re writing has gotten you ranked on shiny new keywords.

Present this saying, this is where we created opportunity for growth.

Even though we might not be at number one position yet, with more content creation and optimization, we’ll get there.

Keep in mind that the data shown here is rock solid and auditable in SpyFu’s prodigious cache.

In addition to hard data, Recon Files also explains the story of what you did well and where your campaign is succeeding.

This is a staple component through every part of SpyFu’s Recon Files.

Oh, what’s this.

That’s right.

It’s awesome.

More specifically, this is a graph that shows the number of pages you’ve ranked on organically and how they’ve evolved over the last 14 months.

If it goes up, you can tell your client, see those 50 pages we wrote for you last month.

Here are 46 of them that we are now ranked on– epic.

If it’s going down, use it for strategy.

Have a conversation with your clients about optimization or aging content.

In either case, this is direct measurable evidence of what you’re doing.

You love your ranks.

We know you do.

If you could take them out to dinner and afterwards have them feel you up in the back seat of a Winnebago, you would.

But to a customer, ranks only foreplay to clicks.

Given, only you and your Google Analytics data know the exact amount of clicks you’re earning each month.

SpyFu analyzes its own information to create a historical chart showing what organic clicks you should be earning each month on Google.

When this is put side by side with your own data, you’ll gain a better understanding of the differential and be able to present an accurate and compelling perspective at where the domain is succeeding and how it can be improved.

Clients enjoy watching ranks and clicks, like they enjoy watching monster trucks transform into dinosaurs and mash unsuspecting Volkswagens.
Yes, fun to look at, but how much tangible value does this spectacle provide.

This chart, however, finally shows the bottom line.

It will get your clients to think of SEO in terms of dollars, in terms of tangible, sweaty, cheddar in their pocket.

These numbers are generated from the estimated clicks in your last graph, with a price tag attached to each one presented as how much it would have cost to buy these clicks in Google AdWords instead of taking advantage of these immaculate rock star superpowers of SEO, or however you feel like phrasing it.

Again, these are estimated numbers.

But even if you were to take a fraction of this amount, it would still show your client your essential value.

This is where you finally stand on a level playing field with PPC.