What Should I Track on a Small Business Website?

Quick answer

Keep it short: how many people visit and roughly where they came from, how many take a contact action, how many inquiries you actually receive, which sources produce the good ones, and whether your form is still delivering. Most other numbers won't change a decision you make. Collect only what you need, and respect the privacy rules that apply to you.

The short list

Visits, and the general trend over months rather than day to day.
Where visitors came from: search, your Google profile, social, a link, direct.
Which pages get looked at most — often not the ones you'd guess.
Contact actions: clicks on your phone number, form submissions, booking starts, where your setup records them.
Inquiries received, counted by you in one place.
Lead source and lead quality, even if you record them by hand.
Form health: did anything arrive this week, and does a test submission still work?

Why lead quality belongs on the list

It's the only number that connects your website to your bank account. Twenty inquiries where two are a fit tells a very different story from six where five are. You don't need software for this — a column marked "fit / not a fit" on your lead list is enough.

Tracking sources honestly

Attribution is directional, not exact. Someone can see your profile, search your name, ask a neighbor, and then call — and any tool will credit one of those. Use source data to spot patterns, not to make confident claims. See how to track lead source, including the caveats around call tracking.

What not to bother with

Bounce rate, time on page, scroll depth, and keyword-level rank chasing. For a small local business these rarely lead to a different action, and watching them mostly generates anxiety. Skip a dashboard you won't read.

Privacy and consent

Analytics and tracking involve collecting information about visitors, and what's required — notices, consent, cookie choices, how you describe it in a privacy page — varies by where you and your visitors are and what you collect. This isn't legal advice. Practical defaults: collect the minimum you'll actually use, describe it plainly on a privacy page, and don't add a tool you can't explain.

The check that matters most

Submit your own form monthly. A silent delivery failure looks identical to a quiet month, and it's the one problem that costs you real work while every other number looks normal — how to test it.

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