Most owners who install analytics open it twice and give up. The dashboards are built for marketing teams, and nothing on the first screen tells you whether the website brought in work last month. The fix is to set up a few free tools on purpose, track a short list of actions that matter to your business, and look at the same handful of numbers on the same day each month.
The free tools worth connecting
Google Analytics 4 shows visits, where visitors came from and what they did on the site. You create a property under an account you own, then add its tag to every page. Google Search Console shows which searches your pages appeared for and how often people clicked, and it reports pages Google could not index. Bing Webmaster Tools offers similar reports for Bing, which also feeds some other search products.
If you have a Google Business Profile, its performance view shows map and search activity, including website clicks and direction requests. Together these four cover nearly everything a small business needs to know.
Setup steps in order
- ✓Create accounts under your own business login — never under a designer’s personal account
- ✓Add the analytics tag to every page — one missed page means missed data
- ✓Verify Search Console for your domain — a domain-level property covers every version of your address
- ✓Exclude your own visits — so your daily checks do not inflate the numbers
- ✓Add your team as users — with access you can remove later
Track actions, not just visits
Visits tell you people arrived. Actions tell you whether the site did its job. In analytics, you mark certain events as key events: a contact form submitted, a tap on your call button, a click on the booking link, a quote request sent, a click on directions. Each one is a customer raising a hand.
The simplest reliable method for forms is a thank-you page that loads after someone submits, so a visit to that page counts as one inquiry. For buttons that open another tool, such as booking software, track the click as an event. Add a tracking tag (a short UTM code) to the website link in your Google Business Profile and social bios, so visits from those places show up by name instead of blending into direct traffic.
Your 15-minute monthly review
- ✓Inquiries this month — count key events and compare with last month
- ✓Top ways people arrived — search, maps, social or direct
- ✓Most visited pages — the pages doing the work deserve your best photos
- ✓Search terms in Search Console — words customers use that your pages do not yet
- ✓Pages with errors — anything Search Console says it could not index
Common mistakes to avoid
Letting a designer or agency own the analytics account is the classic one. When the relationship ends, years of history leave with them. Another is installing the tag twice, which doubles every count. A third is judging the site by one week of data; small sites see big swings from a single busy day.
Privacy matters too. Analytics tools use cookies, and the rules that apply depend on where your visitors are. A short privacy notice that explains what you collect is a sensible baseline; ask your advisor what your business needs. Our privacy and cookie notices page explains what we can place on a site.
On a site we build
Every package includes essential search setup. If you want analytics on the site, raise it at the consultation: we will talk through which accounts you own and what to track. If you later want someone to read the numbers and act on them, Monthly SEO is an optional add-on, without any promise of rankings.
What to expect, honestly
- ✓We do not promise traffic or inquiries — analytics measures results, it does not create them
- ✓Accounts should belong to you — we work with access you grant and can remove
- ✓Privacy rules vary — ask your own advisor what applies to your business
One example of what your site could look like
This is one sample we designed. Yours is built around your business, your photos and your words, and we have more examples if you want to compare directions.
How it works
1. Consultation
We learn your services, customers and goals, in English or Spanish.
2. We write and design
We draft the words and build the site around your business.
3. 10 revision rounds
You review and request changes until it is right.
4. Launch and care
We launch, then Website Care keeps it hosted, backed up, checked weekly and A/B tested.
Keep reading
Visitors but no inquiries · New website, no traffic · Not showing on Google · Who owns your website
