Add one analytics script to every page of your site, confirm it records a test visit, then set up the actions that matter, such as form submissions and downloads, as goals. Choose the tool with your privacy duties in mind, because cookie-based and cookieless tools differ in whether visitors must consent first.
Before you paste any tracking code into your site, answer one question: do you want a cookie-based tool or a cookieless one? That choice shapes your consent setup, how visitors get counted and which tools make sense, so it's worth five minutes before you touch the six steps further down.
Then decide what you need to know. For most small businesses it's three things: where visitors come from, which pages they read, and whether they go on to enquire or buy. Everything else is nice to have.
Which kind of analytics fits your site
You want the free default: Google Analytics
Google's help page presents Analytics as free of charge, as of Nov 2026. Setup runs in stages: you create an account, then a property for the site, then add the code to your website. It's cookie based, which matters for consent, and it has a data retention setting you'll want to change on day one.
You'd rather skip the cookie banner: Plausible Analytics, Fathom Analytics or Simple Analytics
Plausible offers a lightweight script, a single-page dashboard, goals, custom events, UTM campaign tracking, funnels and a view of traffic from AI tools. It stores nothing on the visitor's device and says no cookie banner is required.
Fathom also gives you a single-page dashboard and custom events, plus a UTM builder and a cookie checker that shows what your site sets before consent. It describes itself as independently owned with EU data isolation.
Simple Analytics takes a different angle: it runs alongside GA4 and counts sessions without creating visitor identities, including visits where consent is denied, so you get an independent cookieless count to compare against Google's numbers.
You want the data on your own server: Matomo or Umami
Matomo is open-source analytics with heatmaps, session recordings and funnels, plus a consent-free tracking use case. You can host it on your own server or in their cloud, and the on-premise version is offered as a free download, as of Nov 2026.
Umami is an open-source, cookieless dashboard of pageviews, visitors, bounce rate and visit time, with events, funnels, journeys and session replays. Self-host it or use Umami Cloud; the page offers a free start as well as open-source self-hosting, as of Nov 2026.
You run a product as well as a website: PostHog
It puts product analytics, session replay, feature flags, experiments and surveys in one tool, and takes in errors alongside analytics. A setup wizard installs it for you, and the page says you can get started free, as of Nov 2026.
Prefer to compare more no-charge options first? My roundup of free website analytics tools goes wider than this page.
Six steps from blank site to useful numbers
- Settle what you need and which route you're taking. Traffic sources, popular pages and conversions, plus cookie-based or cookieless. If you've read the routes above, you've done this one.
- Create an account and a property or site entry for your domain. Google's setup guide starts with an account, then a property for the site, and the privacy-first tools follow the same account-then-site pattern.
- Add the script to every page, then check a visit lands. Put the code in the header of your template, in a tag manager or through a plugin, load the site yourself and confirm the visit appears. A script missing from some templates is the usual reason a page shows no data.
- Turn the actions that matter into goals or events. Form submissions, downloads and outbound link clicks are the obvious ones, because pageviews alone don't show whether visits lead to enquiries. Plausible lists automatic tracking of downloads, form completions and external link clicks.
- Set how long user-level data is kept, and check your consent setup. Retention and consent settings change what you can see and what you must tell visitors, for every country you serve.
- Tag campaign links with UTM parameters and read the sources report weekly. Untagged links lump email, social and ad traffic together. Fathom's UTM builder makes the tagging quicker.
The retention setting that trims your explorations
The Google Analytics Help page on data retention explains a setting that catches plenty of site owners out. It controls how long user-level and event data is kept, and for standard properties the options are 2 months or 14 months.
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It only affects explorations and funnel reports, not the standard aggregated reports, which is exactly why it's easy to miss. If an exploration covers a longer date range than the retention period, the extra days simply don't appear. There's no warning in red; you just get a shorter story than you asked for. Set it to 14 months on day one if you want year-on-year exploration.
Consent is the other half of step five, and the rules differ by country, so check the regulator's guidance for where your visitors are. I've written a separate explainer on whether Google Analytics needs cookie consent if that's your sticking point.
My verdict: one script, a few goals, then depth
Don't install three tools on day one. Pick the route that matches your privacy stance, get one script firing on every page, and set up two or three goals that map to enquiries or sales. Give it a month of clean data before you add anything. If you later want to see how people move around a single page, that's a different job, and my list of heatmap tools covers it. Clean, tagged, goal-based data from one tool beats messy data from four.
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Frequently asked questions
Do I need a cookie banner to track website visitors?
It depends on the tool. Plausible and Fathom both state that no cookie banner is required for their analytics, while Google Analytics is cookie based. Check the rules for the countries your visitors come from.
What's the simplest way to start tracking visitors?
Create a property in a tool such as Google Analytics, add its code to your website, and confirm a test visit shows up. Privacy-first tools such as Plausible and Fathom follow a similar script-based setup.
Can I track visitors without sending data to a third party?
Yes. Matomo and Umami are open source and can be hosted on your own infrastructure, so the data stays with you.
How do I track form submissions and downloads, not just visits?
Set them up as goals or custom events. Plausible lists automatic tracking of file downloads, form completions and external link clicks, and Fathom supports custom events.
How can I see which marketing channel brings visitors?
Add UTM parameters to campaign links. Plausible tracks UTM campaigns with automatic channel grouping, and Fathom offers a UTM builder.
