The best SEO reporting tools, and the free one that covers most founders

Start with Looker Studio. Connect Google Search Console for pre-click data and GA4 for post-click. This covers most founders without a subscription.

• Search Console shows queries, pages, impressions, clicks and positions. It is the truth for your own search performance.
• GA4 shows sessions, pages, events and conversions. It is event-based and post-click.
• The two never reconcile exactly. Treat them as different lenses for the same pages.

Put both in one Looker Studio report and you can answer: which queries grow, which pages win or stall, and what those clicks do on the site.

• Headline numbers: clicks from Search Console, sessions from organic in GA4, signups or leads from organic in GA4.
• Movement: a table of queries up and down, filtered to your brand removed, last 28 days vs previous 28.
• Pages to act on: a list of pages with impressions up but clicks flat, from Search Console.
• Conversion pages: /pricing, /signup or your main lead page, with organic entrances, events and conversion rate in GA4.
• Striking distance: queries with average position 8 to 20 and impressions over a threshold you pick.
• Content decay: pages where clicks fell three periods in a row.
• Technical health: Core Web Vitals status and any indexing issues worth fixing now.
• Notes and next actions: three bullets you will ship before the next report.

An example page to flag: /guides/getting-started shows impressions rising, clicks low and an average position just outside page one. Raise its title and add two internal links from /guides/.

1. 1

   Create the report and add Search Console

   In Looker Studio, create a blank report. Add the Search Console connector. Pick your property and the Site Impression table for queries and pages.

2. 2

   Add GA4 for post-click

   Add the GA4 connector. Select your property and the Events dataset. You will use session source/medium and event conversions later.

3. 3

   Build your overview

   Add scorecards for Search Console clicks and GA4 sessions from organic. Add a date control for Last 28 days with a comparison period.

4. 4

   Queries up and down

   Create a table with Query, Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position. Add a comparison to previous period and sort by Clicks change. Exclude brand terms with a filter like Query does not contain "yourproduct".

5. 5

   Pages with impressions rising, clicks flat

   Create a pages table from Search Console. Add Clicks and Impressions with period comparison. Filter to Impressions change greater than zero and Clicks change near zero.

6. 6

   Striking distance view

   Add a table with Query and Average position. Filter Average position between 8 and 20 and Impressions above your chosen number. Sort by Impressions.

7. 7

   Organic conversions

   From GA4, add a table with Landing page, Sessions, Conversions. Filter Session source/medium contains google, organic or bing, organic.

8. 8

   Core Web Vitals snapshot

   Link to Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report or embed a simple table of affected pages by status using the Search Console connector’s Page dimension and Search appearance if available.

9. 9

   Notes panel

   Add a text box where you write what you will ship before the next report: titles to test, links to add, pages to refresh.

• Source of truth: does the tool report your own data or estimates. Search Console and GA4 are first-party for your site.
• Job to be done: rank tracking, crawling, backlink checks and keyword research are different jobs. Do not force one tool to do all.
• Transparency: can you see how a number is built. A table you can audit beats a compound score you cannot.
• Update cadence: live dashboards for ongoing work, one-off reports for direction, suites for research sprints.
• Audience: founder-only, a small team or a client. Tools for agencies add white labelling and multi-client rollups.
• Time to maintain: every extra data source breaks sometimes. Fewer moving parts win for a small site.

Use each tool for what it is built for. Pull out the one chart or table you need. Avoid copying whole dashboards you will not act on.

• Ahrefs is known for its backlink index and Site Explorer. It also has Keywords Explorer, Site Audit, Rank Tracker and Content Explorer. Its Domain Rating is link-based from 0 to 100. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is free for verified sites, useful for your own site’s crawl and links.
• Semrush is a broad suite: Keyword Magic Tool, Position Tracking, Site Audit, Backlink Analytics and competitive research, plus advertising and content modules. It has an Authority Score. Good when you need a big research sprint or to watch many competitors.
• Moz Pro includes Keyword Explorer, Link Explorer, Site Crawl, Rank Tracking and an On-Page Grader. Domain Authority is Moz’s score, 0 to 100 and logarithmic. The MozBar extension is free. Their education is long-standing.
• SE Ranking covers rank tracking, website audit, keyword and competitive research, backlinks and on-page checks, with agency features. Often chosen as the affordable full suite.
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop crawler for Windows, macOS and Linux. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs. The licence unlocks unlimited crawls, custom extraction, scheduling and API connections. It produces tables you interpret yourself.
• Sitebulb is a desktop crawler for Windows and macOS with a cloud version. It is known for explained audit hints with priorities and visual crawl maps.
• Majestic runs a link index only, with Trust Flow and Citation Flow scores and Topical Trust Flow. No keyword research or audits.
• Mangools packages five tools for beginners and small teams: KWFinder, SERPChecker, SERPWatcher, LinkMiner and SiteProfiler. Its link data comes from Majestic.
• Ubersuggest offers keyword ideas, content ideas, a site audit, rank tracking and backlink data with a free daily allowance. Its data is smaller than the large suites.
• SpyFu specialises in the search and paid keyword history of domains, with Kombat for keyword overlap, and backlink outreach lists. Weaker for your own site’s deep audit.

How to report from these without clutter: export one table and paste it on a slide, or connect via a community connector if it exists. Keep Looker Studio as the hub, not the warehouse for every metric you could track.

• Core Web Vitals: report pass or fail by template and count of affected pages from Search Console. Watch LCP 2.5 s, CLS 0.1, INP 200 ms.
• Page-level checks: run PageSpeed Insights for your top pages. It runs Lighthouse and shows Chrome UX Report field data.
• Lab tests: Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools is fine for local testing. GTmetrix and WebPageTest add waterfalls and test locations.
• Crawl health: run Screaming Frog or Sitebulb after changes. Report key counts: noindex pages you expect, 404s, redirect chains, and missing titles.

A fixed example: /pricing fails LCP on mobile. You compress the hero image and preload the font. Next month it passes and conversions from organic rise in GA4.

Add Bing Webmaster Tools to your checklist. It is free and includes backlinks, keyword research and IndexNow. Useful to spot indexing or link issues you missed.

If you report coverage, state clearly which engine each number comes from. Do not mix Bing and Google into one figure. Keep Search Console as the base for Google clicks and impressions.

If you run client sites, agency reporting tools save time. For your own startup, they are often more than you need.

• AgencyAnalytics and DashThis exist to assemble multi-source dashboards and scheduled PDFs at scale. Pick them when you must ship the same format to many recipients.
• Suites like Semrush and SE Ranking include client-facing reports and white labelling. Choose them when you already use the suite and want reporting in the same place.
• For a single in-house site, Looker Studio with Search Console and GA4 is enough. You control the layout and can explain every number.

A live dashboard answers how you are doing now. A one-off report answers what to do next and why. They are different jobs.

• Use your Looker Studio dashboard weekly to spot movement and breakages.
• Commission or write a one-off audit when you need a plan: site structure, content gaps, rivals and what to ship first.
• Be clear on scope. A one-off report should name pages to change, queries to target and links to earn, then you return to the dashboard to track the changes.

We make Porteur, a growth report bought once from a URL with a free check first. It is not a rank tracker or a crawler you run yourself, and not a subscription.

Add light research to your report when you plan content. Use the right tool for the job and keep it to one slide or one tab.

• Keyword ideas: Search Console queries, Google autocomplete, People also ask, Google Trends. For depth, Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, Semrush Keyword Magic Tool, Moz Keyword Explorer or Mangools KWFinder.
• Rank tracking: Search Console’s Performance report is the free one and the only one that is Google’s own figure. If you need daily positions, use a rank tracker like Semrush Position Tracking, Ahrefs Rank Tracker, SE Ranking, AccuRanker, Nightwatch or Mangools SERPWatcher.
• Backlinks: Search Console’s Links report is free for your own site, a sample only. For wider checks use Ahrefs Site Explorer, Semrush Backlink Analytics, Moz Link Explorer or Majestic. Bing Webmaster Tools also offers Backlinks with a rival comparison.
• Questions research: AnswerThePublic and AlsoAsked show what people ask around a term. Keywords Everywhere adds volumes into the results page. Use these to brief a page, not to pad a dashboard.

AI overviews and assistants can intercept some queries. Track them if they affect your buyers, but keep them separate from search KPIs.

• Tools include Profound, Peec AI, Otterly, Scrunch, Semrush’s AI toolkit and Ahrefs Brand Radar. You can also ask the assistants a list of buyer questions on a schedule and log what they cite.
• Report counts of answers that cite you, and which pages are picked. Do not convert these into traffic estimates. Ship pages that an assistant can cite with clear answers and sources.