You’re paying for SEO, and every month a report lands in your inbox full of graphs and figures. But what do they actually mean — and how do you know if it’s working? This plain-English guide explains the numbers that matter for Derby and Derbyshire businesses, and what good progress looks like.
The core numbers (from Google Search Console)
Impressions
How many times your website appeared in Google’s search results. You don’t need to be clicked for an impression to count. Rising impressions are usually the first sign SEO is working — Google is starting to show you for more searches.
Clicks
How many times someone clicked through to your site from Google. This is real traffic.
Click-through rate (CTR)
Clicks divided by impressions. A low CTR on a page with lots of impressions often means the SEO title or meta description needs to be more compelling.
Average position
Your average ranking across all the searches you appeared for. Be careful with this one: as you start appearing for many new searches (often lower down at first), your average can temporarily dip even while things are improving.
Other things a good report should show
- Top searches — which terms people used to find you (e.g. “mobile mechanic Belper”).
- Top pages — which service, town or blog pages bring the most visitors.
- Work completed — new pages, blogs, optimisations made that month.
- Next steps — what’s planned and why.
- Enquiries — calls and form submissions, if tracked.
Example: reading a report
| Metric | Last month | This month | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Impressions | 4,200 | 6,100 | Google is showing you for more searches |
| Clicks | 95 | 140 | More visitors arriving from Google |
| CTR | 2.3% | 2.3% | Stable — titles doing their job |
| Avg position | 18.4 | 15.9 | Climbing overall |
Illustrative figures only — every business is different.
What does “good” look like?
Look for an upward trend over three to six months rather than judging a single month. Seasonality matters too: a gutter cleaner will see different patterns in autumn than in summer. Google itself suggests SEO typically takes four months to a year to show its benefits, so early reports are about direction, not destination.
Red flags in an SEO report
- Only vanity numbers, with no explanation.
- No list of work actually completed.
- Rankings for terms nobody searches.
- Promises of guaranteed number-one positions.
Local proof in Derbyshire
For VDL Vehicle Solutions, we built town pages for Derby, Ashbourne, Buxton and more. Reports let us see which town pages are gaining impressions and where to focus next — that’s what reporting should be for: making better decisions.
Clear reports, included
Every client on our pay monthly websites for Derby businesses gets reports in plain English, alongside a custom website, town pages, monthly SEO, hosting and a business email — £150 a month. Explore our website & SEO packages to learn more.
SEO you can actually see working
Custom website + monthly SEO + clear reports. £150 a month.
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