UX In Contact Forms: Essentials To Turn Leads Into Conversions

Building A UX Team

(This is a sponsored article.) In my previous article, I explored the rise of design, in particular focusing on the emergence of design as a business driver. As the spotlight has focused on the potential of design to transform businesses, we’ve seen a growing need for designers — and related team members — across a wider range of specializations. These specializations include:

• Design Researchers
• Creative Directors
• Content Strategists
• Copywriters
• Visual Designers
• UI Designers
• Marketers

Of course, this list isn’t exhaustive and many designers undertake a cross-section of these roles by necessity. One thing is certain, however, as our industry has matured, the number and types of roles have increased and, as UX continues to become a sought-after business differentiator, these roles will continue to diversify.

As design has become recognized as a potential driver for business growth, many companies have begun to bring user experience (UX) design in-house, building their own UX teams. Equally, as UX has grown in importance, many small businesses have been responding to the opportunity by broadening and deepening their teams, thus enabling them to undertake larger and more profitable projects.

In this article, the ninth in my ongoing series exploring user experience design, I’ll outline how to go about building a UX team, identifying the attributes to look out for when hiring team members, defining a number of core disciplines to consider when building a team, and suggesting some avenues you can explore to find team members.

T-Shaped People, FTW!

When I first starting to work on the web in the early to mid-nineties, all that was required was a knowledge of HTML (and life was so much easier!). Over time I added CSS and JavaScript to my mix of skills, keeping a close eye on developments and adding to my skill set as needed.

For some time it felt like you could hold all of the web’s tools in your head; HTML, CSS, and JavaScript were complex, of course, but they were manageable. Fast forward to today and the landscape has evolved considerably, with new tools that we can add to our toolbox developed at an increasingly rapid rate.

As UX has grown up, we’ve started to see an inevitable specialization of roles, reflecting the complexity and diversity of our industry. This shift towards specialization is to be welcomed, it echoes an industry that is not only maturing but is also reflecting on the best way to achieve different outcomes. It’s a shift that is positioning carefully considered teams front and center.

The once fashionable idea of ‘unicorns’ — who know everything there is to know about everything — has, thankfully, been superseded by a focus on building teams, comprised of specialists with a deep understanding of their respective areas, who are able to work as part of a collaborative, multidisciplinary team.

With this shift towards collaborative teams comes a shift in the types of people we need to look for when we start to build a team. To function effectively, team members need to:

• be skilled in communication, able to express their thinking clearly to others;
• have an appreciation of the importance of feedback, and be able to facilitate the feedback process;
• be able to collaborate with others, working as part of a multidisciplinary team;
• have an understanding of the broad landscape of disciplines that now comprise UX; and
• be able to articulate and present their thinking to others.

Put simply: soft skills matter. To work in a collaborative environment requires empathy and an ability to work with others. It also requires an awareness and understanding of the various disciplines that come together to form the backbone of user experience design in the 21st century. Enter ‘T-shaped people’.

Tim Brown, the CEO of global design company IDEO, defines T-Shaped people as having two kinds of characteristics: the vertical stroke of the ‘T’ represents their depth of skill in a field; whilst the horizontal stroke of the ‘T’ represents their ability to collaborate across disciplines. Brown identifies two characteristics that T-shaped people have:

First, empathy. It’s important because it allows people to imagine the problem from another perspective – to stand in somebody else’s shoes. Second, they tend to get very enthusiastic about other people’s disciplines, to the point that they may actually start to practice them. T-shaped people have both depth and breadth in their skills.

When building a UX team it’s important to ensure that the candidates you consider possess these characteristics or, if they don’t, have the capability to learn them. By hiring, or working with, team members that possess empathy and perspective you’ll build a stronger, more effective team.

The ability to see problems from others’ perspectives is critical. Seeing a problem from the perspective of another team member underpins collaboration; equally seeing a problem from your user’s perspective is — as I’ve noted in my earlier articles in this series — critical. This ability to see problems from others’ perspectives is crucial when we build multidisciplinary teams.

A Multidisciplinary Approach

Within the field of UX, we are increasingly working with multidisciplinary team members who combine a knowledge and awareness of many branches of learning or fields of expertise. Designers will be a part of that mix, of course, but designers aren’t the only members of a team you need.

When thinking of a team it’s important to widen the frame of reference and look beyond the core strength of design. Take a look at any successful product and behind it you will see a team that is comprised of a wide range of individuals, encompassing: design across a range of aspects; business and strategy; marketing and storytelling; analytics; and many, many other disciplines.

When building a team, it’s important that the team is well-rounded with a cross-section of individuals who are used to looking at design problems in different ways. This becomes increasingly important when we consider the growing rise of digital product design.

In order to build a successful digital product, it’s important to consider:

• Design Researchers
  The ones who drive a design based on user research and a wider understanding of the benefits of design research.
• UX Designers
  The ones who afford a high-level view of the design process.
• Content Strategists
  The ones who lead a website or product’s content focus, starting with content as a skeleton around which a design is built.
• Copywriters
  The ones who create written content at both a macro- and micro-copy level.
• Visual Designers
  The ones who create a design’s overall visual approach.
• UI Designers
  The ones who design the interface between the product and the user, and the various interactions that underpin the design.
• Front-End Designers and Developers
  The ones who handle the build at varying levels of complexity.

It’s a measure of how complex our industry is that we’re still finding terms to describe many of these roles. It’s also a measure of how complex our industry is that the above list is only scraping the surface.

In addition to the above list (which is broadly design-focused), it’s also important to consider project managers, business strategists, marketing experts — the list goes on. With such a long list of potential team members, it becomes quickly apparent that (good news for us!) there is considerable scope for working in our industry.

To become a lynchpin team member it helps to immerse yourself in as many of these areas as possible. The more you learn about different disciplines and their different ways of working, the more indispensable you become.

Finding Team Members

You might be considering hiring a full-time team member or a freelancer, but you still need to find these people. Where do you start and what should you look for?

First of all, if you’re considering expanding your team — and the roles you’re considering will be long term — it’s important to put some time in. Unless you’re willing to pay a recruitment firm, there’s no substitute for doing some good, old-fashioned research.

The last thing you want to do is hire someone in a hurry, then live to regret it later. Spending time getting to know different individuals and exploring their work in depth pays off in the long run. Doing so helps you to find individuals who are a better fit for your company’s culture.

Unsurprisingly, there are many design-focused communities that you can explore. As you begin your search, look for individuals who are active in those communities. It’s impossible to list every community, but you might like to consider:

• Behance
  Owned by Adobe, Behance’s mission is to “showcase and discover the latest work from top online portfolios by creative professionals across industries.” The site’s ‘Curated Galleries’ are a great way to discover different designers organized across a range of creative fields.
• Dribbble
  Although it’s come under fire occasionally, there’s no doubting the fact that Dribbble is a great place to discover designers. It’s known as the place “where designers get inspired and hired,” and is well worth exploring.
• Product Hunt
  Billed as “the place to discover your next favorite thing,” Product Hunt might look a little out of place on this list, but it’s a great way to discover active participants within the design community.

In addition to the above resources, it’s also worth looking for designers who are actively working on side projects or who are contributing to open-source projects.

When interviewing potential team members, I’ll always ask if they’ve worked on any side projects. Side projects are a good indicator of a person who has a passion for their subject. They’re also a useful beacon, helping you to identify individuals who are actively learning and who have the project management skills to develop their own projects.

However, not everyone wants to undertake a side project. Another attribute that’s worth looking for is an individual’s contribution to other, perhaps open-source, projects. Someone who is actively contributing to an open-source GitHub repository is someone who has passion — and passion is hard to teach.

There are also numerous job boards, that act as a matchmaking service, connecting designers who are looking for work with companies who are interested in hiring. Adobe’s platform, Adobe Talent, offers you that ability to “hire from five million creatives on Behance.” Smashing Magazine has its very own Smashing Jobs, designed to help designers and developers alike to find jobs and connect with great companies.

In Closing

As UX matures as a discipline, so too have the number of different specializations. As the field has grown, so too have the opportunities. Instead of putting all your eggs in one basket and searching for an elusive ‘unicorn’ designer, a better approach is to build a team of individuals who can work well together.

When building a UX team, it’s important to focus on soft skills as well as hard skills. Look for T-shaped people with experience of working in a collaborative environment. And remember, a great team is comprised of individuals who work well together, so don’t forget that personality goes a long way. Building a team takes time, but the effort you put in more than pays off. The more rounded your team is, the more opportunities will present themselves to you.

This article is part of the UX design series sponsored by Adobe. Adobe XD is made for a fast and fluid UX design process, as it lets you go from idea to prototype faster. Design, prototype, and share — all in one app. You can check out more inspiring projects created with Adobe XD on Behance, and also sign up for the Adobe experience design newsletter to stay updated and informed on the latest trends and insights for UX/UI design.

(ra, il)

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Compressive Images Revisited

Tim Kadlec returns to the topic of how to make images on the web as performant as possible and looks at the technique called “Compressive Images” which is now not recommended for a bunch of reasons. Tim summarizes his point here:

By now the trade-off is pretty clear. Compressive images give us a reduced file size, but it greatly increases the memory footprint. Thanks to the standards that have been developed around responsive images, it’s a trade-off we no longer need to make.

If you’re interested in learning more then it’s hard not to recommend Jason Grigsby’s masterclass called Responsive Images 101, too.

Direct Link to Article — Permalink

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React Code Style Guide

I've been having the time of my life with React lately. But on my journey, I’ve had a hard time finding good code style guidelines to keep the mix of JSX and JS clean and readable. I've been coming up with my own style guides that I'd love to share. Maybe these will be useful to you and, of course, feel free to share similar guidelines in the comment thread below.

Rule #1: Destructure your props

One of my favorite ES6 features is destructuring. It makes assigning object properties to variables feel like much less of a chore. Let's take a look at an example.

Say we have a dog that we want to display as a div with a class named after its breed. Inside the div is a sentence that notes the dog's color and tells us if it's a good dog or bad dog.

class Dog extends Component {
  render () {
    return <div className={this.props.breed}>My {this.props.color} dog is {this.props.isGoodBoy ? "good" : "bad"}</div>;
  }
}

That technically does everything we want, but it just seems like quite a big block of code for what really is only three variables and one HTML tag.

We can break it out by assigning all of the properties of props to local variables.

let breed = this.props.breed;
let color = this.props.color;
let isGoodBoy = this.props.isGoodBoy;

Using ES6, we can put it in one clean statement like this:

let { breed, color, isGoodBoy } = this.props;

To keep everything clean, we put our ternary operator (more on that later) in its own variable as well, and viola.

class Dog extends Component {
  render () {
    let { breed, color, isGoodBoy } = this.props;
    let identifier = isGoodBoy ? "good" : "bad";
    return <div className={breed}>My {color} dog is {identifier}</div>;
  }
}

Much easier to read.

Rule #2: One tag, one line

Now, we've all had that moment where we want to take our entire function and make it a mash of operators and tiny parameter names to make some uglified, superfast, unreadable utility function. However, when you're making a stateless Component in React, you can fairly easily do the same thing while remaining clean.

class Dog extends Component {
  render () {
    let { breed, color, goodOrBad } = this.props;
    return <div className={breed}>My {color} dog is {goodOrBad}</div>;
  }
}

vs.

let Dog = (breed, color, goodOrBad) => <div className={breed}>My {color} dog is {goodOrBad}</div>;

If all you're doing is making a basic element and placing properties in an HTML tag, then don't worry about making such a big deal of all the functions and wrappers to get an entirely separate class going. One line of code will do.

You can even get creative with some ES6 spread functions if you pass an object for your properties. Using this.props.content will automatically put the string between the open and close tag.

let propertiesList = {
  className: "my-favorite-component",
  id: "myFav",
  content: "Hello world!"
};
let SimpleDiv = props => <div {... props} />;

let jsxVersion = <SimpleDiv props={propertiesList} />;

When to use the spread function:

• No ternary operators required
• Only passing HTML tag attributes and content
• Can be used repeatedly

When not to use the spread function:

• Dynamic properties
• Array or object properties are required
• A render that would require nested tags

Rule #3: The rule of 3's

If you have three or more properties, then put them on their own line both in the instance and in the render function.

This would be fine to have just one line of properties:

class GalleryImage extends Component {
  render () {
    let { imgSrc, title } = this.props;
    return (
      <figure>
        <img src={imgSrc} alt={title} />
        <figcaption>
          <p>Title: {title}</p>
        </figcaption>
      </figure>
    );
  }
}

But consider this:

class GalleryImage extends Component {
  render () {
    let { imgSrc, title, artist, clas, thumbnail, breakpoint } = this.props;
    return (
      <figure className={clas}>
        <picture>
          <source media={`(min-width: ${breakpoint})`} srcset={imgSrc} />
          <img src={thumbnail} alt={title} />
        </picture>
        <figcaption>
          <p>Title: {title}</p>
          <p>Artist: {artist}</p>
        </figcaption>
      </figure>
    );
  }
}

Or the render:

<GalleryImage imgSrc="./src/img/vangogh2.jpg" title="Starry Night" artist="Van Gogh" clas="portrait" thumbnail="./src/img/thumb/vangogh2.gif" breakpoint={320} />

It can get to be too much of a codeblock to read. Drop each property to the next line for a clean, readable look:

let { imgSrc,
      title,
      artist,
      clas,
      thumbnail,
      breakpoint } = this.props;

and:

<GalleryImage
  imgSrc="./src/img/vangogh2.jpg"
  title="Starry Night"
  artist="Van Gogh" 
  clas="landscape"
  thumbnail="./src/img/thumb/vangogh2.gif"
  breakpoint={320} />

Rule #4: Too many properties?

Property management is tricky at any level, but with ES6 destructuring and React's state-based approach, there are quite a few ways to clean up the look of a lot of properties.

Let's say we're making a mapping application that has a list of saved addresses and a GPS coordinate for your current location.

The current user information of position and proximity to favorite address should be in the parent Component of App like this:

class App extends Component {
  constructor (props) {
    super(props);
    this.state = {
      userLat: 0,
      userLon: 0,
      isNearFavoriteAddress: false
    };
  }
}

So, when we make an address and we want it to note how close you are to the address, we're passing at least two properties from App.

In App render ():

<Address
  ... // Information about the address
  currentLat={this.state.userLat}
  currentLong={this.state.userLon} />

In the render function for Address Component:

render () {
  let { houseNumber,
        streetName,
        streetDirection,
        city,
        state,
        zip,
        lat,
        lon,
        currentLat,
        currentLon } = this.props;
  return ( ... );
}

Already, you can see how this is getting unwieldy. If we take the two sets of information and break them out into their own objects, it becomes much more manageable.

In our App constructor ():

this.state = {
  userPos: {
    lat: 0,
    lon: 0
  },
  isNearFavoriteAddress: false
};

At some point before App render ():

let addressList = [];
addressList.push({
  houseNumber: "1234",
  streetName: "Street Rd",
  streetDirection: "N",
  city: "City",
  state: "ST",
  zip: "12345",
  lat: "019782309834",
  lon: "023845075757"
});

In App render ():

<Address addressInfo={addressList[0]} userPos={this.state.userPos} />

In the render function for Address Component

render () {
  let { addressInfo, userPos } = this.props;
  let { houseNumber,
        streetName,
        streetDirection,
        city,
        state,
        zip,
        lat,
        lon } = addressInfo;
  return ( ... );
}

Much, much cleaner. React also has some great ways to ensure that object properties exist and are of a certain type using PropTypes that we don't normally have in JavaScript, which is just a great OOP thing anyway.

Rule #5: Dynamic renders - Mapping out arrays

Quite often in HTML, we're writing the same basic pieces of code over and over, just with a few key distinctions. This is why React was created in the first place. You make an object with properties that return a complex, dynamic HTML block, without having to write each part of it repeatedly.

JavaScript already has a great way to do lists of like information: arrays!

React uses the .map() function to lay out arrays in order, using one parameter from the arrays as a key.

render () {
  let pokemon = [ "Pikachu", "Squirtle", "Bulbasaur", "Charizard" ];
  return (
    <ul>
      {pokemon.map(name => <li key={name}>{name}</li>)}
    </ul>
  );
}

You can even use our handy-dandy spread functions to throw a whole list of parameters in by an object using Object.keys() (keeping in mind that we still need a key).

render () {
  let pokemon = {
    "Pikachu": {
      type: "Electric",
      level: 10
    },
    "Squirtle": {
      type: "Water",
      level: 10
    },
    "Bulbasaur": {
      type: "Grass",
      level: 10
    },
    "Charizard": {
      type: "Fire",
      level: 10
    }
  };
  return (
    <ul>
      {Object.keys(pokemon).map(name => <Pokemon key={name} {... pokemon[name]} />)}
    </ul>
  );
}

Rule #6: Dynamic renders - React ternary operators

In React, you can use operators to do a conditional render just like a variable declaration. In Rule #1, we looked at this for stating whether our dog was good or bad. It's not entirely necessary to create an entire line of code to decide a one-word difference in a sentence, but when it gets to be large code blocks, it's difficult to find those little ?'s and :'s.

class SearchResult extends Component {
  render () {
    let { results } = this.props;
    return (
      <section className="search-results">
        {results.length > 0 &&
          results.map(index => <Result key={index} {... results[index] />)
        }
        {results.length === 0 &&
          <div className="no-results">No results</div>
        }
      </section>
    );
  }
}

Or, in true ternary fashion

class SearchResult extends Component {
  render () {
    let { results } = this.props;
    return (
      <section className="search-results">
        {results.length > 0
          ? results.map(index => <Result key={index} {... results[index] />)
          : <div className="no-results">No results</div>
        }
      </section>
    );
  }
}

Even with our tidy result mapping, you can see how the brackets are already nesting quite densely. Now, imagine if our render had more than just one line. It can pretty quickly get unreadable. Consider an alternative:

class SearchResult extends Component {
  render () {
    let { results } = this.props;
    let outputJSX;
    if (results.length > 0) {
      outputJSX = (
        <Fragment>
          {results.map(index => <Result key={index} {... results[index] />)}
        </Fragment>
      );
    } else {
      outputJSX = <div className="no-results">No results</div>;
    }
    return <section className="search-results">{output}</section>;
  }
}

Ultimately, the code length is about the same, but there is one key distinction: with the first example, we're rapidly switching back and forth between two different syntaxes, making visual parsing taxing and difficult, whereas the second is simply plain JavaScript with value assignments in one, consistent language and a one-line function return in another.

The rule of thumb in this situation is that if the JavaScript you're putting into your JSX object is more than two words (e.g. object.property), it should be done before the return call.

Wrap up

The combination of syntax can get messy, and these are the most obvious situations where I saw my code going off the rails. Here are the basic concepts that these all come from and can be applied to any situation that wasn’t covered here:

• Use ES6 features. Seriously. There are a lot of fantastic features that can make your job easier, faster, and much less manual.
• Only write JSX on the right side of an = or a return.
• Sometimes you need JavaScript in your JSX. If your JavaScript doesn’t fit on one line (like a .map() function or ternary operator), then it should be done beforehand.
• If your code starts looking like (<{`${()}`} />), then you’ve probably gone too far. Take the lowest level outside the current statement and do it before this one.

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How To Use Heatmaps To Track Clicks On Your WordPress Website

Presenting Your Findings: How to Create Relevant and Engaging SEO Reports - Next Level

Posted by meghanpahinui

Welcome to the newest installment of our educational Next Level series! Our last episodes covered how to transform low-value content and how to track the right keywords for your local business. Today, Meghan is here to share all the juicy details to include in a truly persuasive SEO report for your clients and how you can create your own with Moz Pro. Read on and level up!

---

When it comes to creating useful SEO reports for clients and members of your team, it can be tough to balance the best, most relevant information to include with what they actually want to see. Essentially, you should show your clients that what you’re doing is working and getting results that positively impact their business. That being said, though, you’ll need to ask yourself what they consider progress:

• Are they trying to generate more traffic to their site?
• Increase overall sales?
• Improve their rankings?
• Are they hoping to start ranking for a specific set of keywords or break into a new market which will provide more revenue?

Regardless of their specific business goal, you’ll need to create reports which are concise, straightforward, and easy to digest to remind your clients why they're investing in SEO and your services. If a report is too long, your client may lose interest. If a report is too short or doesn’t include the data they find most relevant, they may wonder what the heck they're paying for!

I like to think about creating SEO reports as if I’m writing up an experiment: I have an objective or problem that I’m trying to solve, a hypothesis about what will get me to that goal and solve my problem, and a procedure to follow, all of which leads to observations that will help me benchmark my progress and set up a new goal.

In this installation of Next Level, we’ll talk about what information you should include in your SEO reports and show you what modules you can add to your Custom Report in Moz Pro to illustrate that data.

1. Determine your objective

What's the current SEO goal and how does it align with your client’s business objectives?

The first step in any endeavor is determining what you’re setting out to achieve. You’ll want to make sure to outline your current SEO goals clearly for your client. For example, your goal may be to increase rankings for select keywords, to increase overall Search Visibility, or to generate more inbound links. Perhaps even more importantly, you’ll want to explain how these SEO goals will impact your client’s business overall.

Include tangible business objectives, such as “increase monthly revenue” or “drive more traffic to your online shop,” but don’t forget to explain why you’ve chosen these as your objectives. Simply telling a client that you’re planning to work on increasing their keyword rankings won’t help them to understand why that’s important. By outlining what you’re working towards and why, you'll not only give direction to your report but also set your client’s expectations.

2. Form your hypothesis

Where should your efforts be focused to meet this goal?

How you plan to accomplish your client’s business goals through SEO is something that you’ll definitely want to think about when putting your SEO report together. What do you think needs to happen in order to make sure your client’s expectations and business goals are met? For example, if your client wants to increase the overall organic search traffic that comes to their site, you'll want to focus on improving their keyword rankings.

“Okay, but how are you going to do that?” asks your client. Here’s where you can outline your plan of attack and what you think will have the most impact, like making sure that all pages have meta descriptions that are the right length, or that all pages have title tags.

Asking yourself these types of “how” questions in advance will set you up for success when you go to create your report. A clear idea of your procedure — your way forward — will make sure the most relevant information is included and doesn’t get lost among a bunch of data irrelevant to your current goal. Taking the time early on to outline your next steps will help you stay on track and create concise, easy-to-digest reports.

SEO can be confusing, which is probably why your client hired you! Make sure you explain what you’re planning to do, how you plan to do it, and why. This will keep your client from feeling out of the loop and asking themselves questions like “What am I looking at? Is this really helping me?”

A transparent, informative explanation can be as simple as this:

“I’m working on making sure all your pages have relevant meta descriptions so searchers are better able to determine if your site is what they’re looking for in SERPs. This will help improve your overall click-through rate, which should help increase traffic to your site.”

If you can weave your goals directly into the explanation of what you're doing and how, all the better!

3. Outline your procedure

What have you already done to work towards meeting this goal?

Time to show off what you’ve completed so far! Here, you'll include SEO goals you’ve already achieved, like fixed missing descriptions, resolved issues with 404 pages on the site, pages which have been optimized for target keywords, etc. People like to see evidence that their investments are paying off, so take care to remind your client what they're paying you to do, and create a detailed report to show just how effective you’ve been already.

The Moz Pro Custom Report tool comes in handy for this type of reporting, as well as the “Observations” portion we’ll talk about in just a bit. You can use the handy visuals in Custom Reports modules to illustrate what you’ve been working on and outline what you plan to attack next.

4. Record your observations

The “Observations” portion of your report is your place to show real, tangible data to your client. You’ve outlined what you’re doing to help them achieve their current SEO goal, and now it’s time to show them the results of your labor.

Keyword performance

The idea here is pretty straightforward: show your client which of their keywords have improved in the rankings, and how their Search Visibility has changed since the last report. For transparency, you may also want to include some info about the keywords that didn’t do as well — now would be a good time to tell your client how you plan to tackle those low-performing keywords!

You may also want to display how your client is ranking compared to their main competitors and call out specific instances of improvement.

Here's an example:

“Although the rank dropped for 5 of your target keywords, your overall Search Visibility is up by 7%, and you’re ranking higher than your competitors for all 5 of those keywords.”

It's important to keep your client’s expectations grounded by reminding them that fluctuation in keyword rankings from week to week is pretty normal, and comparing rankings over a longer period of time is often more representative of true performance.

Page optimization

A great way to add in more detail about keyword rankings to your Custom Report is with Page Optimization modules. The Page Optimization tool allows you to pair a specific page on the site you’re tracking with a target keyword to see a report of how well-optimized that page is for that keyword. This is especially useful if your client has a specific set of keywords they need to be ranking for. The Page Optimization tool makes suggestions as to what you can do to improve your chances of ranking, and will show you what you’re already doing that’s helping your client rank where they are now! When you add Page Optimization modules to your report, they can illustrate not only improvements you’ve made to certain pages and how rankings have changed for those keyword/URL pairs, but they can also highlight pages you’re not already working on that may be good opportunities for optimization.

Inbound traffic

Showing your client that more people are heading to their site is a straightforward way to show off the progress you’ve made. If you can, be sure to point out where you think the increase in traffic is coming from, whether it’s from higher keyword rankings, new backlink generation, or other factors related to the work you've done.

Link generation

If one of your goals is to generate more backlinks for your client, you’ll want to show them what you’ve accomplished. Be honest about the types of links you’re looking to acquire. For example, if you’re interested in quality over quantity and are focusing your efforts on acquiring links from sites with high MozRank and MozTrust, make sure you let your client know that, and explain what effect it could have on their backlink profile. Will your strategy earn them more links overall, or higher quality links — and which is better for their business? Explain why your goal is the best plan of attack for achieving their overall business goals.

Site crawl

Adding in Site Crawl modules to your Custom Report can effectively illustrate what you’ve been working on with regards to your client’s site specifically. For example, if you’ve focused on redirecting 404 pages to live, active pages, you could show them a graph illustrating the decrease over time in pages returning this type of error. Perhaps you have been working on cleaning up redirect chains, reviewing meta noindex tags, or editing pages with thin content. All of these things can be outlined so you can demonstrate your progress in your Custom Report using Site Crawl modules. You can also use these modules to show your client how their site has improved — e.g., by showing them a steady number of pages crawled each week alongside declining rates of on-site issues like 404 pages and thin content — and highlight areas of their site you think may still need some work.

5. Draw your conclusions

What’s next?

Once you’ve laid out what you’re working on, why, and how it’s impacting your client’s business so far, you’ll want to outline what they can expect to see next. Let them know what your next course of action is and what you think is working (or not working) so they can be prepared for your next report. If you’re planning to work on optimizing pages for keywords that aren’t ranking currently, or if you’re planning to go after some link-building opportunities, make sure they're aware!

Perform a final review

Finally, before sending your brand-new report out to your client, make sure to review it one last time to confirm that it’s telling the right story.

• Does it properly illustrate what you’re working on and how that's positively impacting their overall business goals?
• Does it use language which is easy to understand and that your client will care about?

Not everyone is an SEO wiz, so it’s important to make sure the report you’re presenting is easily comprehended. For example, if you’ve illustrated that their overall search visibility has gone up, will they understand that jargon and what it means? If not, have you made sure to explain what it is and why it’s important? Try to view the report from your client’s point of view and see if you’re able to find the true value in the data you’re presenting. Taking this extra step can really help solidify your report and make sure it’s the best representation of your work.

Schedule your report to auto-send

Within the Custom Reports section of Moz Pro, you can set up your shiny new report to be emailed weekly or monthly to help keep your clients up-to-date on how things are going. You can also choose to email the report directly to anyone who might have a stake in seeing the results of your SEO efforts, such as colleagues or stakeholders.

The most important thing is to make sure your clients know what they are paying for! They want to see tangible results that are applicable to their business specifically. A well-crafted, intentional SEO report will both make your job easier and help your client rest easy knowing their investment is paying off.

If you’re ready to dive in and start creating your own shiny new Custom Report, be sure to sign up for a 30-day free trial of Moz Pro:

Start your free month now!

If you find you need more help getting started with your own report, be sure to check out our page all about Custom Reports on the Help Hub.

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