"My website isn't really doing anything." It is the most common thing we hear, and the frustrating part is that the person saying it usually has no way of knowing whether it is true. They are judging by feel: the phone has been quiet, nobody has mentioned the site, so it must not be working.
Sometimes that instinct is right and the site genuinely is invisible. Sometimes it is bringing in a third of their enquiries and nobody has ever asked callers where they came from. You cannot fix either situation until you can see what is actually happening.
The mistake: judging by visitor numbers
Traffic is the metric everyone asks about and it is close to useless on its own. A thousand visitors who never contact you is worse than fifty who send four enquiries. For a local business, visits are a means, not the goal.
The number that matters is enquiries, and everything else on this page is just working out where they come from and why there are not more of them.
The two free tools, and what each is for
People confuse these constantly, so it is worth being clear:
- Google Search Console tells you how people find you: what they searched, which of your pages appeared, how often they clicked. It is the outside view.
- Google Analytics tells you what happens on the site: which pages they read, on what device, and what they did. It is the inside view.
Both are free. Most small business sites either have neither, or have Analytics installed but never configured, which quietly records nothing useful. If you only set up one, make it Search Console, because it answers the questions that lead to action.
The five numbers worth watching
- Enquiries per month. Form submissions, phone taps, WhatsApp taps, emails. The only number that pays. Track them together, because a site that generates calls but no form fills still works perfectly well.
- Where visitors come from. Search, direct, social, or another site. If nearly everything is direct, you are being found by people who already know you, and search is not yet doing its job.
- Which pages actually get found. In Search Console. Often revealing: for many local businesses one service page quietly does more work than the homepage.
- What people typed to reach you. The most useful report on this list, and the most ignored. Real searches from real people tell you which services to give their own page, what wording to use, and what to write next. It is free customer research.
- How many visitors become enquiries. Enquiries divided by visitors. Do not chase a benchmark, because it varies enormously by trade. Watch your own number over time and try to nudge it upwards.
Track actions, not just visits
Out of the box, Analytics counts pageviews and nothing else. To see enquiries you need to record the actions: form submitted, phone number tapped, WhatsApp opened. That takes a developer a few minutes to set up and it converts your analytics from trivia into something you can make decisions with.
One important caveat in Spain and the EU: analytics may only load after the visitor accepts cookies, so your figures will always undercount somewhat. That is normal and correct, and it is covered in what your website legally needs in Spain. Watch the trend rather than treating the absolute number as gospel.
Reading the result
Three patterns cover almost every small business site:
Hardly any visitors at all. A visibility problem. Either you are not indexed, or you are indexed but not competitive. Diagnose it with why isn't my website showing on Google, then work through getting found on Google, where the Business Profile and reviews do most of the lifting.
Decent visitors, almost no enquiries. A conversion problem, and usually the easiest to fix. People are finding you and deciding against you. Check the obvious suspects: is your phone number visible without scrolling, does the site load quickly on a phone (see why a slow website is costing you customers), is it clear what you do and where you work, and do you have reviews to reassure a stranger?
Enquiries, but the wrong ones. People asking for services you do not offer or in areas you do not cover. That is a messaging problem, and it is fixed by being more specific about your services and your area rather than by more traffic.
A ten-minute monthly review
Monthly, not daily. Small business numbers are noisy week to week and daily checking will only wind you up.
- Count last month's enquiries from every channel and write the number down.
- Open Search Console: are impressions and clicks trending up over three months?
- Look at the top ten search queries. Anything there you do not have a page for?
- Check which pages get the most clicks, and whether that matches what actually makes you money.
- Pick one thing to improve before next month. One.
Three months of that will tell you more about your business than a year of guessing.
Frequently asked questions
Do I really need Google Analytics?
You need something. Search Console is the higher priority of the two and is genuinely essential. Analytics is worth having as well, but only if the enquiry actions are tracked, otherwise it just counts visits.
How many visitors should my website get?
There is no meaningful answer, and anyone quoting you a target without knowing your trade and area is guessing. A local plumber doing well might see a few hundred visits a month. Judge yourself against your own trend and your enquiry count, not someone else's numbers.
Why is my Google Analytics showing no data?
Usually one of three things: it was never correctly installed, it is configured not to send pageviews, or it only loads after cookie consent and few visitors are accepting. All three are common and all three are fixable, but you have to look rather than assume the site has no traffic.
Are Analytics and Search Console the same thing?
No, and you want both. Search Console covers how people find you in Google. Analytics covers what they do once they arrive. Neither answers the other's questions.
How often should I check?
Once a month for ten minutes, comparing three-month trends. Checking daily tells you nothing except how variable small numbers are.
A website you cannot measure is one you can only argue about. Get the two free tools in place, track enquiries rather than visits, and the next decision usually becomes obvious. If you would like someone to set that up and tell you plainly what your numbers say, get in touch, or see how we build websites with tracking and consent handled from the start.