How to Track Website Traffic Using Google Analytics (2022)

Do you want to know how to track website traffic with Google Analytics? If you use Google Analytics to see your website traffic, you’ll get to see all kinds of data like how your visitors found your site, how long they spent on your site, and what pages they viewed.

When you know how your visitors found you, whether through Google search, social media, or other channel, you can make impactful decisions to help you grow your traffic.

In this article, we’ll show you how to track website traffic using Google Analytics.

Jump to a section:

• Why Track Website Traffic?
• Video Tutorial
• How to Track Your Traffic in WordPress
• How to Track Website Traffic in Google Analytics
• Website Traffic Tracking Quick Tips
• How to See Website Traffic on a Competitor’s Site

Start Tracking Website Traffic Today!

Why Track Website Traffic with Google Analytics?

As a marketer, there are many benefits to being able to see your website traffic and where it came from. Here are some reasons for tracking your traffic:

• Better Understand Your Visitors – Tracking you traffic sources in Google analytics can help you identify your unique visitors’ geographic location and which channels they use, so you can better understand them and their user behavior, provide targeted messages, and make improvements to your SEO strategies
• Measure Your Marketing Campaigns – If a campaign is built around driving traffic, then you can measure its effectiveness
• Focus on Channels for Best Results – By identifying which channel performed the best in getting visitors to your site, you can focus on it more to get even better results
• Find New Content Topics – People from different channels might be interested in specific topics, so you can discover new content ideas by checking your traffic sources and bounce rate for each page, then using that traffic data to perform keyword research
• Identify Traffic Gaps on Your Site – You can identify which channel doesn’t perform well in attracting visitors, so you can optimize it

Now, are you ready to learn how to see website traffic statistics in Google Analytics and WordPress?

Video Tutorial

If you want to read the written steps, then continue reading. We’ll guide you on how to track your traffic.

How to Track Your Website Traffic in WordPress

When it comes to using Google Analytics, many users find it overwhelming. That’s because it requires some code for setting it up on your WordPress site.

Plus, you’ll have to be an Analytics expert to find the right report and get the traffic data that you need for making decisions.

So, a much easier way of viewing your traffic sources, pageviews, and other engagement metrics in WordPress is through MonsterInsights.

It’s the best WordPress plugin for Google Analytics and it makes using Analytics very easy. You don’t have to worry about hiring a developer or someone who knows analytics.

The plugin helps add Google Analytics to your website and then displays the most useful reports right inside your WordPress dashboard.

Once you’ve installed MonsterInsights on your website, you can see where your traffic is coming from. Let’s look at each report that you can use to track website traffic.

Overview Report

To start, go to Insights » Reports » Overview. Here you can see a traffic overview report and the overall performance of your website.

If you scroll down, you can see the Device Breakdown report that shows which device your visitors use to view your website.

In the Overview report, you can also view the Top 10 Countries that your users are from. Using this report, you can create campaigns, messages, and content according to different regions.

And next to countries, you can see the Top 10 Referrals report. This shows websites that send the most traffic to your site, including social media networks. You can form partnerships with these sites and continue to grow your traffic.

Wondering how to see pageviews on Google Analytics? At the bottom of the Overview report, you’ll find your top posts and pages.

Search Console Report

Now, if your site gets some organic traffic, you should know which keywords your site is ranked for. To find that out, MonsterInsights offers a Search Console Report.

It shows the top 50 Google search terms for your website along with clicks, impressions, CTR (click-through-rate), and average position (keyword ranking).

Since these are keywords that bring you your most organic traffic, you can do a keyword search and find similar search terms to optimize for on your site. You can even use them to think of new content ideas to boost your organic traffic and improve your overall marketing strategy.

You can go through our guide on how to configure your WordPress site with Google Search Console.

eCommerce Report

Do you have an eCommerce store and want to know where your most converting traffic comes from? If yes, then the MonsterInsights eCommerce report can help you out.

It shows you the Top Conversion Sources. You can see which websites send traffic that converts in your online store. Since people arriving from these websites buy your products, you can offer exclusive discounts and deals to make more money.

Realtime Report

Another report you can view for traffic stats is the realtime report. It shows you where your visitors are coming from in real-time. You can see web traffic analytics for referral sources, countries, and cities that are currently on your WordPress site.

This report is useful to check website traffic statistics if you’ve just launched a new product or a marketing campaign and want to see where visitors are coming from.

There’s more! You’ll also find a Publishers report, a Forms report, and more. For more on what you’ll find in MonsterInsights, check out Your Ultimate Guide to MonsterInsights Dashboard Reports.

With that, let’s see how to find traffic sources in Google Analytics.

How to Track Website Traffic in Google Analytics

MonsterInsights offers user-friendly reports inside your dashboard, so you don’t have to leave your site. But what if you want to see where traffic is coming from in Google Analytics?

There are many reports that you can use to see website traffic statistics in Analytics. Having said that, it’s very easy to get lost.

To help you find the data that matters, you can start by logging in to your Google Analytics account.

If you’re using Universal Analytics, head to Acquisition » All Traffic » Channels.

If you’re using Google Analytics 4 (GA4), go to Acquisition » Traffic Acquisition:

In this Google Analytics web traffic report, you can see which channels are driving the most traffic to your website. For instance, you can see in both examples that Organic Search has the highest number of visitors. These are the people that come from search engines.

You can already see the medium in your GA4 report. If you want more detail in Universal Analytics, you can go to the Source/Medium report under All Traffic. It will narrow down the source of your traffic along with the channel.

For example, the analytics report will show which search engine generated the highest traffic (in this case Google).

Now that you know how to see where traffic is coming from for your overall website, what if you want to use Google Analytics to find traffic for specific pages?

Google Analytics Traffic Sources for a Specific Page

To find traffic sources for a specific page, log into your Universal Google Analytics account (or jump to the GA4 instructions) and navigate to Behavior » Site Content. From there you can choose whether to view the traffic sources of all of your website’s pages, the landing pages, or the exit pages.

In this example, we’ll show you how to view the traffic sources of your site’s landing pages, which is important because these are the pages visitors landed on first when visiting your site.

Next, use Secondary Dimension and search for Source/Medium, which is under Acquisition.

Now you’ll see a list of your website’s landing pages, complete with the source of your site’s traffic, which is where visitors were before clicking on your website, and the medium, which is how your visitors arrived at your website.

You now know how to use Google Analytics and find traffic sources for your website.

GA4 Instructions

To find site traffic sources and other web traffic analytics for a specific page in Google Analytics 4, navigate to Engagement » Pages and Screens. In the table, you’ll see both Views and Users, so you can see how many views each page got, and how many users completed those views.

To add source/medium to the report, click the plus icon above the Totals column. In the dropdown, choose Traffic source then Session source / medium.

Now, you have a table of your pages by source/medium and views:

To change this table to view your landing pages by source/medium, scroll over the the Event count column. Click the down arrow next to All Events and select first_visit.

Then, click the Event count column title to sort by landing page visit events. Now you have your landing page visits report by source/medium.

Website Traffic Tracking Quick Tips

1. Set up a Google Analytics 4 property. Google Analytics 3 (Universal Analytics) will sunset in July 2023!
2. Use Google Search Console. It gives you awesome keyword insights!
3. Decide which Google Analytics reports and metrics are the most important to your website and keep track of them.
4. Set up conversion tracking wherever you can. Conversions are what tell you if you’re reaching your goals.

How to See Website Traffic on a Competitor’s Site

Now that you know how to see your own website traffic, are you wondering how to see a competitor’s website traffic? Here are a few tools you can use for that!

1. Semrush: A popular SEO tool used for keyword research, competitor tracking, backlink tracking, organic keyword position tracking, and more.
2. Ahrefs: A set of SEO tools similar in popularity to Semrush with a whole suite of tools for tracking website visitors and SEO effectiveness.
3. SimilarWeb: Another popular website traffic checker tool for SEO professionals with a really handy Chrome extension and other SEO tools.

For more tools to track the amount of traffic your competitors are getting (including a couple free website traffic checker tools), read 7 Website Traffic Checkers: How Much Traffic Does a Website Get?.

And that’s it!

Start Tracking Website Traffic Today!

We hope you liked our article on how to track website traffic using Google Analytics. You can also check out A Complete Guide to GA4 Conversion Tracking for WordPress.

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