Analytics: find out what your site really does

The three numbers you need

• How many people came. The monthly trend, not the day-to-day wobble.
• Where they came from. Google, Instagram, a referral, or direct. This tells you what is worth doing more of.
• How many of them got in touch. A submitted form, a click on your phone number, a click on WhatsApp. The only number that pays the rent.

Average time on page and bounce rate are next to useless on a small site. Do not bother with them.

What to measure with

• Umami (or Plausible): simple, lightweight and above all free of personal data, so you do not need a cookie banner. I use it on my own sites, this one included.
• Google Analytics 4: more features, more complexity and a mandatory cookie consent. For a small business, usually unnecessary.
• Google Search Console: there is no substitute, it shows which queries people see you for in search. Always turn it on, see the lesson SEO basics.

Set up a conversion, or you are measuring thin air

The simplest way with no programming: after the form is submitted, redirect the person to a thank-you page, say /thank-you. A visit to that page equals one enquiry. You can count them in any tool and nothing breaks. A click on your phone number works the same way, it is just tracked as an event.

What to do with it

Once a month, sit down for ten minutes and answer two questions: Where do the people who get in touch come from? a Which page brings them in? Then do more of what works. That is the whole of analytics for a small business.

If the visits are there and the enquiries are not, the fault is almost always in the copy and in how easy it is to get in touch. There is a lesson for that: Website copy that sells.

Analytics is not a hobby. It should answer one question: did the site earn more this month than it cost?