Website analytics for small businesses: the 5 numbers that matter
Most small businesses need five numbers from their website, checked once a week. Everything else is optional. Here is what to watch, what to ignore and how to keep it to five minutes.
The five numbers
- Visitors. How many people came. Compare with the same period last week or month, not with yesterday: daily numbers jump around.
- Where they came from. Google, social media, other websites, newsletters or typed directly. This tells you which of your efforts brings people in.
- Which pages they read. Your most visited pages show what people care about. Your entry pages show where they first land.
- Actions that matter to you. A contact form sent, a booking, a signup or a purchase. One or two of these beat any number of charts.
- What changed. A sudden rise or drop in a source or page is usually the most useful thing to know, and the easiest to miss.
What you can safely ignore
- Bounce rate on its own. Someone who finds your opening hours and leaves got what they came for.
- Tiny day-to-day changes. With fewer than about 50 visitors a day, ups and downs are mostly random.
- Dozens of custom reports. If you never act on a report, you don't need it.
A five-minute weekly routine
- Compare this week's visitors with last week's.
- Look at the top three sources. Did one grow or shrink?
- Check your top pages. Is the page that earns you money among them?
- Count your key actions (forms, bookings, sales).
- Pick one small thing to try next week, such as improving the page people leave most.
Or let the summary come to you
Varde does this routine for you. It tracks these numbers without cookies, so you don't need a cookie banner for it, and emails you a short summary in plain English: what changed, why if the data shows it, and one thing to try. It is free for one site. See the live demo or how it compares with Google Analytics.