Blog · 29 October 2026 · 8 min read
Six Numbers Worth Reading, and Twelve Worth Ignoring
Most local SEO reports are twenty pages long because length is easier to produce than clarity. Six numbers tell you everything you can act on.
Length is not evidence of work
A twenty page report is usually a sign that nobody decided what mattered. It is easier to export eleven charts than to explain two.
I have inherited clients who received a monthly deck for two years and could not tell me whether their visibility had improved.
The test for a report is simple. After reading it, can you say what changed, why, and what happens next? If not, it failed regardless of its length.
Here are the six lines I include, annotated with what each one is actually telling you.
The six numbers that belong on the page
Each of these answers a question an owner actually asks. Nothing else earns a place.
1. Average position across a grid of points
Not your rank at one spot. A grid shows how far your visibility reaches, and the average across it is the most honest single number in local SEO. Read the change, not the absolute value.
2. Number of grid points in the top three
Average position hides the thing that pays. Being fourth everywhere earns far less than being second across a third of the area, and this line separates those two cases.
3. Calls from the profile
Taken from the profile insights, not from your phone system. It undercounts, and that is acceptable as long as you only ever compare it to itself.
4. Sessions attributed to the profile
Only meaningful if the profile link is tagged. Untagged, this number is a guess dressed up as data, which is why tagging has to come before reporting.
5. New reviews and the running average
Count and rating together. Four new reviews at 4.2 is a different month from four at 5.0, and the running average is what a customer actually sees.
6. Enquiries that became customers
The number only you can supply. Without it the report measures activity rather than outcome, and every other line is a proxy for this one.
The lines to cut, and why
These appear in most reports I inherit. None of them change a decision.
Profile views and impressions
They move with seasonality and with how Google displays results, not with your work. A rise here alongside flat calls means nothing improved.
Keyword counts and density
An internal process measure, not a result. Nobody has ever made a useful decision from learning that a page contains a phrase nine times.
Citations submitted this month
Volume of submissions says nothing about whether the records are correct. Report corrected inconsistencies instead, because that is the part that does work.
Posts published
Posts are worth doing for the people already looking at you, but counting them reports effort rather than effect.
Domain authority scores
A third-party estimate of something Google does not publish. It drifts for reasons unconnected to your business and invites arguments about nothing.
Bounce rate on a service page
Someone who reads your page and then phones you is recorded as a failure. For a local business this metric is close to meaningless.
How the page should read
Six numbers, last month beside this month, and three sentences underneath saying what changed and why.
Then one line on what is being done next month. Not a list of eleven tasks. One priority.
If a number went the wrong way, say so in the first sentence rather than the last paragraph. Burying it costs more trust than the dip itself.
Everything else belongs in an appendix nobody has to read, or in the raw tools where it came from.
What to do when a number moves
A drop in grid points in the top three, with position flat, usually means a competitor improved rather than you declining. Check their review count before touching anything.
Calls down with sessions up is a conversion problem on the website, not a visibility problem on the profile.
Everything down at once, sharply, means something structural: a suspension, a duplicate, a changed primary category, or a site that stopped loading.
The diagnostic order for that case is set out in my local SEO audit guide.
The reporting that happens before the report
Two of the six numbers only exist if you set them up in advance. Grid readings need a baseline, and profile sessions need the link tagged.
If you have neither, your first month is not a report, it is a baseline, and saying so is more useful than inventing comparisons.
The tagging side takes about fifteen minutes and is covered step by step in my piece on measuring profile traffic in GA4.
The baseline side needs a grid reading taken before any work starts, which is the first thing included in a GMB audit.
Why one page is the right length
A one page report gets read. A twenty page report gets filed, and an unread report cannot inform a decision no matter how accurate it is.
One page also forces the person writing it to have an opinion, which is the part most reports are missing.
If your current report does not let you answer what changed and why, ask for the six lines above and let the rest go.
That is the format I send every month, and it is part of how I work with clients.
A sample month, written out
Average grid position 6.4, from 7.1. Grid points in the top three, 9 from 6. Profile calls 41, from 38. Profile sessions 180, from 142. New reviews 5 at an average of 4.8, running score 4.7. Enquiries that became customers, 7 from 5.
What changed: the primary category was corrected at the start of the month and two duplicate directory records were merged.
Why it moved: the category correction made the listing eligible for searches it had been excluded from, which shows up as more grid points in the top three rather than as a better average.
Next month: review requests at the counter, because the review count is now the weakest line against the two competitors above you.
That is the whole report. Six numbers, three sentences, one priority.
Why the comparison period matters more than the numbers
Month against previous month is the right default, because it is short enough to connect a change to a cause.
Month against the same month last year is the right comparison for a seasonal business, and using the wrong one of these two produces false alarms every spring and autumn.
Never compare against the best month you ever had. It turns an ordinary month into a failure and encourages changes that were not needed.
If the work started mid-month, say so on the report rather than comparing a partial month to a full one.
Questions to ask about a report you already receive
Where were the grid readings taken, and were they taken the same way last month? If the answer is vague, the trend line is not a trend line.
Is the session figure based on a tagged link? If not, it is an estimate, and it should be labelled as one.
Which single thing on this report would change what we do next month? If nothing would, the report is a receipt rather than a decision tool.
What went wrong this month? Every month has something. A report with no bad news in it has been edited rather than written.
Written by Waseem Abbas. More about how I work, or see client results with the screenshots.
Want this checked on your own account?
Send your business name and city and I will run a geo-grid check and a profile audit, then tell you what is actually wrong.