How to measure if your website is actually working
Most websites are measured by feel, not by numbers. "It looks nice" is not the same as "it works". A small set of metrics, checked monthly, tells you whether the site is earning its keep or burning money. Here is what to look at and what to ignore.
Traffic: how many and from where
Monthly unique visitors. The headline number. Without traffic, nothing else matters.
Source breakdown. Organic search, direct, paid, referral, social. Each source behaves differently and tells you what marketing is working.
Top landing pages. Which pages bring people in first. These are your real front doors and deserve the most attention.
What to ignore: total pageviews. A high number can mean engaged visitors or just lost ones clicking around. Focus on sessions and conversions instead.
Conversion: what they do once they arrive
Goal completions. Forms submitted, calls made, products purchased, bookings booked. Define a goal per page that has one.
Conversion rate by source. Organic traffic converting at 4 percent and paid at 1 percent tells you exactly where your marketing budget should go.
Drop-off points. Where in a multi-step process people leave. Often a checkout, a long form, or a page that does not answer the obvious question.
Search visibility: what Google sees
Impressions and clicks in Search Console. Impressions tell you whether you appear, clicks whether the snippet earns attention.
Average position for your key terms. Position 3 and position 9 are different worlds: the click-through rate drops sharply after the top 3.
Pages indexed vs pages published. A gap here means Google is rejecting some of your content. Worth investigating.
Speed and technical health
Core Web Vitals: LCP, INP, CLS. Search Console reports them in the Page Experience section. Anything outside the good range is a real ranking risk.
Uptime. A site that goes down even a few hours a month loses sales and trust. Free monitors like UptimeRobot give you alerts.
Mobile usability. Search Console flags issues here separately. Fix any flagged page promptly because mobile traffic dominates.
Money: the only metric that really matters
Revenue or pipeline attributable to the site. For e-commerce this is direct. For services, tag leads in your CRM with their source.
Cost per lead by channel. SEO has zero variable cost but takes months to build. Paid ads are instant but cost per lead matters every day.
Lifetime value of a website-acquired customer. Often higher than other channels because the visitor came actively looking, not interrupted by an ad.
A monthly 30-minute review
Pull GA4 (or Plausible) for last month vs the month before. Note traffic and conversion changes.
Open Search Console. Check impressions, top queries, and any new errors.
Run a PageSpeed Insights test on the homepage and one key inner page.
Write three sentences: what improved, what got worse, what you will change next month. That is the whole review.
FAQ
Do I need a paid analytics tool?+
Usually no. GA4 is free for most sites. Plausible, Fathom, and Simple Analytics offer GDPR-friendly alternatives starting around 9 EUR per month.
What is a good conversion rate?+
Industry averages vary widely. For a small service business, 2-5 percent of visitors taking a meaningful action is realistic. For e-commerce, 1-3 percent is typical.
How often should I check metrics?+
A focused 30-minute review per month is enough for most sites. Daily checking creates noise without insight.