Are you interested in knowing how much traffic your website receives? You can access the performance of your website and how it stacks up against the competition by looking at website traffic.
It is essential to understand website traffic analytics to monitor your growth. As you implement new strategies, keeping track of your website’s traffic is a skill you’ll need again and again.
In this blog, we will cover:
- What is website traffic?
- Why should you analyse your website traffic?
- How to check how much traffic your website gets
- The best free and paid tools to track website traffic
State of Digital Marketing Report 2024
Exclusive insights and data from the marketing strategies of over 500+ UK business
What is website traffic?
The quantity of visitors to a website at any given time is known as website traffic. In most cases, traffic is counted in sessions. One or more pages may be viewed by the user during a session, and some visitors may visit your website on many occasions before making a purchase or requesting further information.
Google Analytics is a useful tool to use when first tracking the traffic to your website. It’s a little trickier to find out how many visitors a competitor’s website receives. But not to worry, this blog will provide you with all the tools necessary to check website traffic, even if the website in question, is not your own.
Why should you analyse your website traffic?
You can quickly see how well your website is performing by looking at your website stats. Your website’s traffic statistics will demonstrate where your visitors are coming from, how they interact with your website, and which digital marketing tactics are effective.
You should frequently review your website analytics if you want to increase your email subscribers, online store sales, or just overall traffic. You can see where your website is right now and what you can do to make it better by monitoring the traffic to your site.
How to check how much traffic your website gets
The method of analysing traffic depends on whether the website is yours or belongs to someone else. You may measure visitor statistics for your own website in one of three ways; via tools, plugins, or merely by checking Google Analytics directly.
Let’s explore each option in more detail.
1. Tools for traffic estimation
Some traffic estimation tools are free and just provide you with the more basic data, while others, like Ahrefs, are far more comprehensive. These tools are made to gather analytics from various sources and present the most important metrics first in an easy-to-read dashboard.
The best thing about many of them is that you can export reports, alter views, and many other things. Additionally, they make it easier to see both the real volume of traffic and where it’s coming from. This is generally quite helpful for tasks like tracking campaigns or determining how many recurring visitors you receive from a website.
2. Use a WordPress plugin
Alternatively, you can use a WordPress plugin on your website to figure out how many people are visiting your page and where they are coming from. This option combines metrics and brings them together in a way that makes it easy to tell traffic levels. When trying to plan content for a certain holiday or time of year, this kind of tool may also be able to point out specific seasonal or irregular visit patterns.
This option’s only drawback is that it is limited to WordPress-powered websites. Using a plugin wouldn’t be an option if yours is something different, such as Shopify, Wix, or one of the many others.
3. Analyse Google Analytics
As previously mentioned, you can always look at your Google Analytics statistics, too. This is frequently the most simple and effective method for learning directly how much traffic your website is receiving. You’ll find a tonne of data on where your visitors are coming from, locations, and other ranking variables in your dashboard, which you can use to help you adapt your content properly.
Tip: As there is so much information available in Google Analytics, it could be a good idea to make customised dashboards with just the data that you wish to track.
The best free and paid tools to track website traffic
Free tools to check your website’s traffic
There are several tools available that you may use to check website traffic for free, and more tools are always being developed.
Some of the best free ones to look into are listed below:
1. Google Analytics
Image Source| Screenshot LOCALiQ’s Google Analytics.
As we already discussed, the first place to look for information on website visitors is Google Analytics (GA). In addition to being free, it is typically where many of the other website tools receive the data they use to offer to you.
In addition to Google Analytics, Google Search Console is another free Google tool that you may use to examine the traffic coming from search engines. This tool provides you with a thorough understanding of how search engines perceive your website.
It displays the volume of views, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), and average position of your keywords in search engine results. This aids in your understanding of the search volume and keywords for which you are ranking online. Using this knowledge will enable you to increase traffic. If you discover that you are currently at position 11, for instance, you might optimise the blog article to get it to the top of the search results page.
2. SimilarWeb
A website traffic analyser called SimilarWeb shows you the traffic to your website and what marketing methods are most effective. You’ll receive thorough reports on a website’s entire traffic strategy rather than just traffic from search engines. After running a website via the tool, you’ll also receive a breakdown of the overall traffic and a breakdown by country.
In addition to overall traffic, you’ll learn which paid keywords drive visitors to the website, which social media platforms are most effective, and which display networks the company employs to monetise.
Finally, you’ll receive a thorough analysis of the site’s audience, along with information on the kind of websites they frequently visit, the top referring websites and a list of competitors’ websites that you can further investigate.
3. Moz
One of the most well-known brands in search engine optimisation (SEO) and online marketing is Moz. A variety of free SEO tools are available on the Moz platform for monitoring your website’s traffic.
Using the Keyword Explorer tool, you can find content that matches your desired keywords. This might help you identify competitors and identify opportunities to outperform them with better content. The performance of a keyword is a reliable measure of where a competitor stands in the market.
Paid tools to check your website’s traffic
Paid tools typically provide considerably higher-level, more accurate data as well as more sophisticated features than free tools. Additionally, use caps are more lenient, so there is no longer a need to carefully plan out what to search for in advance in order to stay under the daily cap or run out of search credits in the middle of the month.
Let’s look at the best-paid tools to check how much traffic a website gets:
1. Ahrefs
Another well-liked SEO tool and website traffic analyser is Ahrefs, which provides data on website traffic. The platform also includes a full suite of other SEO tools, comparable to Semrush.
Simply paste your website’s URL to get information such as expected monthly visits, organic keywords, traffic value, competing domains, and more about organic traffic. You can also conduct keyword research using the organic keywords report to find out which search terms other people are ranking for. Then, make better content using those keywords, and optimise your pages.
You can also use it to do a technical SEO examination of your website. Discover broken links and referring domains, analyse competitors or your site anchor distribution, spot content gaps, and more.
2. Semrush
One of the most popular tools for analysing website traffic is Semrush. Beyond that, it has a wealth of strong features that can help you improve the SEO of your website. Semrush will provide statistics about a website’s traffic, top organic keywords, top landing pages, backlinks, and more with just the website’s URL.
The site even offers a feature called Traffic Analytics. You may view the overall number of visitors, traffic sources, and more with this tool. Additionally, you can determine the precise keywords that will work best for getting your website to rank using their Keyword Magic Tool. To see comparable keywords, volume, search trends, how difficult it will be to rank for, and other information, simply enter a keyword.
3. Serpstat
Serpstat provides a wide variety of unique SEO tools. An all-encompassing website analysis tool has evolved from what was first just a simple keyword research tool. It is still really simple to use despite having a tonne of features. To generate a traffic report, simply input the URL.
Along with tools for rank tracking, backlink research, and site auditing, there are capabilities for traffic analysis. The website traffic analysis tools provide you with a wealth of important information, such as the most popular pages on the site, the average monthly visitor count, and the organic and paid keywords that are bringing in the most traffic.
It is evident from this blog post that tracking website traffic is one of many crucial aspects of digital marketing and SEO and there are various tools available to help you quickly determine the traffic to your site.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how to make your website more visible, let us know how we can assist. Get in touch with one of our SEO experts right away.
State of Digital Marketing Report 2024
Exclusive insights and data from the marketing strategies of over 500+ UK business
