Analytics is the word for the numbers that tell you what's happening on your website. How many people visited, where they came from, which pages they read, and whether they did the thing you hoped they'd do.
Analytics tools can show you hundreds of numbers. Most of them won't help a beginner make a single decision. Some will just make you anxious.
This lesson covers how to get basic numbers set up, the handful worth watching, the ones you can safely ignore, and a simple monthly routine. By the end, you'll know what to look at and how often.
The short version
- Watch a few numbers that connect to decisions: visitors, where they came from, top pages, and signups or sales.
- Ignore most of the rest for now, especially anything that changes hour to hour.
- Check once a month, look for patterns over time, and write down what you'll change.
Getting numbers in the first place
You need a tool that counts visits. You've got a few common options.
- Built-in stats. Many site builders, storefronts and email services show basic numbers in your dashboard. This is often enough to start.
- A free analytics tool. Some big tech companies offer free analytics you add to your site. They're powerful, but they can be overwhelming.
- Privacy-focused tools. Some smaller services count visits without tracking people as closely. They're usually simpler to read.
Start with what's built in. If it shows you the few numbers below, you may not need anything else yet.
The numbers worth watching
Here's the short list. Each one answers a question you can act on.
Visitors
How many people came to your site in a given period. Some tools call this users or unique visitors.
The question it answers: Is anybody finding me, and is that changing over time?
Don't worry about the exact number. Watch the direction over months.
Where they came from
Tools often call this sources or referrers. It shows how people got to you. Common sources include:
- Search: they found you through a search engine.
- Social: they clicked a link on a social media site.
- Direct: they typed your address or used a bookmark.
- Referral: they clicked a link on someone else's website.
- Email: they clicked a link in one of your emails.
The question it answers: Which of my efforts is actually bringing people in?
If you spend most of your time on one social site and almost nobody comes from there, that's worth knowing.
Top pages
A list of your most-visited pages.
The question it answers: What are people interested in?
If one post gets far more visits than the rest, that's a clue. Maybe write more on that topic, or add a signup form to that page.
Signups and sales
These are the numbers that matter most. In analytics talk, when a visitor does the thing you wanted, that's called a conversion. Joining your email list is a conversion. Buying a product is a conversion.
The question it answers: Is my site doing its job?
You'll often find these numbers in your email service or your storefront rather than your analytics tool. That's fine. Look wherever they live.
A small number of people who sign up matters more than a big number of people who leave.
The numbers you can ignore for now
These aren't useless. They're just not worth a beginner's attention yet.
- Real-time visitors. Watching people arrive live is fun for a minute, then it's just a slot machine. It won't help you decide anything.
- Bounce rate. This is roughly the share of people who leave after one page. It's easy to misread. Someone who reads your whole article and leaves happy may still count as a "bounce."
- Time on page. Often measured in ways that aren't very accurate. Treat it as a loose hint at best.
- Pageviews per visit. Nice to know. Rarely changes what you do.
- Daily ups and downs. Traffic naturally bounces around by day of the week and season. One bad Tuesday means nothing.
- Follower counts on social media. They're not website numbers, and they can rise without anyone ever visiting your site.
Small numbers are normal
When you're starting out, your numbers will probably be small. Maybe very small. That's normal for a new site and doesn't mean you've failed.
Small numbers are also jumpy. If you had a handful of visitors last week and a few more this week, that's not a trend yet. It's noise. Give it months, not days, before you draw conclusions.
Most first sites grow slowly, if at all at first. Effort over time is what moves things, not checking the dashboard more often.
A simple monthly routine
Pick one day a month. Put it on your calendar. Then do this, and only this.
- Write down your visitors for the month.
- Write down your top three sources.
- Write down your top three pages.
- Write down your signups and sales, from wherever they live.
- Compare to last month, and to a few months back if you have it.
- Write one sentence about what you notice.
- Pick one small thing to try next month based on what you saw.
A notebook or a simple spreadsheet works fine. The point is to see patterns over time, which is hard to do by staring at a dashboard.
What a useful note looks like
"Most visits came from search, mostly to the post about keeping slugs off lettuce. Almost no signups from that page. Next month: add a signup form to the end of that post."
That's it. One observation, one action.
Avoid the dashboard trap
It's easy to check your numbers every day, or every hour. It feels productive. It usually isn't.
Checking too often tends to make you react to noise, change things too fast, and feel worse. Every hour spent staring at numbers is an hour not spent writing, building or talking to your readers.
If you can't stop checking, log out of the analytics tool or remove it from your bookmarks. Come back on your monthly day.
Do this next
Count what helps you decide. Ignore the rest. Go back to work.
Veteran. Gen Xer. Thirty-plus years building things on the web. I write these so you can skip some of the expensive mistakes.