--- title: "Website metrics: which tool answers which question" url: "https://kkdesign.bg/en/blog/website-metrics/" description: "Which website metrics to track and where: Search Console for search, GA4 for visitors, Hotjar for behaviour. With a table of which tool answers what." published: "2024-04-11" updated: "2026-11-01" --- # Website metrics: which tool answers which question Published: 11 April 2024 · Updated: 1 November 2026 ## (lead, no heading) Website metrics answer three questions: how people find you on Google (Google Search Console), what visitors do on your site (Google Analytics 4) and why they do it (Hotjar, now part of Contentsquare). Start with Search Console: it is free, puts nothing in your visitors’ browsers and shows straight away which searches you appear for. How we measure and improve these numbers for clients is on our [SEO service](https://kkdesign.bg/en/services/seo/) page. ## In short - **Search Console:** before the click. Searches, impressions, clicks, positions, indexing and real-user speed. - **Google Analytics 4:** after the click. Where people come from, what they view and how many reach an enquiry or order. - **Hotjar (Contentsquare):** why. Heatmaps, recordings and surveys. - **Consent:** GA4 and Hotjar load only after Accept; Search Console needs no consent. - **Start small:** three numbers, once a month, are enough to see the direction. ## Which metrics to track Metrics let you decide what to improve on evidence rather than instinct. The ones that matter most today: - **Users and sessions:** how many people and visits the site gets. - **Key events:** the actions the site exists for, such as a sent enquiry, a tap on the phone number or an order. Until March 2024 Google Analytics 4 called them conversions. The share of people who complete a key event is your conversion rate. - **Engagement rate and bounce rate:** in GA4 a session counts as engaged if it lasts longer than 10 seconds, includes a key event or has at least two page views; bounce rate is the share of sessions that were not engaged. The old “left after one page” definition belongs to Universal Analytics. More in [bounce rate explained](https://kkdesign.bg/en/blog/bounce-rate/). - **Average engagement time:** how long the page was actually in front of the person. It replaces the old session duration. - **Views and exits:** how many pages were viewed, and which page people leave from (exits are in GA4’s Explorations). - **Impressions, clicks, CTR and average position:** how you perform in search (Search Console). - **Core Web Vitals:** speed for real visitors. Google’s “good” thresholds are LCP within 2.5 s, INP within 200 ms and CLS within 0.1. ## Which tool answers which question | What you want to know | Tool | Where to look | | --- | --- | --- | | Which searches find me, and where do I rank? | Search Console | Performance | | Are my pages indexed, and why not some of them? | Search Console | Pages report and URL Inspection | | Is the site fast for real visitors? | Search Console, PageSpeed Insights | Core Web Vitals | | Where do visitors come from? | Google Analytics 4 | Acquisition | | How many of them enquire, call or buy? | Google Analytics 4 | Key events | | Where do they get stuck, and why do they miss the form? | Hotjar (Contentsquare) | Recordings and heatmaps | | What do they think of the site? | Hotjar (Contentsquare) | Surveys and the feedback button | ## Google Search Console [Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console/about) is Google’s free tool for how your site appears in search and what stops Google showing it. The main reports today: - **Performance:** searches, clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position, by page and country. Since June 2025 the totals include impressions and clicks from Google’s AI Mode, and in 2026 Google announced separate reports for AI results in search. - **Pages:** which pages are indexed and why others are not. It replaces the old crawl errors report. - **URL Inspection:** how Google sees a single page, with a button to request indexing. - **Sitemaps:** submit your sitemap so Google finds new pages sooner. - **Core Web Vitals:** speed from real Chrome users. On 12 March 2024 INP replaced FID as the responsiveness metric. - **Security issues and Manual actions:** warnings if the site is infected or penalised. To start, add your site as a property and verify ownership, for example with a DNS record. ## Google Analytics 4 [Google Analytics](https://analytics.google.com/) is Google’s free tool for visitors and their behaviour. Universal Analytics stopped processing data on 1 July 2023, so Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is what everyone uses now. The main reports: - **Realtime:** who is on the site right now. - **Acquisition:** where people come from: search, ads, social media, referrals. - **Engagement:** which pages and events hold attention. - **Monetisation:** for online shops, sales by product. Set-up means a GA4 property, a web data stream and the Google tag on every page: directly, through Google Tag Manager or with a plugin. For EU and UK visitors the tag loads after consent, and Google Consent Mode v2 passes the visitor’s choice to Google. ## Hotjar (now Contentsquare) Hotjar shows how people use your site. It is now part of Contentsquare: new Hotjar accounts cannot be created, and Contentsquare’s free plan includes heatmaps, session recordings and surveys (October 2026). Its heatmaps show where people click and how far they scroll, recordings follow one visitor’s path, and surveys ask short questions at the right moment. Use it for a specific question and only after the visitor has consented. Set-up is covered in [how to set up and use Hotjar](https://kkdesign.bg/en/blog/hotjar/). ## Other measurement tools - **Moz, Semrush and Ahrefs:** paid SEO tools for keyword research, competitors and backlinks. Their scores (Domain Authority, Authority Score, Domain Rating) are their own estimates, not Google metrics; more in [domain authority explained](https://kkdesign.bg/en/blog/domain-authority/). - **PageSpeed Insights:** Google’s free speed check, with a lab test (Lighthouse) and real-user data. - **Microsoft Clarity:** a free alternative to Hotjar with heatmaps and recordings, under the same consent rules. ## Where to start 1. Add the site to Search Console and submit the sitemap. 2. Decide which two or three actions the site is for: an enquiry, a call, an order. 3. Set up GA4 with those key events and a cookie banner. 4. Once a month, check three numbers: clicks from search, key events and Core Web Vitals. 5. Add Hotjar only when you have a specific question the numbers cannot answer. ## Conclusion Search Console tells you how people find you, Google Analytics 4 what they do, and Hotjar why. Start with a few numbers, look at them regularly and change one thing at a time. ## Frequently asked questions **### What are the most important website metrics?** It depends on the site's purpose, but for most business sites and shops three are enough to start: clicks from Google (Search Console), key events such as enquiries, calls and orders (Google Analytics 4), and Core Web Vitals, meaning how fast the site is for real visitors. **### Are Google Search Console and Google Analytics free?** Yes, both are free. Google Analytics also has a paid edition (Analytics 360) for large companies, but the free version is plenty for small and medium businesses. **### What is the difference between Search Console and Google Analytics?** Search Console shows what happens before the click: which searches you appear for, in what position and how many people click. Google Analytics shows what happens after it: where visitors come from, which pages they view and how many of them enquire, call or buy. **### Do I need cookie consent for Google Analytics?** For visitors in the EU and the UK, yes: Google Analytics and Hotjar should load only after the visitor accepts. Search Console puts nothing in the visitor's browser, so it needs no consent. **### What happened to Universal Analytics?** Google stopped processing data in Universal Analytics on 1 July 2023, and from 1 July 2024 the old properties are no longer accessible. Google Analytics 4 is the only version now. ## Want someone to watch the numbers for you? We set up Search Console and Google Analytics 4, measure where you stand today and show you what changes after each fix. [See our SEO service](https://kkdesign.bg/en/services/seo/)