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Know who visits your site, what they click, and where they leave. Analytics turns guesswork into real answers.
Without analytics, you're building in the dark. You have no idea if anyone is visiting, what they like, or where they get stuck.
See how many people visit, where they come from, and what devices they use.
Find out which pages are popular and which buttons people actually click.
Discover where users leave your site so you can fix the problem.
Watch your traffic grow over time and see which marketing efforts pay off.
Pick one to start with. You can always switch or add more later.
Built into Vercel
If your site is on Vercel, this is the easiest option. One click to enable. Shows page views, visitors, top pages, and Web Vitals performance scores.
Best if you already deploy on Vercel. No extra accounts needed.
By Google
The most widely used analytics tool. Very detailed data about visitors, sessions, traffic sources, and user behavior. Can be overwhelming for beginners.
Most powerful option, but has a learning curve. Good if you want deep data.
Product Analytics
Goes beyond page views. See session recordings of real users, track custom events, run A/B tests, and build funnels. Open source and generous free tier.
Great if you want to see exactly how users interact with your site.
Privacy-Friendly
Simple, lightweight, and doesn't use cookies. GDPR compliant out of the box. Shows you the essentials without the complexity. Open source.
Best if you care about user privacy and want a clean, simple dashboard.
You don't need to understand the technical details. Just tell your AI tool which platform you want, and it will handle the rest.
Add Vercel Analytics
"Add Vercel Analytics to my Next.js project. Install the package and add the Analytics component to my root layout. I want to track page views and Web Vitals."
Add Google Analytics
"Add Google Analytics (GA4) to my Next.js project. My measurement ID is G-XXXXXXXXXX. Add the tracking script to my root layout and make sure it works with client-side navigation. Don't track users until they accept cookies."
Add PostHog
"Add PostHog analytics to my Next.js project. Set up the PostHog provider in my layout, configure it to track page views automatically, and show me how to track custom events like button clicks."
Add Plausible
"Add Plausible Analytics to my Next.js project. Add the lightweight script tag to my root layout. My domain is mydomain.com. Make sure it tracks page views on client-side navigation."
Here are the numbers that actually matter for most websites.
How many different people visited your site. The most basic measure of traffic.
Total pages loaded. If one person visits 5 pages, that's 5 page views.
Percentage of visitors who leave after seeing just one page. Lower is usually better.
Which pages get the most visits. Focus your effort on improving these.
Where visitors come from: Google, social media, direct links, or other sites.
Percentage of visitors who do what you want them to do (sign up, buy, etc.).
If your site has visitors from Europe (and it probably does), you need to follow some rules about tracking.
Cookie Consent Banner
If your analytics tool uses cookies (Google Analytics does), you need a banner asking visitors for permission before tracking them.
Privacy Policy
You need a page explaining what data you collect, why, and how visitors can opt out. Link to it from your footer.
No Tracking Before Consent
Don't load analytics scripts until the visitor clicks 'Accept' on your cookie banner.
Cookie-Free Alternatives
Tools like Plausible and Fathom don't use cookies, so they don't need a cookie consent banner in most cases.
Copy-paste these prompts into your AI tool to apply what you just learned.
ADD GOOGLE ANALYTICS
"Add Google Analytics to my Next.js app. Track page views automatically and set up custom events for [button clicks / form submissions / sign-ups]."
BUILD AN ANALYTICS DASHBOARD
"Add a simple analytics dashboard to my admin panel that shows [total users, page views this week, most popular pages] using data from my database."
Start simple:Pick one analytics tool, ask your AI tool to add it, and check your dashboard once a week. You'll learn what metrics matter to you over time.
