How to see your website traffic (for free)
"How many people visit my website?" is the first analytics question everyone asks. There are three ways to answer it: your platform's built-in stats, a free analytics counter, or your server logs. Here is how to use each.
1. Built-in stats on your platform
If you use a website builder, you probably already have basic statistics:
- Wix — Wix Analytics in the site dashboard.
- Squarespace — the Analytics panel.
- Shopify — Analytics and Reports in the admin.
- WordPress.com — Stats; self-hosted WordPress gets the same through the Jetpack plugin.
Built-in stats are fine for a quick look. Their limits: they show only what the platform decided to show, data can't be exported or compared easily, and you lose it if you move platforms.
Step-by-step setup for popular platforms: WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Webflow, Next.js.
2. A free analytics counter
An analytics counter is a small script you add to every page. It works on any site, keeps your history if you change platforms, and gives you more detail: sources, pages, devices and goals.
Free options include Google Analytics, self-hosted tools like Matomo or Umami, and hosted cookie-free counters such as LightMetrica.
Installing one takes a few minutes:
- Create an account and add your site's address.
- Copy the snippet — for LightMetrica it is one line:
<script defer src="https://lightmetrica.com/lm.js" data-site="YOUR-ID"></script>
- Paste it into the
<head>of your site template. On WordPress, use a "header and footer" plugin; on builders, look for a "custom code" or "head code" setting; or add it through Google Tag Manager. - Open your site — the first visit appears in the dashboard within seconds.
3. Server logs
If you run your own server, its access logs contain every request. Tools like GoAccess turn them into reports. Logs see everything — including bots — and need some technical work, so they are usually a supplement rather than your main analytics.
What the main numbers mean
| Metric | What it is |
|---|---|
| Visits (sessions) | A series of actions by one visitor; a new visit starts after 30 minutes of inactivity |
| Visitors | Unique people (browsers) in the period |
| Pageviews | Every page opened, including repeats |
| Bounce rate | Share of visits with one page and almost no time on the site |
| Pages per visit | Pageviews divided by visits |
| Time on site | Average length of a visit |
| Sources | Where visitors came from: search, social, messengers, AI assistants, ads, other sites, direct |
Each metric is explained in more detail in the web analytics glossary.
Can I see traffic of someone else's website?
Not exactly. Only the site owner's analytics has real numbers. Third-party tools estimate competitors' traffic from panels and clickstream data — useful for rough comparisons, but often far from reality for small sites.
The quickest start
If you just want to know how many people visit and where they come from, add a free counter and check it weekly. LightMetrica also prepares an AI-powered weekly Smart Report: what changed and what to check, so you don't have to dig through reports. You can see the dashboard itself on our live stats.
Try LightMetrica — free
Lightweight, independent, cookie-free analytics: the counter installs in a minute — on its own or next to your current tools. Every week — an AI-powered Smart Report: what changed and what to do next.