Setting up your numbers:
the two free Google tools

This is a walkthrough. By the end you'll have two free Google tools switched on for your site, and you'll have told them to ignore your own visits so the numbers you read are real customers, not you refreshing your own homepage.

You do this once. It takes an afternoon, most of which is waiting. You don't need to understand any of it — you need to click the right things in the right order. That's what this page is. Every step below is written for someone who has never opened either tool.

Two tools, both free:

• Search Console — shows what people typed into Google before they landed on you.
• Analytics (the current version is called GA4) — shows what people did once they got there.

First, turn on Search Console

Go to Search Console and sign in with the Google account you want to own this. Use one you'll still have in five years — the shop's main Gmail, not a personal one you might lose.

You'll add your site as a "property" and then prove you own it. Good news: Google starts counting visitors the moment you add the property — you don't have to finish proving ownership first. Either way, it's a few days before anything shows up in your reports, and proving ownership is what unlocks the full set of them. So a blank screen on day one is normal. Nothing's broken. Come back Friday.

Google gives you two flavors of property. For a normal contractor site, pick Domain property — it covers your whole site and you set it once. Here's both, and don't sweat the technical words in the next box; the plain-English version is right underneath it.

Then turn on Analytics

Now Analytics. Same idea, second tool.

Inside Analytics you create a "property" for your business and then a "web data stream" for your website. When the stream is made, Analytics hands you a Measurement ID — a short code that starts with the letters "G-". That code is the thread that ties your website to Analytics.

You install that code one of three ways. Pick whichever matches how your site was built:

For most owners it's Way 2: log into Wix or Squarespace, find the field, paste the G- code, save. Done.

Now the important part: keep your own visits out

This is the step that makes the difference between numbers you can trust and numbers that lie to you. If you don't do it, every time you or your spouse or your crew opens the site to check something, Analytics counts it as a customer. A slow month can look busy for no reason but you.

Excluding yourself is two steps, and you have to do both or it doesn't work.

One thing to know so you're not surprised: this filter is not a time machine. It only cleans up visits from the moment you switch it on. Anything recorded before that stays in your reports as-is. So turn it on early, on day one, before you've spent a week clicking around your own site.

Decide what counts as a lead before you go looking

Last setup choice, and it's a thinking one, not a clicking one. Decide upfront which actions on your site actually count as a real lead — and name each one clearly and the same way every time, so six months from now the reports still make sense.

One trap to sidestep: Analytics has an automatic feature called form_submit that's supposed to catch form fills on its own. Don't lean on it alone. It fires for every form on the page, and it's documented to quietly miss a lot of real submissions — especially on modern sites — without ever telling you it missed them. Confirm a real form fill with your own event, or with a "thank you" page that only loads after someone actually sends the form. (And a small heads-up if you're reading other guides: call_click is not a real Google event name — don't let anyone tell you it is.)

Setting up those custom events is fiddly — the same kind of job as the DNS record earlier. If it's not your thing, hand it to whoever built your site. You don't have to do it to start seeing calls and visits come in; it's the upgrade that tells you exactly which form fill turned into a lead.

Check that it's actually working

Before you walk away, confirm the tag is alive. Open the Realtime report in Analytics, then open your own website in another tab. Within a moment you should see your own visit show up in Realtime. New data can take up to about half an hour to appear in the regular reports, so Realtime is the fast way to know it's on.

Setup's done. From here, the numbers just accumulate. Reading them — what's normal, what's worth a second look, all from your phone — is the next chapter.

Print this and keep it by the computer

Setup checklist — do it once, in order10 steps

Search Console: sign in with the account you'll still have in five years (the shop's main one). Search Console: add your site as a property. Data starts collecting the moment you add it — a blank first day is normal. Search Console: prove you own it. Domain property = a DNS record at your registrar (TXT, or CNAME if TXT won't work). URL-prefix = also HTML file, meta tag, Analytics, or Tag Manager. Search Console: stuck on the DNS record? Hand that one step to whoever built the site. It's a five-minute copy-paste for them. Analytics: create a property, then a web data stream. Copy the Measurement ID — it starts with "G-". Analytics: install it — paste the code in your page head, OR type the G- code into your builder's box (Wix "Tracking ID," Squarespace "External API Keys," WordPress needs the Site Kit plugin), OR use Tag Manager. Keep your visits out (step 1 of 2): Configure tag settings > Show more > Define internal traffic — enter your IP. This only labels your visits. Keep your visits out (step 2 of 2): Data Filters > Internal Traffic > set status to Active (not "Testing"). This is the switch that removes them. It doesn't clean up older visits, so do it early. Name your leads: use generate_lead for a finished booking; add your own events for phone-number taps and your contact form. Don't trust the automatic form_submit alone. Confirm it's on: open the Realtime report, open your site in another tab, watch your visit appear. Regular reports can lag up to ~30 minutes.

Next: reading your numbers on your phone.