Charlie
I feel your pain! Firstly, I'd have thought maybe weekly reporting is a bit much.
You can use tools like Google data studio to make reports – you tried that?

Matt
tell him the level you're willing to report and to stop pretending hes el jefe. clients are pricks and think cause they are paying you $$ they can ask you this and that. seriously.
ask him to tell you exactly what and how to report to him, and you then are able to produce…but I bet he doesn't even know what to do with the data. clowns.
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Patricio ^🎓
You need to make boundaries, to be honest. One thing I have learned dealing with clients (we have 100+ active subscriptions btw) is that you need to be firm on your ground and give them firsthand what they can expect from you. Many, many, many, many, many of my clients are not very good people. Some are downright racist (I'm not American so my accent needs some work) but at the end of the day they chose to deal with my team and I and they are dealt with accordingly.
There can be sometimes you can do favors for them however it shouldn't be to this point. Frankly, as long as you deliver them the results that you actually have set, that's all that you owe them. That's what they are paying you for.
Also, a weekly Search Engine Optimization (SEO) report doesn't sound like a good idea. I would say stick to a monthly report. I think a weekly report is more reasonable for a paid ads campaign.
Also, we use Google Data Studio for our monthly SEO reporting.
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Chetraj » Dangol
1- what are the kpis they want to know understand that.
Like are they interested in rankings / sessions / leads / quality of leads / sales (if e-commerce sites) – increase in conversion/sales rates. They are the basics.
2- for each required put up segments – first/second/third metrics etc
3- explain what happened in the month and what is the reason behind / what to expect moving forward.
4- detailed down what you did through the month — dot points, not like all details.
5- put down points what you are doing next – dot points, not details
6- prepare a report and convert it into a pdf.
7- show keyword rankings that shows keyword ranking gains + analytics data ( agency analytics has a great dashboard – but it has costs. See if you can afford considering how much the client is investing)
8- download LOOM – it's a video recording software. Walk through the report, explain what is what and then send that recording to the client.
That shd work like charm – cheers
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Johnson
I send video reports if I can 5-10 doing a talk over the screen, it's easy to understand and non technical.
If they want technical say sorry no you as it's is standard procedure this is what we do monthly and not weekly

Mufti
Same thing exactly happened with me few months back. Now, I use SEMrush report templates and things are working smooth now.
The client wants visual representation of things and data and SEMrush reports are on an other level on this.
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Oliver
Great reporting is free now!
Use Google Data Studio Templates configured to report on and auto send to your clients email address based on their specifications.
One dashboard for analytics & performance data & one based on SEMrush or SF technical performance data showing onsite improvement.
Definitely caveat to the client that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a long play and reviewing performance on a week to week basis is counterintuitive.
Feel free to DM me if you need clarification or want links to Google Data Studio (GDS) templates 🙂
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Jonathan
There's only one report they need to see, where do they 'rank' for their top 10 keyword expressions. If not in the top 10, you need to explain why. One report, 10 lines, this weeks rank and the last few weeks rank that's 10 row, one heading and about 8 columns.

Lori Appleman ^🎓
No. My clients get a monthly report. I also warn them up front that they won't see much movement for weeks if not a few months although it's rarely that long. Weekly is asking for trouble since keywords will go up-and-down by the minute so if you catch the wrong window it could look like you're losing traction when you aren't. It's kind of like weighing yourself throughout the day. It's only going to upset you without any value.
Alvin
Use data studio. There are many SEO templates out there that you can use.

Hiru
had the same experience. What I did was to include comparison data with competitors, industry benchmark data, research data compared to website performance. that worked for me, may be you could try that as well. keep it simple, but information rich.
BTW, I don't see why you need to do a weekly report for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), only a monthly report would do.
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Steve
Setting aside the "you are going hate life in 6 months when most of the current free clients refuse to signup for more months and pay", we can have a long discussion about that if you like.
Take full advantage of Google for now. Setup a few Google Sheets to track all of your client's generic data and schedules and when they need to start paying.
Setup Google Data Studio (GDS) for all of your clients. Build one template report that you can copy for each client. Yes, very manual process, but you need free and this is free. I still use GDS for several clients and they love it.
Get a free account at Trello to manage repetitive tasks and share them with your team. Again, you can build a template system to replicate for each client.
Finally, billing. You need to start thinking about that now. Have you set up some metrics now so that you can show real progress to your clients? Show them that they really need to start paying you? Or are you just winging it and hoping that it all goes to plan?

Cory
Yikes… this is not an ideal business model.
I won't touch that one but to answer your question:
Google Data Studio is the answer you are looking for. If you're unfamiliar with GSD, it is Google's proprietary reporting and dashboard tool. There are endless data integrations (Search Console, Analytics, SEMrush, Ahrefs, etc.) and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of pre-built templates you can white-label and customize for your clients. Not to mention it's FREE. You'll definitely want to get familiar with this.
Another tool I recommend is Asana. This is a FREE project management tool that will help with daily tasks and progression.
I highly recommend checking out both of these options.
Best of luck!
Also… Slack. Another FREE tool. This one is primarily for communicating with your clients and internal team. You can set up individual channels for each of your clients and have discussions there regarding issues, work items, etc.
Just saw one of your comments about using graphs + Excel for reporting. Yikes again.
Google Data Studio will pull real-time data from your various integrations and allow you to deliver automated, scheduled reporting. The initial setup can be overwhelming and time consuming but, as I mentioned, there are free templates available and (unless further customization is required) you'll save a literal ton of time each month when it comes to reporting.
Last thing – I said I wouldn't touch the business model but I have to ask, how ironclad is this contract? What actions do you intend to take if a client refuses to pay for your services after 6 months? If you aren't well-versed in contract law or have legal counsel on your team, the efforts to collect this money may be more costly than the revenue itself (attorney fees). If they do retain your services, how do you intend to continue providing value?
I have to assume you and your team are looking to build trust, credibility, and results as quickly as possible so at what point do you begin seeing diminishing returns on your efforts? Do you have a plan, strategy, and resources that can sustain a 12+ month contract? Copywriters, link building, web development, UX design? How are you paying for and retaining these resources?
I understand the value of building a portfolio but your net loss could have been much less significant had you purchased a handful of domain names for various niches/industries, built and optimized the websites yourself, and used those examples as your success stories for your portfolio. Then, assuming the sites get any traction, you could resell any leads to industry competitors or sell the website + domain entirely and recoup some of your expense.
In my experience, small business owners won't ask for you to disclose contact information of previous clients for reference. Their budgets typically lend themselves to more modest campaigns. If you can adequately explain the value of SEO while also tempering their expectations, it's hard for them to pass, especially when all of their competitors are engaging in some form of digital marketing.

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