3 Ways To Track Your Website Engagement Analytics

If you’re serious about your website and marketing efforts leading to actual, ready-to-book clients, you need to know how to track, analyze, and optimize your website engagement effectively.

It’s time to harness the power of analytics, my friend! Having a stunning website is like having a star player, but you’re not scoring any points without the right strategy. You need a game plan to ensure every move — every click, scroll, and conversion — leads you to a MAJOR win.

So what does effective analytics tracking look like as a creative entrepreneur & wedding industry rebel?

I’m talking heatmaps, UTM links, and Google Analytics best practices— all the juicy data that tells you what’s working, what’s flopping, and how to tweak your strategy for max impact. Consider this your ultimate website marketing tips guide. Because if you’re not tracking what’s happening behind the scenes of your site, you’re basically flying blind.

And we both know you didn’t build one BADASS BIZ to guess your way to success.

Ready to nerd out on the numbers? Let’s dive into the analytics tools that will change the game for you, my friend!

1. Hotjar: Your Front Row Seat for Website Engagement

Imagine literally peeping over the shoulder of your visitors while they’re on your site — watching them scroll, click, and (hopefully not but it happens) hesitate. Well, with Hotjar, you can. Hotjar is a code you can put in the header of your website that tracks your visitors’ every move. Stalker mode unlocked 👀 (except in a totally legal, non-creepy way). Here’s what it does:

🔥 Session Recordings

This feature lets you grab popcorn and watch real visitors interact with your site. You’ll see where they hover, what they skip over, and what confuses the hell out of them. This is wild because you’re like, “What were they thinking” or “Wow, people really do read/go through my testimonials” (this was 100% me). There might even be jumpscare moments like realizing no one clicks your most important, INQUIRE / BOOK NOW button.

Absolutely TERRIFYING — but also so good to know!

🔥 Heatmaps

Second, it gives you “heatmaps” which you can view 3 different things with:

1. You can view where people click the most:

Clicks give you a good sense of what people are interested in. No surprise here that the services button is the most clicked button on my site! (See screenshot above)

2. How far down a page people scroll to:

Knowing how far down the page could indicate if your content is engaging enough to keep visitors wanting to explore more or if they bounce as soon as they get there.

This move map shows you where users have moved their mouse to on the screen. This is a good indicator of what people on your site look at beyond clicking. Where they hovering over an image? Are a lot of people looking at one place, but there is no where for them to click? It might be a good time to add a CTA (call to action) or a button to your contact page!

This is all super cool and, again, TOTALLY FREE. If folks aren’t making it past the first section of your homepage, that’s a sign you need to rethink your layout or messaging. And if they’re trying to click on something that isn’t even a button? Time to fix that ASAP.

PRO TIP: The free version lets you collect data, but the recordings expire, so make it a habit to check in monthly and note any trends. Then, make a list of items you could improve on and put it in your task list to get done at some point!

2. UTM Links: Scouting Out The All-Stars Behind Your Best Traffic-Driving Content

Ever wonder if your Instagram Stories drive more traffic than the link in your bio? Or is that guest blog post you wrote pulling in leads? You could get real meta or be more generic.

For instance, I have a link at the bottom of my website that says, “See if we are a good fit,” and SO MANY PEOPLE click it. Why? IDK if they are just curious, think it’s a hidden link and are nosey, or if they are really wondering if they are a good fit for our brand & website design services. Since I’m currently doing my own website redesign, this is great insight so I can make sure to maximize on what’s already working on my current site! UTM links uncover all the juicy details on where all that traffic is coming from.

What Are UTM Links?

Think of them as custom-coded URLs that tell you exactly where a visitor came from. When someone clicks a UTM link, Google Analytics logs where they found it (Instagram bio, Facebook ad, email campaign, etc.).

How to Use Them:

• Want to see if people are clicking from your IG Stories vs. Pinterest? Add a UTM tag.
• Running an ad and wondering if it’s actually working? UTM tag.
• Have a sneaky little “See If We’re a Good Fit” button that everyone clicks? UTM TAG IT.

How to Create A UTM Link:

1. Go to Google’s Campaign URL Builder
2. Fill in the fields:
   1. Your website URL
   2. The campaign name: This could be the name of your special offering/campaign, an ad campaign name or you can leave it blank.
   3. The source: ie. Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Blog, etc
   4. The medium: This could have any details that you’d like to track like content buckets (services Instagram story, carousel pin, etc) or any other detail that will help you remember what specific content the link came from.
3. Copy and paste that new link wherever you need it.

PRO TIP: Keep a spreadsheet of your UTM links so you don’t lose track. Trust me, your future self will thank you. Below is a quick crazy look at my UTM Tracker. Its a bit messy and needs a facelift, but it works.

3. Google Analytics: The MVP of Your Website Engagement Tracking

If you’re not using Google Analytics (GA), you’re missing a major power play in your online business strategy. Here’s what you need to keep an eye on:

👀 Discover Your Most Viewed Pages

This gives insight on if you’re directing people to the pages you ACTUALLY want to and if you have any posts that are popping off that you may want to optimize. You can view your most visited pages by utilizing the Pages & Screens feature in Google Analytics. Just navigate to Reports > Engagement > Pages & Screens, then sort by views to see which pages are getting the most action.

👀 Discover Your Top Traffic Sources

See exactly where people are coming from (Google search, Instagram, ads, referrals, etc.). You can find this data in Google Analytics under Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition. In the first column, click the dropdown and select Session Source to pinpoint exactly where your traffic originates. This helps you double down on what’s working and cut what’s not. This is also where you’ll see those UTMs you made start popping up so you can track which ads or content are bringing you the most eyeballs.

👀 Discover The User Journey They’re Taking (Path Exploration)

GA shows how people move through your site, and you can track their journey step by step. I’ve broken it down step by step so you can follow along in your Google Analytics:

1. Navigate to Explore / Explorations > Path Exploration Template
2. Once you’re in the template, go to the second column “Step +1” and choose the “event name” to the Page/Screen Title you’d like to see the user journey for. This will reveal the different sequential steps visitors took from that page — with the number of users at each stage. And you can keep continuing to different pages, and it will reveal the next step / page they visited. This insight helps you ensure they’re following the intended path you’re hoping for (home → services → contact), and if not, it’s time to tweak accordingly!

👀 Conversion Tracking

Set up a “thank you” page after inquiries so you can mark them as a “conversion” in GA. Once you do that, you can grab more data about where that conversion came from. AKA: No more guessing which campaigns are working HARD AF for you.

Need to see an IRL scenario? We got you!

Here’s a video walkthrough on conversion tracking for my client’s Pinterest efforts:

[Madison vid]

TL;DR: If You’re Not Tracking, You’re Guessing (And Hurting Your Website Engagement)

• Use Hotjar to stalk (ahem, analyze) how people interact with your site.
• Use UTM links to see where your traffic is REALLY coming from.
• Use our Google Analytics best practices to fine-tune your strategy and track conversions.

The beauty of tracking your website engagement?

You don’t have to overhaul your site to get better results. Sometimes, it’s as simple as moving a button, reworking a headline, or streamlining the organization / flow of your site. The data and analytics show you what to fix so your website can bring home the the bookings and leads you’ve been dreaming of.

Strategic web design reigns at Lenya Creative. Without it, all you have is something that looks great. But what’s the point if no one will ever see it or be impacted by it? It will quite simply fall flatno matter how pretty it is on the eyes. You deserve so much more than that. Period.