- Owner
- Project lead
- Cadence
- Monthly, within three business days of the re-test
- Time box
- Two hours
- Output
- Two-page report and signed next-month plan
What owners need from a report
Bay Area AEO explains what it is doing, why it matters and what it is changing, in plain English, with before-and-after answers. That principle sets the shape of the report. An owner does not need a dashboard of forty charts. They need to know whether customers who ask an assistant now hear about the business, whether what they hear is right, and what the team will do next.
The agency's measurement principle is the other half: track what AI actually says about a business, prompt by prompt, platform by platform, and show the real answers before and after. The report quotes answers. Numbers support the quotes; they do not replace them.
The two-page layout
| Section | What goes in it | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Headline | One sentence: the most important change this month, in plain words | One line |
| Answers before and after | Two or three panel questions, each with the baseline answer and this month's answer quoted | Half a page |
| Scoreboard | The six measures from the re-test, this month beside last month and the baseline | A small table |
| What we did | The procedures completed this month, each with a link to its evidence | Five to eight lines |
| Why it moved | One line per marked change, linking the change to the work or to a cited source | Three to six lines |
| Competitors and sources | Who else is named, and which sources the answers lean on | Two short lists |
| Next month | The procedures on the board for next month, with owners | Five lines |
Writing rules
Write the headline last. Quote answers exactly, including the parts that are not about the business, so the owner sees what customers see. Name procedures by what they did ("corrected Saturday hours on Bing and Apple Maps"), not by their internal names. Use the same scoreboard layout every month so the owner learns where to look. Keep it to two pages; anything longer belongs in the evidence folder, which the report links to.
| Line | Source | Baseline / last month / this month |
|---|---|---|
| Mention rate | From the re-test scoring sheet | |
| Share of answer | From the re-test scoring sheet | |
| Description accuracy | From the re-test scoring sheet | |
| Own sources cited | From the re-test scoring sheet | |
| Reviews received this month | From the review request log | |
| Procedures closed this month | From the 90-day board |
Procedure
- Pull the inputs
The re-test scoring sheet, the capture screenshots, the 90-day board and the review log.
- Choose the answers
Pick the before-and-after pairs that best show this month's change. At least one should be a question the business now wins.
- Fill the scoreboard
Copy the measures in the same layout as last month.
- Write what moved and why
One line per change, each tied to a procedure or a cited source.
- Write next month
List next month's procedures with owners, taken from the 90-day board.
- Send and walk through
Send the report and offer a fifteen-minute call to walk through the answers.
The quarterly version
Every third report adds a page: the baseline answers beside the latest ones for every panel question, the quarter's work in one list, and the recommendation for the next slice of services and cities. Bay Area AEO suggests that many businesses start with the location or service that matters most and expand once they see AI answers change; the quarterly page is where that decision gets made, with the evidence on the same page.
Example headlines
Good headlines are specific: "Gemini now names the practice for emergency Saturday visits in Hayward, using the corrected hours." "Perplexity cited the new water heater page in four answers." "Claude's description of the restaurant now mentions the private dining room." Each points at an answer the owner can check for themselves, which is the purpose of the report.
Done when
What to keep out of the report
Keep raw exports, every screenshot and long lists of minor listing edits in the evidence folder. Keep platform jargon out of the text, or explain it in a phrase the first time. Keep the scoreboard to the six lines in the template, even when another number looks interesting; a scoreboard that changes shape each month is hard to read across a year. If a new measure earns its place, add it at the start of a quarter and keep it from then on.
Several locations or slices
A business working on two slices, such as a practice tracking both San Jose and Campbell, gets one scoreboard per slice on the same page, in the same layout, and a shared headline. The answers section takes one before-and-after pair from each slice. The owner can then see whether the newer slice is following the same path as the first, which is often the best guide to when the next slice should start.
Owner sign-off
End the report with a line for the owner to approve next month's plan. A reply email saying "approved" is enough. File it with the report, so the 90-day board's next rows have a clear start.