You’ve heard it many times: data is king. 

Data provides actionable insight into your website, allowing you to determine how users interact with your website, as well as how your competitors approach digital marketing. And, one of the most important metrics you need to track is website traffic. 

Website traffic refers to the number of people who visit your website, forming the foundation of your website. After all, without traffic, no one clicks, reads, buys, or signs up. 

With that said, here are several ways to track your website traffic:

  • Google Analytics As The Golden Standard

There’s only one standard tool you need to take into account when analyzing your website traffic, and that’s Google Analytics. 

The platform is customizable and simple, covering all the basic info you need to know about your audience and website. Connected directly to your site, Google Analytics shows you exactly how many visitors your website is getting, how they’re interacting with your content and site, and where they’re coming from. 

Just don’t confuse it with Google Search Console. There’s a difference between Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

  • Try Out Other Web Analytics Tool

There’s a lot of tools, both free and paid, that allow you to check your site’s traffic. Here are the ones with the most solid reputation:

  • Ahrefs

This is, perhaps, one of the most complete and popular SEO audit tools out there. In terms of site traffic, its organic search overview report gives you an insight into the kind of organic traffic you’re getting and which keywords are bringing the traffic. Also, you can use this tool to check for traffic data of your competitors’. 

Ahrefs offer a seven-day trial. After that, you’ll need to opt for its paid plans to continue using the platform. 

  • Clicky

This platform is often compared and, sometimes, used side-by-side with Google Analytics. This simple analytics tool allows you to stay organized with its real-time data presentations. It also lets you know how many visitors you have, what they are doing on your site, and when they leave the site— all in real-time. 

Clicky also includes Twitter Analytics, Google search rankings, heatmaps allowing you to see places on your site with the most activity, and the ‘Spy’ feature, which allows you to check your competitors’ site traffic. 

  • SEMrush

SEMrush is a direct competitor of Ahrefs and also offers a complete SEO auditing with its extensive range of features. Its traffic analytics reports provide data on the number of unique visitors, top pages, traffic sources, and so much more. 

It also looks for the keywords that your competitors are ranking for. Its free version allows you to check your total organic traffic or your competitors’, as well as the five top-performing keywords. If you need more details, then you need the premium subscription. 

  • Stat Counter

This platform offers the ability to track, monitor, and analyze your web traffic over time. It offers you navigation paths, visual maps, browser time, bounce rate pages, location or user country, and more. It also comes with a feature called paid traffic analysis, which monitors the performance of your site’s traffic. It can also help in detecting any click fraud to prevent wastage of your ad budget. 

If you need to analyze your data in real-time, Stat Counter also alerts you when visitors are on your page. You can have such alerts sent to your email or through their mobile app. 

  • SE Ranking

Another popular tracker, the SE Ranking software allows you to check a site’s organic traffic, as well as the keywords it ranks for. It offers different pricing plans, depending on how many features you’ll need, how long you’re willing to subscribe, and how often you want your rankings to be updated. 

It offers a 14-day free trial if you want to do a test run.

  • SimilarWeb

The platform offers an overview of a website’s total traffic, which countries your traffic is coming from, and the top traffic sources. Take note, however, that SimilarWeb offers a limited pool of data and will not return results for the small or recently-launched sites. However, for the high-traffic sites, SimilarWeb offers more accurate results. 

This platform offers a free version that provides an estimate on your site’s monthly visits, as well as the five keywords it ranks for. If you want more data, then you need to get its premium version. 

  • Locate the ‘Advertise With Us’ Page

If you want to check your competitor’s website traffic without using the above paid and free tools, you can simply look for this page. If your competitor is offering advertising or other collab opportunities, then they’ll likely have this page on their site. If they do, they often list their traffic right there for you to see. 

If you want the easier path, simply Google it. Just type your competitor’s domain, followed by advertise with us (mycompetitor.com advertise with us). This search should make the website’s advertising page pop up at the top of the results, if they ever have one. 

You should check when was the last time they updated their ‘Advertise With Us’ page. This ensures that you get correct and updated data. 

  • Check For A Media Kit

Another way to check for a site’s traffic is to look for a media kit. This usually includes the traffic stats, as well as information about their audience and where it has been featured. 

Some businesses with a media kit on their sites often links= them to a PDF file. You can figure out if your competitor has a media kit by doing the same Google search from the previous example; just replace the ‘advertise with us’ with media kit, press pack, press kit, or media pack. 

As always, make sure to check the last update of the media kit so you don’t work with outdated data. 

Conclusion

As you can see, there are several methods you can adopt to check your website traffic and your competitors’. You can use the smart tools for quick and easy checking or do some digging yourself. 

Regardless of which method you use, tracking and analyzing website traffic can help the bottom line of your website, as well as help you pinpoint what it is you need to do next.