Understanding who visits your website, where they come from, and what they do when they get there is one of the most useful things a website owner can know.
Website statistics — often called analytics or traffic data — are records of visitor activity on your website. A statistics tool installed on your site tracks every visit and records information about it: where the visitor came from, which pages they viewed, how long they stayed, what device they used, and where in the world they were located.
Over time this data builds into a picture of how your website is performing. You can see which pages attract the most visitors, which sources of traffic are most valuable, and whether changes you make to the site are having any measurable effect. Without this data, any decisions about improving your website are based on guesswork rather than evidence.
The most basic figure — total visits over any time period. You can compare periods to see whether traffic is growing, declining, or stable, and spot seasonal patterns in your audience.
Traffic sources are broken down into categories — visitors who found you through a search engine, those who typed your address directly, those who clicked a link from another website, and those who arrived via social media. Understanding which sources bring the most visitors helps you focus your efforts in the right places.
Knowing which pages attract the most visitors and which are rarely seen tells you what your audience is most interested in. It also helps identify pages that are underperforming and may need improving or promoting.
A very short average time on a page can indicate that visitors are not finding what they expected, that the page loads slowly, or that the content is not engaging. Longer times suggest visitors are reading and considering your content carefully.
The proportion of visits from mobile phones versus desktop computers is valuable information. If most of your visitors are on mobile and your site performs poorly on smaller screens, that is a priority issue to address.
Some statistics tools show which search terms people used to find your site. This tells you what potential customers are actually looking for — which may not always be exactly what you expected — and can inform both your content and your search visibility efforts.
Several statistics tools are available, ranging from the very simple to the highly detailed. The most widely known is Google Analytics, which is free and powerful but increasingly complex, requiring visitor consent for cookies and sharing your visitor data with Google's advertising network in the process.
A well-regarded alternative — and one used here at JWBIZ — is StatCounter. StatCounter has been providing website statistics since 1999 and offers a free tier suitable for most small business websites. Its reports are straightforward to read and understand without needing technical expertise, and the data is presented in a clear, accessible format that makes it easy to act on. For business owners who want reliable statistics without the complexity of enterprise-level tools, StatCounter is an excellent choice.
Other options include Matomo, which can be self-hosted giving you full ownership of your data, and Clicky, which offers real-time visitor tracking. Most hosting providers also include basic server-level statistics — these are less detailed than dedicated tools but require no installation and collect data from the moment your site goes live.
The best statistics tool is the one you will actually look at and act on. A straightforward tool that you check regularly and understand clearly is worth considerably more than a sophisticated one that generates reports nobody reads.
Most website statistics tools work by placing a small piece of tracking code on your site that sets a cookie on the visitor's device. Under UK GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, statistics cookies are classified as non-essential, meaning you must obtain visitor consent before setting them.
This requires a cookie consent mechanism — typically a banner or notice that gives visitors the choice to accept or decline tracking. If you use a statistics tool that sets cookies and do not have a proper consent mechanism in place, your website is not compliant with current UK law.
It is worth checking what data your chosen statistics tool collects, where it is stored, and whether it shares data with third parties. These details should be reflected accurately in your website's privacy policy.
For a small business with a simple website and no active marketing campaigns, the case for detailed statistics is modest but still present. The main reasons to install one regardless of your current traffic levels are:
Installing a statistics tool when traffic is low costs nothing and creates no harm beyond the obligation to mention it in your privacy policy and provide a cookie consent option. Not having one installed when you later need historical data is a more frustrating situation — that past data cannot be recovered retrospectively.
