8 Best Free Website Analytics Tools in 2024
Find out what to look for in a free website analytics tool. It will let you analyze visitor behavior and improve your site. An analytics tool will track website activity. It will measure and report on visitor behavior. It will monitor traffic, user clicks, and performance (e.g. conversion rate). The tracking tool shows you what’s happening on your website. This helps you optimize for a better UX and business.
When choosing a website analytics tool for your business, three crucial questions to consider are:
- Is this a SaaS application or is it self-hosted? Your server infrastructure is required to operate and maintain self-hosted analytics tools. To set up and maintain, they take a substantial amount of work and programming knowledge. SaaS apps are hosted on the supplier business’s infrastructure. This saves you from having to install and manage servers or software.
- Does the tool gather information that is quantitative, qualitative, or both? Most analytics solutions are quantitative. They provide data on metrics like bounce rate, sessions, and pageviews. The data is helpful. But, it cannot explain user behavior on its own. It is challenging to enhance both their experience and your conversion rates as a result. For this reason, you also need qualitative data. The best source is session recordings.
- Does the tool record user interactions or events automatically? Or, do you have to set up tracking? You must be able to monitor specific actions. These include text inputs and button clicks. They help you understand how people engage with your website. Many analytics tools track interactions or events. But, you have to manually set up tracking for each aspect you want to analyze. Consequently, event tracking requires time and typically programming expertise to execute. But, tracking user activity on your website is much simpler. You can use solutions that automatically gather user interactions.
The answers to three questions determine the tool’s length, materials, and needed skill. They also determine the insights the tool can provide. We’ll cover eight free website analytics tools. For each, we’ll provide the answers to these questions.
Three supplementary digital marketing tools will also be covered. These aren’t web analytics tools. But, they offer useful info about website functionality. And, they are useful outside of web analytics.
8 popular free website analytics tool
Here is a summary of the most popular free web tracking technologies. They are included in this Blog, in case you’re looking for them:
- Google Analytics is the most widely used platform. It offers in-depth visitor tracking, event tracking, and goal setting. It also integrates with other Google marketing tools. (Free tier available)
- WebTrack 360 focuses on user behavior. It has features like session recordings. It also has heatmaps (visualizations of clicks and scrolls), funnels, and surveys. (Free plan with limitations)
- Hotjar focuses on user activity. It offers heatmaps, session recordings, and funnels.
- Smartlook is similar to Hotjar and Webtrack 360. Like them, Smartlook provides session recordings, heatmaps, and funnels. It also provides user recordings for analyzing user behavior. (Free plan with limitations)
- Mixpanel caters to product and marketing teams. It excels at tracking user actions and journeys to understand user engagement and optimize funnels. (Free plan with limitations)
- Clicky is user-friendly. It’s an alternative to Google Analytics. It offers real-time visitor tracking, heatmaps, and conversion tracking. (Free plan with limitations)
- Clarity captures user sessions. It records them with recordings and heatmaps. These tools help to identify usability issues and to optimize website design. (Free plan available)
- Google Optimize: A/B test page variations to find the best-performing designs.
Website Traffic Tracking Tools
When using web analytics tools to track a website or app, traffic is usually the first thing that is tracked. You can learn from traffic data how many people visit your website. It can tell you how they found you and how long they stay on pages. It also shows how often they become customers.
Which traffic metrics are you able to monitor?
- Goal Tracking
- Bounce Rate
- Real-Time Tracking
- User Behavior
- User Source & Medium
- Session Duration
- Visitor Location
- User Demographics
- User IP
- Device type (i.e. desktop, tablet, or mobile)
- New vs Returning Users
- Ads Campaign Tracking
- Pageviews
Conclusion
In conclusion, this blog post has equipped you with the knowledge to choose a free website analytics tool that best suits your needs. By considering factors like self-hosting vs SaaS, data type (quantitative vs qualitative), and automatic vs manual event tracking. You can select a tool that provides the insights you need to improve your website’s user experience and business goals.
The post also offered an overview of eight popular free website tracking tools, along with a breakdown of key traffic metrics you can monitor to gain valuable insights from your website visitors. Remember, the best tool for you depends on your specific goals and the level of detail you need to understand your website’s performance.
