Note · search
Measuring website results with free tools
Filed · by the editors
What Search Console, page speed reports and a simple enquiry log can tell you, what a "ranking report" cannot, and how to keep measurement honest without tracking anyone.
Most small businesses either measure nothing or measure the wrong thing. The classic wrong thing is a monthly "ranking report": a table showing where the site sits for a list of chosen phrases. It looks precise and feels reassuring, but on its own it says little about whether the website is bringing in work.
This note covers the free tools that give a truer picture, and the limits of each.
Start with the question you actually care about
Before opening any dashboard, write down what a good month looks like for the business. For most small firms it is some version of: more of the right enquiries, at a cost that makes sense. Every number below is only useful if it helps answer that.
Google Search Console
Search Console is free, comes from Google, and shows how your site appears in Google's results. Its Performance report gives four measures:
- Clicks: how many times people clicked through to your site from Google Search.
- Impressions: how many times your site appeared in results.
- Click-through rate (CTR): clicks divided by impressions.
- Average position: the average position of your highest-placed result.
You can break these down by search query, page, country and device. Google keeps sixteen months of data, so you can compare this November with last November rather than just with last month.
Some things to bear in mind:
- Average position is an average. If your site starts appearing for many new, broader searches at lower positions, your average position can fall even though traffic rises. Read it alongside clicks.
- Some searches are hidden. For privacy reasons, Search Console does not list every individual query, so the rows will not always add up to the totals.
- Position is not the same for everyone. Results vary by location and device, which is why a phone search from Hamilton can differ from a laptop search in Wellington.
Why ranking reports mislead
A ranking report checks a fixed list of phrases, usually from one location, and records where your site appeared. The problems follow from that design. The list is chosen by whoever writes the report, so it may leave out the searches that really bring customers. A single check from one place does not reflect what a customer in your area sees. And positions can rise for phrases nobody searches for.
Ranking checks are not useless; they can catch a sudden drop. But the Performance report, which reflects real searches by real people, is the better primary source.
Page experience: Core Web Vitals
A slow or jumpy page loses visitors before they read anything. Google's Core Web Vitals measure three aspects of page experience, and web.dev publishes the thresholds for a "good" result:
| Measure | What it covers | Good |
|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | how quickly the main content loads | within 2.5 seconds |
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | how quickly the page responds to taps and clicks | 200 milliseconds or less |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | how much the layout jumps while loading | 0.1 or less |
The thresholds are judged at the 75th percentile of visits, so most visitors, not just those on fast connections, should get a good experience. Search Console has a Core Web Vitals report based on real visits, and PageSpeed Insights will test any single page. On small sites the usual culprits are oversized photos and heavy plugins.
The enquiry log
The most useful measurement tool for a small business costs nothing: a simple log of enquiries. For each one, note the date, what they wanted, how they found you, and whether it became paid work. Ask "how did you hear about us?" every time, and write down the answer in the customer's words.
After three months, the log will show which channels bring work worth having. It will also catch things no dashboard can, such as a customer who found you on Google but phoned after a friend mentioned your name.
Analytics, with privacy in mind
Website analytics tools can show where visitors come from and which pages they read. They are useful, but they collect information about people, so the Privacy Act 2020 applies. Collect only what you need, say so in a privacy statement, and avoid tools you do not understand or will never look at. For many small sites, Search Console plus an enquiry log answers the important questions without any tracking script on the page.
A monthly fifteen-minute review
- Search Console: compare clicks and impressions with the same month last year.
- Note the top five searches and pages. Are they the ones you expected?
- Check the Core Web Vitals report for any page marked "poor".
- Count enquiries by source from your log.
- Write one sentence on what you will change next month.
That last step is the one most often skipped, and the one that turns measurement into improvement.