A local rank report for a client shows the grid heatmap for the main keyword, three numbers with last month’s beside them, the competitor who gained, the changes you made and the one you plan next. It fits on a page, goes out monthly from weekly scans, and carries the agency’s name rather than the tool’s.
What a client wants to know
A client has three questions, and rarely asks any of them in those words.
Is the phone ringing more? This is the real one. A rank report cannot answer it, and it should say so. What it can do is show the thing that comes before the phone: how many of the streets around the business see the client in the top 3. If that grew, the report has done its job.
Where do we win and where do we lose? A client knows their town. Show them a map with their shop in the middle, green to the north and red to the south, and they will tell you why the south is red before you finish the sentence. A rank number cannot start that conversation. A grid can.
What did you do? The client is paying for work, and the report is where the work is seen. One list of what changed this month, and one line on what is planned, is enough.
The report that holds up
The report that still makes sense a year later has the same six parts every month, in the same order. The client learns to read it in two reports and stops needing a call to go through it.
| Section | What it answers | One line example |
|---|---|---|
| Grid heatmap, main keyword | Where do we win and lose? | 7×7 grid, 500 m spacing, “emergency plumber”, Google Maps. Green to the north, red south of the river. |
| Three numbers, with last month | Are we moving? | Found at 46 of 49 points (was 41). ATRP 5.8 (was 7.2). Share of local voice 43% (was 35%). |
| The competitor who gained | Who is taking the spots? | One listing now holds rank 1 at 9 points on the east side, up from 2 last month. |
| Changes made | What did you do? | Primary category corrected on 4 October. Six reviews requested from Riverside customers; four posted. |
| Next planned change | What happens next? | A service page for the south side, live before the next scan. |
| What the numbers cannot show | Is the phone ringing? | This report measures visibility. Calls and bookings come from your phone log and booking system. |
The examples in the table are made up to show the shape of each line.
The three numbers deserve a word each. Found at N of M points is how much of the grid the business covers. ATRP is the average rank with each missing point counted as 21, which means it cannot be improved by disappearing from the hard streets, and that is why it belongs in a client report rather than ARP. Share of local voice is the percentage of points in the top 3, the part of the list people read. Put last month’s figure beside each one. A number on its own is a fact. A number beside last month’s is a story.
Quote the grid with every number. “43%” means little on its own. “43% on a 7×7 at 500 m spacing” says what was measured, and it stops next month’s number being set against a different grid.
The last row matters more than it looks. A line saying what the report cannot measure is what makes the client trust the lines above it.
What to leave out
- Every keyword’s grid. Track five keywords, report one. Put the main keyword’s grid on the page and the others in a sentence: “The four other keywords moved the same way.” If one did not, that is a line, not another map.
- Raw data. The CSV is for you. A client does not want 49 rows of coordinates and ranks. Keep the export for the month you need to prove something.
- Jargon. Write “found at 46 of 49 points”, not “coverage ratio”. Explain “average rank, with missing points counted as 21” once, in a footnote, and then write “average rank”.
- Daily movement. A chart of 30 daily readings jumping between 4 and 6 tells a client the tool is broken. Report the scan that stands for the month, and the trend across months.
- Anything that needs a paragraph. If a metric cannot be explained in one sentence, it belongs in the agency’s own notes.
How often to send it
Scan weekly, report monthly. The weekly scans are for you: they show a change the week it happens and let you tie it to what you did that week. The monthly report is for the client: it shows movement over a span long enough to be real. How often to check local rankings goes into the schedule and the points it costs.
Use the same scan each month. If the report shows the scan from the second Tuesday, show the second Tuesday every month. Same grid, same spacing, same keyword, same engine. The moment any of those changes, the “was” column stops meaning anything, and you owe the client a note saying so.
This is the part a tracker does for you. RankShark Track runs the weekly scans on a schedule, keeps 25 months of them, puts any two side by side, and emails the report on the day you set, with the grid and the three numbers for each keyword. The CSV export is there when you want the raw data for your own notes.
Whose name goes on it
The client should see the agency, not the tool. That means the agency’s name and logo on the report, the agency’s domain on the share link, and no vendor name in the client’s inbox. A client who sees a tool’s logo starts wondering what the agency adds. A client who sees the agency’s logo on a clean grid sees the agency doing the work.
A share link beats a PDF. The client opens it on their phone, sees this month’s grid and numbers, and can look back at earlier months on their own. A PDF is read once and lost in the inbox. White-label reports, branded share links, a report domain of your own and a client portal come with Track on Pro and up; the Track plans show where that line sits.
Next step: pick the client’s main keyword, set a weekly scan on a fixed grid, and send the report after the fourth scan, when there is a “was” to put beside the “is”.