“How many visits does my website get?” is the question almost everyone asks, and probably the least useful one. A website with lots of visits that don’t generate enquiries or bookings isn’t working. One with few visits, but highly qualified ones, can be a great sales channel.
Start with the goal, not the tool
Before installing anything, define what it means for your website to “work”. For most businesses, it’s one of these actions:
- A completed booking or purchase.
- A contact or quote request form submitted.
- A call or WhatsApp message started from the website.
- A look at how to get to your premises.
Those actions are your conversions, and everything else is interpreted in relation to them.
The metrics that do matter
Conversions and conversion rate. How many people complete the key action and what percentage of total visits they represent. It’s the main indicator of whether the website is doing its job.
Traffic sources. Google search, Google Maps, social media, paid campaigns, links from other websites. Knowing where the users who convert come from tells you where to invest.
Landing pages. Which pages users arrive on. Often it’s not the home page, but a service page or a blog article. Those pages deserve special attention.
Device. If most visits are on mobile but almost all conversions come from desktop, there’s very likely a problem with the mobile experience.
Drop-off at key steps. In a booking or purchase process, the step at which users leave. It usually points to a specific problem: a confusing field, an unexpected cost, an error.
Metrics not to overrate
- Total visits: without context, they mean nothing.
- Time on page: someone spending a long time might mean interest… or that they can’t find what they’re looking for.
- Followers or likes: useful for brand, but they aren’t the same as customers.
Tools to get started
Google Analytics 4 is the most widespread and free option, although its setup can be complex and it requires cookie consent.
There are simpler, more privacy-friendly alternatives such as Plausible, Fathom, Matomo or the analytics built into hosting platforms like Vercel. They show less detail, but the essentials are clear at a glance.
Google Search Console is essential and complementary: it shows which searches you appear for on Google, how many clicks you get and whether there are technical indexing problems.
Set it up properly from the start
Badly configured analytics is worse than none, because it leads to the wrong decisions. The basics:
- Track real conversions as events (form submission, click on the phone number, completed booking).
- Exclude internal visits from your own team.
- Tag campaign links properly so you know what works.
Look at the data regularly
You don’t need to check your analytics every day. A monthly review with three questions is usually enough: how many conversions were there? Where did they come from? What changed compared with the previous month? With that alone, you’ll make better decisions than most.