Whether your website is used to sell products, promote a brick-and-mortar business or provide useful information to readers, it’s important to be aware of your traffic and user stats. Measuring your website’s performance and growth is the only true way to know whether your website is meeting its intended goals and how you can improve its performance for the future.

To help you get started on measuring your website success, I’ve searched the web and have came up with three free tools you can use. Let’s get started!

Google Analytics

By far the most popular of the website measurement tools is Google Analytics. As the analytics tool is owned by Google, the stats that are measured are typically thought to be more accurate than stats provided by any other tool. In fact, many advertisers will only accept traffic data that has been gathered through this particular web analytics tool.

Google Analytics is a vast tool that can impressively track basic data such as monthly page views, unique visitors, bounce rates and more. One of the best features of the tool is that it shows real-time visitor counts, which includes which page those readers are on and exactly where those visitors came from.

If you don’t already have a Google Analytics account set up I highly recommend you get one started today! Now, if already have an account set up and are looking for something more advanced then I recommend taking advantage of the custom goal tracking which can be set up in your account.

Clicky

While Google Analytics is certainly the most popular option, Clicky comes in as a close second. Clicky is a powerful alternative to Google Analytics and offers many of the same performance tracking features as Google’s tool.

Where Clicky truly shines, however, is in real-time data tracking. It’s simple to learn more about your visitors and their behavior when viewing your website just by looking at the dashboard. However, there is much more to discover beyond the dashboard, such as uptime monitoring and the built-in heatmaps tool.

While Clicky is a free tool, there is a paid premium option that unlocks additional features. If you are looking for a more in-depth analysis of your website then you might want to go for the premium option. There is a free trial available so you can try it out first!

Piwik

At first glance, it may seem as if Piwik is to Google Analytics what Open Office is to Microsoft Office. However, after just a few moments of utilizing the Piwik web analytics tool, it’s evident that it’s so much more.

For starters, Piwik is hosted on your server. Therefore, you’re able to have full control and ownership over your data and can ensure that your visitors’ privacy isn’t being compromised for the sake of stat tracking. Piwik also offers advanced analytics with a simple interface, which makes it ideal for both beginners and seasoned users alike. Ecommerce webmasters will find the tool particularly useful as ecommerce tracking is available and offers analytics on user interactions with product pages and shopping carts.

Piwik’s most convenient feature, however, is its mobile app which makes it possible to view real-time data and reports on-the-go. This is a feature that few other web analytics tools offer and is available for both Apple and Android devices.

Tracking and measuring your website’s performance is the key to a successful website. If don’t know what’s wrong, how are you suppose to fix it? By using these free analytics tools you will be able to understand what is and isn’t working on your site and allow you to make improvements for future success!

Are there any other free tools you use to measure your website success? Share them below!