What is Website Analytics – and Do You Really Need It?
Ella Pybus |
8 July, 2025 |
4 minute read |
Blog, Digital Marketing, SEO, Tracking and Analytics
Website analytics are an important feature to have if you want to succeed in SEO and PPC. They tell you what people are actually doing when they visit your site.
It helps you understand what’s working, what’s not, and then you can decide how to make things better.
What is website analytics?
Website analytics is the process of tracking, measuring, and understanding what people do on your website.
You can use tools like GA4 and Google Search Console to collect data about your website visitors – like how many people come to your site, where they come from, what pages they look at, and how long they stay.
This helps you answer questions like:
- Are people finding why they need it?
- Which pages are most popular?
- Where are visitors dropping off?
Understanding this data helps you improve your website so more people take the actions you want, like making a purchase, filling out a form or clicking the call us button, ultimately increasing your ROI.
Why Should You Care?
You might think your homepage is doing a great job, but what if most users are bouncing after three seconds? You could be investing time and money into content, landing pages, or ads that just aren’t working, and you’d have no idea.
Analytics puts the truth in front of you. It shows you:
- Which pages are driving conversions, and which are driving people away
- Whether mobile users are struggling to navigate your site
- If your latest blog post actually brought in traffic or just sat there gathering dust
- Where people are dropping off in your sales funnel, and why
This isn’t just about data, it’s about making smarter decisions. Spot problems early, test ideas before wasting budget, and track improvements so you know what’s actually working.
If you’re not looking at your data, you’re leaving performance and profit on the table. And your competitors are looking.
Want to learn more? Check out our beginner’s guide to How to Set Up GA4 the Easy Way.
What does website analytics track?
Most website analytic tools give you key data like:
- Pageviews: The number of times a specific page on your site was looked at. For example, if your product page had 500 pageviews this week, that’s 500 chances to make a sale.
- Users: This tells you how many individual people visited your site. It helps you understand how many real visitors you’re attracting, not just how many times they clicked around.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of people who landed on your site and left without clicking anything else. A high bounce rate could mean your content isn’t what they expected, or that it’s not engaging enough to keep them.
- Traffic sources: This shows where your visitors are coming from. Are they finding you through Google, clicking a link on social media, or typing your URL directly? Knowing this helps you focus your marketing where it’s working.
- Conversions: These are the actions you want people to take—like signing up to your newsletter, filling out a form, or buying a product. Tracking conversions shows you what’s actually driving results.
How do you get started?
It’s easier than you may think. Most people start with GA4 – it’s free and gives you loads of useful information. All you need to do is set up an account, connect it to your website, and you’ll start collecting data automatically.
Once it’s running, you can log in any time and see your data. The more you check, the more you’ll learn about what’s really happening.
Why not discover the key B2B metrics to monitor in GA4?
Our final thoughts
Website analytics is like having a behind-the-scenes look at your website.
It helps you understand your visitors, fix what’s not working, and succeed faster.
You don’t need to be a tech expert to get started — just a bit curious and willing to learn.
Ready to set up your website analytics but don’t know where to start? Let us help you with our website analytics service. Contact us today.
Photo © by StockSnap from pixabay.
