Your website is out there right now, collecting data about everyone who visits it: what they looked at, how long they stayed, where they came from, and whether they did anything before they left. Most business owners have no idea what any of it says or how to track your website performance.
And I get it. It’s just a lot to keep up with when you’re also running a business. We check analytics for our clients once a month, and it tells us more about your marketing than almost anything else you can do.
Where is your traffic coming from?
Are people finding you through Google searches, social media, ads, or direct visits? This matters more than total traffic numbers.
If you’ve been posting consistently on Instagram, are those posts actually sending people to your website, or just racking up likes that go nowhere?
If you’re running ads, are they working?
This is one of the first things I look at every month for my management clients. Because vanity metrics are easy to celebrate, but they put $0 in your pocket unless they’re going somewhere.
How long are people staying, and are they doing anything?
A visitor who lands on your page and leaves in five seconds is not a lead. Look at time on page and what actions people are taking.
Are they clicking through to your service pages? Filling out your contact form?
If people are showing up but not sticking around, something about the experience isn’t working, and that’s something we can fix.
What’s your bounce rate?
Your bounce rate tells you how many people are landing on your site and leaving without taking any action at all. A high bounce rate is a signal, usually that the top of your page isn’t doing its job fast enough. When I see a bounce rate creeping up for a client, that’s the conversation we’re having next.
Catch it early and it’s a quick fix. Let it sit and it starts affecting your rankings.
Is anything broken?
404 errors show up in your analytics. That’s a page someone tried to visit that doesn’t exist – a broken link, a deleted page, something that went wrong somewhere.
I catch these in monthly check-ins before they turn into a real problem. Broken links are one of the things Google penalizes quietly, and most business owners have no idea they’re there.
But this could also indicate a broken link in an email, a social media post, or any number of other sources. If there’s no broken link on your website, that probably means it’s time to check there.
Are people on mobile or desktop?
If the majority of your visitors are on their phones, your mobile site deserves more attention than your desktop version.
Most people build for desktop and treat mobile as an afterthought. Your analytics will tell you which one actually matters more for your audience, and we design and adjust accordingly.
What do your SEO analytics say?
This is the layer most people never look at. Beyond the basics of how to track your website performance, SEO analytics can show you what keywords you’re currently ranking for, how your domain authority is trending, and, increasingly, how often your website is being referenced by AI tools. That last one is only going to matter more over time.
I track all of this monthly and use it to make recommendations on what to improve, what to lean into, and what to leave alone.
Why monthly matters
Looking at your analytics twice a year gives you data. Looking at them every month gives you a story. You start to see what’s working, what isn’t, and what changed. And you can actually do something about it while it’s still relevant.
If that sounds like one more thing you don’t have time for, that’s exactly what website management is for. I check in on your analytics every month, flag anything worth paying attention to, and tell you what I think we should do about it. In plain language, no jargon required.