Guide Measurement and improvement
What a monthly website report should tell you (and what to ignore)
By Studio Swing
A monthly website report is useful if you can name a decision after reading it. It should fit on a page or two and open with what happened to your enquiries, bookings or orders, compared with the same period last year. It should then say what changed on the site that month, why the numbers moved, what is not known, and what happens next. Everything else is optional. If a report cannot tell you whether the website brought you business, it is a record of activity, not a report.
On this page
Fourteen pages and no answer
Say you own a dental clinic. Each month a freelancer sends you a 14-page PDF. This month’s report says your site was shown 48,000 times in Google, up 12%. Sessions are up 6%. Average position is 14.2. Bounce rate is 61%. A speed score is 78. There are eleven charts, each with an arrow. The figures here are invented.
You read it twice. You cannot tell whether more patients booked, whether the new treatments page did anything, or whether you should pay for more of whatever was done. You say “looks good” and move on, and next month the same thing arrives.
Now suppose the same month came as one page. It opens with “Booking requests from the website: 17, against 11 in the same month last year. Nine were new patients in your area.” It says what changed: “On the 8th we replaced the treatments page and added opening hours to every page.” It says what probably explains the rise: “The treatments-page change may have helped, but requests do not record which page led to them, so this is a hypothesis rather than measured attribution.” It says what is not known: “Calls are not tracked, so the report cannot establish the total number of enquiries.” And it ends with a decision: “Add the same opening-hours block to the contact page next month, and check whether requests from phones rise.”
The second report adds booking-request and qualification records to the traffic figures. It is shorter, honest about its limits, and tells you what to check next. Those records must exist before their totals can be reported.
The test: could you decide something?
Before you judge any number, ask one question of the whole report: after reading it, can I say what I would do, or stop doing, or ask about? If the answer is no, the problem is the report, not you.
This is a different question from the one in our guide on More traffic or better enquiries: the website KPIs that matter, which is about choosing the few numbers that matter. This guide is about reading, and asking for, the report that arrives.
What a useful report contains
1. The outcome, compared. Enquiries, bookings, orders or quote requests this month, against the same month last year or the previous three months, not just against last month. Alongside it, how many were qualified, and how many became customers if you track that. If you keep a record of each enquiry, as described in how to track where your website enquiries come from, the report should be reconciled with it.
2. What changed. Every change to the site that month, with a date: a page rewritten, a form changed, a campaign launched, a tracking fix. Without this list, nobody can say why a number moved, and a rise or fall is just a story.
3. Why it probably moved. One or two explanations with the evidence behind them. When we report on a site, we label each finding by how sure we are: a fact, an estimate, or something still to confirm. A report that states every explanation as certain is hiding something.
4. What is not known. The report should say plainly what the tools cannot see. With basic consent mode, Google tags stay blocked when consent is refused. Advanced consent mode can send cookieless signals. Behavioral modeling requires an eligible property and compatible reporting settings; do not assume a small site qualifies. Check the setup and report before calling totals modeled estimates. Phone calls and word of mouth do not appear at all unless someone records them. A report with no stated limits is claiming more than the data can support.
5. The next step. One action, who will do it, and what you will look at next month to know whether it worked.
6. One thing to watch. Something that looks wrong or fragile: a page that lost its enquiries, a form that has not sent a message in two weeks, a tracking tag that may have been removed.
Everything else, such as a breakdown of channels or a list of top pages, can sit in an appendix. It supports the page. It is not the page.
What to ignore, or treat with care
Many numbers in a report are real and still tell you little on their own.
| In the report | Why it needs care |
|---|---|
| Impressions, on their own | Google counts an impression when an item appears in the results, “whether or not the item is scrolled into view”. Being shown is not being seen, and not being chosen |
| Site-wide average position | It averages searches that matter with searches that do not, so it can describe neither. Position per search and per page is more useful. Search Console also notes that a search in your list may not show your site to everyone who types it |
| Total sessions or total visits | They rise for good reasons and useless ones. They matter as an explanation of enquiries, not as the outcome |
| Engagement or bounce figures with no comparison | In GA4, a session is “engaged” if it lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a key event or has 2 or more page views. That is a low bar and says nothing about interest in buying. A figure with no earlier figure beside it cannot tell you what changed |
| A single speed score | Speed matters to visitors. Google’s Core Web Vitals give clear targets: a loading time (Largest Contentful Paint) within 2.5 seconds, a responsiveness measure (Interaction to Next Paint) of 200 milliseconds or less, and a layout stability score (Cumulative Layout Shift) of 0.1 or less, at the 75th percentile of real visits. Treat it as a health check, not a result. Search Console’s report says “No data available” when it does not have enough real-visit data, which is normal on small sites |
| Key event counts with no check | Count a form enquiry once after verified acceptance, not merely a confirmation-page visit. Check duplicates, inbox delivery and how many were genuine separately |
| Totals with no source split | Where the enquiries came from decides what to do next |
| Charts with arrows but no dates | Say what period is compared with what |
None of these is wrong to include. They go wrong when they stand in for the outcome.
How to read a report in ten minutes
- 1. Find the outcome. Go to the first number that is about enquiries, bookings or orders. If it is on page nine, that tells you what the report is about.
- 2. Check the comparison. Is it against the same period last year, or a three-month total? A single month against the one before is easily moved by chance when numbers are small.
- 3. Find what changed. Is there a dated list of changes? Does the movement in step 1 line up with one of them?
- 4. Find the limits. Does it say what is not tracked or estimated?
- 5. Find the decision. What will be done next, by whom, and what will tell you it worked?
- 6. Look for one thing you do not understand and ask about it. Reports that cannot survive a plain question are a warning.
Questions to put to whoever sends it
- What was done this month, and what did each piece change?
- Which of these numbers came from a tool, and which is your estimate?
- How many of the enquiries were real, and how do you know?
- What can this report not tell me?
- If one thing moved because of your work, which was it, and how would we know?
- What will you do next month, and what should I see if it works?
- Can I log in to the tools and see these numbers myself? You should be able to. Without your own access, you cannot check what you are told.
Reports from someone who is paid by the month need these questions most. A fair provider welcomes them.
Keep your own copy of the key numbers
Tools do not keep everything forever. In Google Analytics, the data retention setting limits how far explorations and funnel reports can look back, to 2 or 14 months on a standard property, though standard reports are not affected. Search Console’s Performance report opens on the past three months by default. A short monthly table of your own, with the five numbers you read each month, survives a change of provider, a change of tool and a lost password. It is also the fastest way to answer “how did we do compared with last year?”
If nobody sends you a report
Build one yourself. A one-page version is described in More traffic or better enquiries: the website KPIs that matter: enquiries sent, qualified enquiries, where they came from, the pages that led to them, and one thing that looks wrong. Add two lines: what you changed on the site that month, and what you will do next.
What a better report will not do
A better report will not improve the site. It shows what is working so that someone can change something. It will not be precise: small numbers jump around, and three enquiries one month and six the next may be chance. It also takes a little discipline, since the qualified and customer figures depend on someone recording each enquiry.
A checklist you can use without us
- Does the report open with enquiries, bookings or orders, not traffic?
- Is each outcome compared with the same period last year or a three-month total?
- Is there a dated list of what changed on the site?
- Does it say which findings are facts, which are estimates and which are still to confirm?
- Does it state what is not tracked or only estimated?
- Does it end with one next step, an owner and a way to judge it?
- Can you log in to the tools yourself?
- Do you keep your own table of the key numbers?
- Could you name a decision after reading it?
Where to go next
If you would like reports like this for your site, our analytics and measurement service explains how we approach it. The numbers behind them are explained in More traffic or better enquiries: the website KPIs that matter, and the tools in Google Analytics and Search Console, explained simply. When you want to talk about your own site, you can discuss your project.
Sources
1. Analytics Help, Engagement rate and bounce rate
2. Analytics Help, About key events
3. Analytics Help, Consent mode on websites and mobile apps
4. Analytics Help, Data retention
5. Search Console Help, Performance report (search results)
6. Search Console Help, What are impressions, position, and clicks?