Google Business Profile reporting for clients: what to show every month, and what to leave out

The monthly report is where agencies lose accounts without noticing. A client who does not understand what they paid for last month will not understand why they should pay this month, and a report full of impressions and rank screenshots does not help them understand. The report that keeps accounts answers one question: what did you do, and what happened because of it? Here is the version that works, section by section, and the sections to drop.

Lead with what the customer did, not what Google showed

Google’s own performance data for a profile includes calls from the listing, direction requests, and website clicks, broken out for the period and the one before it. These are the numbers a business owner understands without translation: the phone rang this many times from Google, this many people asked for directions, this many clicked through. Put them first, with the change from last month, and say in one sentence whether the change is seasonal, the result of something you did, or noise. Impressions go later and smaller; they are context, not results.

Reviews: coverage and tone, not just the count

Report four things about reviews. New reviews this month, and the average rating of those new reviews, which moves faster than the lifetime rating and shows whether the business is improving. Reply coverage, the share of reviews with a published reply, which should be at or near one hundred percent if you are doing the job. Time to reply, because a reply within the hour and a reply within the week are different services. And any reviews that were reported, appealed, or removed, with the outcome, because that is work the client never sees happening.

Activity: what was published

Photos posted, updates published, events and offers, with dates. This is the section that proves the retainer was earned on the quiet weeks when nothing dramatic happened. Keep it to counts and two or three thumbnails. A client does not need every caption, but they need to know the profile was alive every week.

Standing: the section that is usually missing

Every report should say, in a line, that the profile is verified, in good standing, and was checked daily for changes, and list any changes Google detected: a category someone edited, hours that moved, a phone number that changed. If a profile was suspended or asked to re-verify during the month, the report should carry the case: what happened, what was filed, where it stands. This is the single most valuable thing an agency does for a client and it is almost never in the report, because on a good month it reads as nothing happened. Write it anyway. Nothing happened because you were watching.

Health: one score, and the three fixes

A single profile health score, out of a hundred, with the number from last month beside it, is enough. Underneath it, the three fixes that would move the score most, each with the points it is worth. That gives the client a reason to answer your email when you need a photo of the new signage or a decision about categories. Do not show the whole audit. Nobody reads forty findings, and a long list makes the three that matter look optional.

What to leave out

• Rank screenshots from your own desk. They show the rank at one point, for one query, personalised to your account. If you report rank, report it from a grid of points across the service area, and say which points.
• Impression totals as the headline. They rise and fall with Google’s interface changes and tell the owner nothing about customers.
• Industry benchmarks you cannot source. An invented average rating for plumbers is a liability the first time a client checks it.
• Anything the client has to decode. If a metric needs a footnote to explain what it is, it does not belong on page one.

The one-page layout

1. Headline: calls, directions, website clicks, each with the change from last month and one sentence of interpretation.
2. Reviews: new reviews and their average, reply coverage, time to reply, any cases and outcomes, one pasted reply.
3. Activity: photos, updates, events, with three thumbnails.
4. Standing: verified, checked daily, changes detected, cases open.
5. Health: the score, last month’s score, three fixes with points.
6. Next month: the two things you will do and the one thing you need from them.

Writing the interpretation line

Every number on page one gets one sentence of meaning, and that sentence is the part of the report the client actually reads. Calls up twelve percent in a month when you added the emergency service category is a result. Calls down nine percent in January for a landscaper is a season. Direction requests flat while website clicks doubled after the new photos is a change in how people choose. Write the sentence before you paste the number, and if you cannot write it, leave the number off page one. A report with four numbers and four honest sentences beats a dashboard with forty.

Frequency and format

Monthly, on the same day, as a PDF the client can forward and a short email that says the three things that matter. For multi-location clients, one page per location plus a cover page with the portfolio totals and the locations that need attention. The report should take you minutes to produce, which means the numbers have to be in one place already: the same workspace that answered the reviews and posted the photos should be able to say what it did.