When running a WordPress site, be it for pleasure or business, website traffic is something you need to pay attention
to. Every website is created with a purpose in mind. It could be sharing information, building internet branding, making more sales for a business, or helping interact with your client base.
Whatever the purpose, the site needs visitors to serve that purpose, so website traffic is considered an important metric that determines your site’s overall performance. The more traffic, the more your content gets viewed and the more interaction you make with your target audience.
Importance of Checking Website Traffic
Besides indicating the performance of your website, website traffic information can also be hugely helpful for the following
- Get valuable insights into the visitor, such as their demographics, their locale, geographic location, and more.
- Optimize your marketing strategies and ad campaigns. Website traffic monitoring helps you identify the performance of each source of entry and exit from your website. For instance, you get a better idea of which ads are performing well, which links are the most clicked to reach your site, etc. You can get detailed reports on your top-performing affiliate links, download links, outbound links, exit pages, etc.
- Better SEO. You can identify the topics that generate better interest, create better user interface design, and analyze visitor count against user interaction data.
- Serve personalized content. For instance, by identifying the popular topics that visitors show interest in, you can focus on the content that generates better user interaction. You can also figure out the languages that your users prefer and make sure your content is translated into those languages
How To Track Website Visitors
There are multiple ways to check website traffic to your site.
| Site Analytics Tools | Description |
|---|---|
| WordPress Dashboard | Easily get access to website visitor data, including top-visited pages, top posts, and visitor count. The information provided is generic and may not be sufficient for deeper insights. |
| Google Analytics | Powerful data-backed analytics tool to track visitor data, including interactions and additional information. Requires a Gmail account and access to Google Analytics code to track visitors. |
| HotJar | Intuitive visualization tool that helps to make sense of data collected by Google Analytics. Visualizes visitor data in heatmaps, dashboards, charts, and more to help make meaningful inferences. |
| Live visitor Counter plugin | Affordable, lightweight plugin to track visitors and collect valuable insights related to website traffic. Provides a live counter widget and real-time visitor information with a guarantee of 200,000 page views per month. |
Site Stats on WordPress Dashboard
If you are using the WordPress platform, you can quickly get access to website visitor data by using the WordPress dashboard. Just visit the admin dashboard and navigate to the Site Stats section. This section can also give you details on the top-visited pages, top posts, and the visitor count for each page on your website. But this information can be generic and may not be sufficient to derive deeper insights.
Google Analytics
For more data-backed visitor data analytics, you can use Google Analytics for your website. Google Analytics is packed with powerful features to track the number of visitors to your web page and all their interactions, and additional information regarding the visitors. You should be signed up with a Gmail account to use Google Analytics, access the Google Analytics code to track visitors, and add it to your WordPress site.
Data visualizations with HotJar
While Google Analytics provides powerful data collection features, sometimes it isn’t easy to make sense of massive data. You need some extra functionality added to your website to visualize these data to help make meaningful inferences from the data collected. HotJar is an intuitive visualization tool that helps visualize visitor data in heatmaps, dashboards, charts, and more. It helps you reach data-based decisions quicker as you can easily spot user issues at a glance and track user behavior over time with a single look at the data visualizations.
Live Counter WP Plugin
Besides Google Analytics and the more straightforward WordPress dashboard functionality, you can also use plugins such as the Live visitor Counter plugin. This plugin helps you track visitors and collect valuable insights related to your website traffic. It also enables you to add an elegantly designed live counter widget to your website. It provides an affordable, lightweight, highly optimized solution and regular real-time visitor information. Live counter also provides a guarantee of 200,000 -page views every month.