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• ffmpeg : adding an audio file to a video at specified delays

  15 juillet 2020, par JarsOfJam-Scheduler

  I have an array that may contain multiple occurrences of these terms : 'video, forest'. An audio file is added to the video file when the current element of this array I iterate is 'forest'. Otherwise, not. 'video and forest' elements will increment (of 5 seconds) the delay at which an audio file will be added. Example : the array contains "video, video, forest, video, forest". The first audio file will be added at delay=15000ms. The last one, at 25000ms. Computation details : 0 (initialization) + 5000 (video) + 5000 (video) + 5000 (forest) + 5000 (video) + 5000 (forest). 5000 + 5000 + 5000 = 15000. 5000*5 = 25000.

  


  I use ffmpeg to implement this program. The problem is that only one audio file is added, at the beginning of my video file. So the delays are not actually taken into account I think.

  


  Note that the video file also contains a music. The audio files that I try to add must be present in the video file in addition to this music. The first line of the following code adds the music to the video. The next lines try to add the audio files at good delays.

  


  subprocess.call(
    ['C:/Users/XYZ/Downloads/ffmpeg/bin/ffmpeg.exe', '-i', 'XYZ/my_XYZ_video.webm', '-stream_loop', '-1', '-i', 'tmp_music/original_music.wav',
     '-c:v', 'copy', '-shortest', '-fflags', '+shortest', '-max_interleave_delta', '100M',
     'XYZ/my_XYZ_video_with_music.webm']
    , cwd='C:/Users/XYZ/Desktop/XYZ/')

chosen_songs = ['video', 'forest', 'forest', 'video']

time_for_ffmpeg = 0
for chosen_song in chosen_songs:
    if chosen_song == 'video':
        print('video')
        print(time_for_ffmpeg)
        time_for_ffmpeg += 2000    

    elif chosen_song == 'forest':
        print('forest')
        print(time_for_ffmpeg)
        subprocess.call(
            ['C:/Users/XYZ/Downloads/ffmpeg/bin/ffmpeg.exe', '-i', 'XYZ/my_XYZ_video_with_music.webm', '-i', 'tmp_music/forest.mp3',
             '-filter_complex',
             '[1]adelay=' + str(time_for_ffmpeg) + '|' + str(time_for_ffmpeg) + '[a1];[0][a1]amix', '-c:v', 'copy',
             'XYZ/my_XYZ_video_with_music_with_songs.webm']
            , cwd='C:/Users/XYZ/Desktop/XYZ/')
        time_for_ffmpeg += 5000
    


  


  My question

  


  Why can't I add the audio files corresponding to the forest the specified delays (implemented by the variable time_for_ffmpeg`) ? How could I fix my code ?

  


• 10 Matomo Features You Possibly Didn’t Know About

  28 octobre 2022, par Erin

  Most users know Matomo as the privacy-focussed web analytics tool with data accuracy, superior to Google Analytics. 

  And we’re thrilled to be that — and more ! 

  At Matomo, our underlying product vision is to provide a full stack of accurate, user-friendly and privacy-mindful online marketing tools. 

  Over the years, we’ve expanded beyond baseline website statistics. Matomo Cloud users also get to benefit from additional powerful tools for audience segmentation, conversion optimisation, advanced event tracking and more. 

  Here are the top 10 advanced Matomo features you wish you knew about earlier (but won’t stop using now !). 

  Funnels

  At first glance, most customer journeys look sporadic. But every marketer will tell you that there is a method to almost every users’ madness. Or more precisely — there’s a method you can use to guide users towards conversions. 

  That’s called a customer journey — a schematic set of steps and actions people complete from developing awareness and interest in your solution to consideration and finally conversion.

  On average, 8 touchpoints are required to turn a prospect into a customer. Though the number can be significantly bigger in B2B sales and smaller for B2C Ecommerce websites. 

  With the Funnels feature, you can first map all the on-site touchpoints (desired actions) for different types of customers. Then examine the results you’re getting as prospects move through these checkbox steps.

  Funnel reports provide :

  • High-level metrics such as “Funnel conversion rate”, “Number of funnel conversions”, “Number of funnel entries”. 
  • Drilled-down reports for each funnel and each tracked action within it. This way you can track the success rates of each step and estimate their contribution to the cumulative effect.

  Segmented funnel reports for specific user cohorts (with Matomo Segmentation enabled).

  

  What makes funnels so fun (pun intended) ? The variety of use cases and configurations ! 

  You can build funnels to track conversion rates for :

  • Newsletter subscriptions
  • Job board applications 
  • Checkout or payment 
  • Product landing pages
  • Seasonal promo campaigns

  …. And pretty much any other page where users must complete a meaningful action. So go test this out. 

  Form Analytics

  On-site forms are a 101 tactic for lead generation. For most service businesses, a “contact request” or a “booking inquiry” submission means a new lead in your pipeline. 

  That said : the average on-site form conversion rates across industries stand at below 50% : 

  • Property – 37% 
  • Telecoms – 40%
  • Software — 46.83%

  That’s not bad, but it could be better. If only you could figure out why people abandon your forms….

  Oh wait, Matomo Form Analytics can supply you with answers. Form Analytics provide real-time information on key form metrics — total views, starter rate, submitter rate, conversions and more.

  

  Separately the average form hesitation time is also provided (in other words, the time a user contemplates if filling in a form is worth the effort). Plus, Matomo also tracks the time spent on form submission.

  You can review : 

  • Top drop-off fields – to understand where you are losing prospects. These fields should either be removed or simplified (e.g., with a dropdown menu) to increase conversions.
  • Most corrected-field – this will provide a clear indication of where your prospects are struggling with a form. Providing help text can simplify the process and increase conversions. 
  • Unesserary fields – with this metric, you’ll know which optional fields your leads aren’t interested in filling in and can remove them to help drive conversions. 

  With Form Analytics, you’ll be able to boost conversions and create a better on-site experience with accurate user data. 

  A/B testing

  Marketing is both an art and a science. A/B testing (or split testing) helps you statistically verify which creative ideas perform better. 

  A good conversion rate optimisation (CRO) practice is to test different elements and to do so often to find your top contenders.

  What can you split test ? Loads of things :

  • Page slogans and call-to-actions 
  • Button or submission form placements
  • Different landing page designs and layouts
  • Seasonal promo offers and banners
  • Pricing information 
  • Customer testimonial placements 

  More times than not, those small changes in page design or copy can lead to a double-digit lift in conversion rates. Accounting software Sage saw a 30% traffic boost after changing the homepage layout, copy and CTAs based on split test data. Depositphotos, in turn, got a 9.32% increase in account registration rate (CR) after testing a timed pop-up registration form. 

  The wrinkle ? A/B testing software isn’t exactly affordable, with tools averaging $119 – $1,995 per month. Plus, you then have to integrate a third-party tool with your website analytics for proper attribution — and this can get messy.

  Matomo saves you the hassle in both cases. An A/B testing tool is part of your Cloud subscription and plays nicely with other features — goal tracking, heatmaps, historic visitor profiles and more. 

  You can run split tests with Matomo on your websites or mobile apps — and find out if version A, B, C or D is the top performer. 

  

  Advertising Conversion Exports

  A well-executed search marketing or banner remarketing campaign can drive heaps of traffic to your website. But the big question is : How much of it will convert ?

  The AdTech industry has a major problem with proper attribution and, because of it, with ad fraud. 

  Globally, digital ad fraud will cost advertisers a hefty $8 billion by the end of 2022. That’s when another $74 million in ad budgets get wasted per quarter. 

  The reasons for ad budget waste may vary, but they often have a common denominator : lack of reliable conversion tracking data.

  Matomo helps you get a better sense of how you spend your cents with Advertising Conversion Reports. Unlike other MarTech analytics tools, you don’t need to embed any third-party advertising network trackers into your website or compromise user privacy.

  Instead, you can easily export accurate conversion data from Matomo (either manually via a CSV file or automated with an HTTPS link) into your Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising or Yandex Ads for cross-validation. This way you can get an objective view of the performance of different campaigns and optimise your budget allocations accordingly. 

  Find out more about tracking ad campaigns with Matomo.

  Matomo Tag Manager

  The marketing technology landscape is close to crossing 10,000 different solutions. Cross-platform advertising trackers and all sorts of customer data management tools comprise the bulk of that growing stack. 

  Remember : Each new tool embed adds extra “weight” to your web page. More tracking scripts equal slower page loading speed — and more frustration for your users. Likewise, extra embeds often means dialling up the developer (which takes time). Or tinkering with the site code yourself (which can result in errors and still raise the need to call a developer). 

  With Tag Manager, you can easily generate tags for :

  • Custom analytics reports 
  • Newsletter signups
  • Affiliates 
  • Form submission tracking 
  • Exit popups and surveys
  • Ads and more

  With Matomo Tag Manager, you can monitor, update or delete everything from one convenient interface. Finally, you can programme custom triggers — conditions when the tag gets activated — and specify data points (variables) it should collect. The latter is a great choice for staying privacy-focused and excluding any sensitive user information from processing. 

  With our tag management system (TMS), no rogue tags will mess up your analytics or conversion tracking. 

  Session recordings

  User experience (UX) plays a pivotal role in your conversion rates. 

  A five-year McKinsey study of 300 publicly listed companies found that companies with strong design practices have 32 percentage points higher revenue growth than their peers. 

  But what makes up a great website design and browsing experience ? Veteran UX designers name seven qualities :

  

  To figure out if your website meets all these criteria, you can use Session Recording — a tool for recording how users interact with your website. 

  By observing clicks, mouse moves, scrolls and form interactions you can determine problematic website design areas such as poor header navigation, subpar button placements or “boring” blocks of text. 

  Such observational studies are a huge part of the UX research process because they provide unbiased data on interaction. Or as Nielsen Norman Group puts it :

  “The way to get user data boils down to the basic rules of usability :

  • Watch what people actually do.
  • Do not believe what people say they do.
  • Definitely don’t believe what people predict they may do in the future.” 

  Most user behaviour analytics tools sell such functionality for a fee. With Matomo Cloud, this feature is included in your subscription. 

  Heatmaps

  While Session Replays provide qualitative insights, Heatmaps supply you with first-hand qualitative insights. Instead of individual user browsing sessions, you get consolidated data on where they click and how they scroll through your website. 

  

  Heatmaps are another favourite among UX designers and their CRO peers because you can :

  • Validate earlier design decisions around information architecture, page layout, button placements and so on. 
  • Develop new design hypotheses based on stats and then translate them into website design improvements. 
  • Identify distractive no-click elements that confuse users and remove them to improve conversions. 
  • Locate problematic user interface (UI) areas on specific devices or operating systems and improve them for a seamless experience.

  To get even more granular results, you can apply up to 100 Matomo segments to drill down on specific user groups, geographies or devices. 

  This way you can make data-based decisions for A/B testing, updating or redesigning your website pages. 

  Custom Alerts

  When it comes to your website, you don’t want to miss anything big — be it your biggest sales day or a sudden nosedive in traffic. 

  That’s when Custom Alerts come in handy. 

  

  With a few clicks, you can set up email or text-based alerts about important website metrics. Once you hit that metric, Matomo will send a ping. 

  You can also set different types of Custom Alerts for your teams. For example, your website administrator can get alerted about critical technical performance issues such as a sudden spike in traffic. It can indicate a DDoS attack (in the worst case) — and timely resolution is crucial here. Or suggest that your website is going viral and you might need to provision extra computing resources to ensure optimal site performance.

  Your sales team, in turn, can get alerted about new form submissions, so that they can quickly move on to lead scoring and subsequent follow-ups. 

  Use cases are plentiful with this feature. 

  Custom Dashboards and Reports

  Did you know you can get a personalised view of the main Matomo dashboards ? 

  By design, we made different website stats available as separate widgets. Hence, you can cherry-pick which stats get a prominent spot. Moreover, you can create and embed custom widgets into your Matomo dashboard to display third-party insights (e.g., POS data).

  Set up custom dashboard views for different teams, business stakeholders or clients to keep them in the loop on relevant website metrics. 

  

  Custom Reports feature, in turn, lets you slice and dice your traffic analytics the way you please. You can combine up to three different data dimensions per report and then add any number of supported metrics to get a personalised analytics report.

  For example, to zoom in on your website performance in a specific target market you can apply “location” (e.g., Germany) and “action type” (e.g., app downloads) dimensions and then get segmented data on metrics such as total visits, conversion rates, revenue and more. 

  Get to know even more ways to customise Matomo deployment.

  Roll Up Report

  Need to get aggregated traffic analytics from multiple web properties, but not ready to pay $150K per year for Google Analytics 360 for that ?

  We’ve got you with Roll-Up Reporting. You can get a 360-degree view into important KPIs like global revenue, conversion rates or form performance across multiple websites, online stores, mobile apps and even Intranet properties.

  

  Setting up this feature takes minutes, but saves you hours on manually exporting and cross-mapping data from different web analytics tools. 

  Channel all those saved hours into more productive things like increasing your conversion rates or boosting user engagement. 

  Avoid Marketing Tool Sprawl with Matomo 

  With Matomo as your website analytics and conversion optimisation app, you don’t need to switch between different systems, interfaces or have multiple tracking codes embedded on your site.

  And you don’t need to cultivate a disparate (and expensive !) MarTech tool stack — and then figure out if each of your tools is compliant with global privacy laws.

  All the tools you need are conveniently housed under one roof. 

  Want to learn more about Matomo features ? Check out product training videos next ! 

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• How to Check Website Traffic : A Complete Guide

  26 février, par Daniel Crough — Analytics Tips, Marketing

  If you want to learn about the health of your website and the success of your digital marketing initiatives, there are few better ways than checking your website traffic.

  Checking website traffic is a great way to get a dopamine hit when things are up. And it’s a great way to troubleshoot problems when things go down. It’s also a critical data source for marketing and web teams. But to get the most out of it, you need reliable data sources, the ability to track them over time and a way to monitor the competition.

  This article explains how to check website traffic (for your site and your competitors), explores nine tools that can help and discusses why some methods are better than others.

  Why check website traffic ?

  Dopamine hits aside, monitoring website traffic is crucial to a business — even for a primarily brick-and-mortar operation. In this internet age, customers and prospects are far more likely to research a company online before buying anything.

  SOCi’s 2024 Consumer Behavior Index found that 8 in 10 US consumers use the internet to search for local businesses at least once a week. And Statista found that 55% of UK shoppers always do some online research before making a major purchase.

  And trend lines suggest these numbers are likely to continue climbing. Businesses need to know what’s happening on their sites, and that’s difficult to achieve without traffic data.

  Indeed, website data allows companies to better understand their target audiences, measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts and channels, and identify areas of the website that need work.

  Let’s dig into those ideas in a little more detail.

  

  Benchmark site performance

  Keeping regular tabs on traffic levels is a great way to track a website’s performance over time. It can help with planning for the future and identifying current problems.

  For instance, rising traffic levels may mean expanding the business’s offering or investing in more inventory. On the flip side, decreasing traffic levels may suggest it’s time to revamp marketing strategies or look into issues impacting SEO.

  Analyse user behaviour

  Checking website traffic, user behaviour, and other metrics shows marketing managers how users interact with the website. These traffic stats can help answer questions like :

  • Which pages are users visiting ?
  • Which CTAs are they clicking on ?
  • Which page elements encourage users to take the desired actions ?

  It can also identify issues contributing to high bounce rates or declines in search rankings.

  The better user behaviour is understood, the easier it is to give visitors what they want. For example, the data could reveal that users spend more time on landing pages than blogs. These valuable insights can be used to optimise blog content and improve performance.

  Improve the user experience

  Once user behaviour is well understood, it’s easier to make adjustments, update content and improve the overall user experience. This also allows companies to create more personalised customer experiences, which can lead to growth. Research shows companies that get personalisation right generate 40% more revenue from those activities than average players.

  That could take the form of sweeping changes like rearranging a website’s navigation bar based on user behaviour. It could also be personalisation that uses analytics to transform sections or entire pages based on individual user behaviour.

  Optimise digital marketing strategies

  Knowing current traffic levels and how they trend over time helps teams set benchmarks and prioritise marketing efforts.

  Monthly traffic reports can inform SEO efforts and benefit marketing attribution. For example, they could indicate when the time is right to double down on organic traffic or when the better strategy would be to invest more in PPC advertising.

  Increasing organic traffic levels from other countries can help businesses identify new marketing opportunities. If traffic levels from a neighbouring country or a growing market increase significantly, it could be time for a cross-border campaign.

  Filter unwanted traffic

  A significant chunk of every website’s traffic comes from bots and other unwanted sources. This can compromise the quality of website data and make it harder to draw useful insights. While it’s nearly impossible to get rid of this traffic completely, many analytics tools have features to filter it out of the stats.

  Why check competitors’ website traffic

  Websites are windows into businesses and their strategies. That’s why monitoring traffic and other metrics drawn from competitors is essential.

  There’s a lot to learn from the competition, both good and bad. What competitors do well can be replicated, and learning from the elements they get wrong can help you avoid making the same mistakes.

  • Strategic planning : Looking at traffic on specific pages can offer insight into potential marketing campaigns and highlight gaps in the market that may be worth attacking. Looking at their organic, paid, social and referral traffic levels can highlight opportunities for growth or pinpoint the reasons for success in a particular area.
  • Benchmarking : Looking at website traffic in isolation can lack context. Monitoring other sites’ engagement metrics, like bounce rate and average session duration, can give you an inside look at the competition, which can help you set realistic performance goals and benchmarks.
  • Product Development : Significant traffic volume on certain pages can indicate shifts in demand and market trends, which may inform the development of new products or services. For example, if a competitive dog food supplier ranks well for the term “organic dog food”, that might be something to consider when formulating new products.
  • Audience demographics : Comparing audience demographics between competitors can highlight opportunities and help a business narrow down its target audience. This guides messaging and campaign strategies to capture specific audience segments.
  • Keyword opportunities : Examining the keywords driving the most traffic to a competitor’s website can help you uncover untapped SEO potential for your website. Analysing top-performing content on competing sites can help identify content improvement strategies to pull traffic away from competitors.
  • Partnerships : Referrals are an often overlooked traffic metric. High volumes of such traffic indicate successful partnerships between competitors and third parties, which is a model worth emulating.

  7 key website traffic metrics to track

  Traffic metrics are not a case of one-size-fits-all. Those that are important today may not be tomorrow. It all depends on the priorities and goals at any one moment. That said, there are a few traffic metrics that always matter to some degree.

  • New visitors : These are users who have never visited the website before. They are a great sign that marketing efforts are working and the website is reaching more people. But it’s also important to track how they behave on the website to ensure the site caters effectively to the needs of new visitors.
  • Returning visitors : Returning visitors are coming back to the website for a reason : either they like the content they find or want to buy something. Either way, it’s excellent news. The more returning visitors, the better.
  • Bounce rate : This measures how many users leave the website without taking action. Different analytics tools measure this metric differently.
  • Session duration : This is the time users spend on the website, which can reveal whether they find the site engaging. And when considered alongside the next metric, it can be especially insightful.
  • Pages per session : This measures the average number of pages users visit on a website. The more pages they visit and the longer users spend on the website, the more engaging it is.
  • Traffic source : Traffic can come from various sources (organic, direct, social media, referral, etc.). Knowing the highest sources of referral traffic can help analyse and prioritise marketing efforts.
  • User demographics : This shows who visits a website, what device they use, what country they come from, etc. While most website traffic will come from the countries targeted by marketing, an influx of new users from other countries can open the door to new opportunities.

  9 tools to check website traffic

  There are thousands of different web analytics tools that can provide decent website traffic analysis and functionality checks. They all use a similar combination of sophisticated algorithms, data collection techniques, statistical analysis and machine learning to deliver insights into visitor behaviour and site performance.

  Most web analytics tools work by embedding bits of JavaScript or other tracking codes into a website. When users land on a website, it gathers data such as page views, session duration, and specific interactions. Many also use cookies to identify returning visitors, which lets them monitor user behaviour over time.

  Many tools offer advanced event-tracking functionality. This captures specific actions, like clicks or form submissions, and provides a more granular view of engagement. The data is then statistically analysed to spot trends and calculate key metrics like bounce rates and conversion rates.

  Some web analytics tools use machine learning to predict future user behaviour based on historical patterns. Others aggregate data to provide insights via charts comparing website performance with selected competitors’ websites.

  This section explores nine popular tools for checking website traffic and highlights their unique features and benefits.

  1. Checking website traffic with Google Analytics

  Google Analytics is usually the first place to start for anyone looking to check their website traffic. It’s free to use, incredibly popular and offers a wide range of traffic reports.

  It breaks down historical traffic data in many different ways. It can split traffic by acquisition channel (organic, social media, direct, etc.), by country, device or demographic. It also provides real-time traffic reports that offer a snapshot of users on the site right now and over the last 30 minutes.

  

  Google Analytics may be one of the most popular ways to check website traffic, but it could be better. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is difficult to use compared to its predecessor, and it also imposes data tracking limits in accordance with privacy laws. If users refuse cookie consent, Google Analytics won’t record those visits. In other words, using Google Analytics alone doesn’t provide a complete view of the traffic.

  

  Also, GA4 relies on sampling when processing large datasets or complex queries. When the volume of data exceeds certain thresholds, it only considers a subset of the data to generate reports instead of processing every single data point.

  There are pros and cons to this approach. While it speeds up analysis and reduces the load on the system, it can also lead to inaccuracies in insights delivered. When analysing traffic patterns over a busy period, GA4 may only use a portion of the data to calculate and then extrapolate metrics.

  As a result, trends or anomalies might be overlooked or misconstrued, which could mean missed opportunities or poor decisions. That’s why it’s important to use Google Analytics alongside other web analytics tools (like Matomo) that don’t suffer from the same privacy issues. That way, it’s possible to track every single user who visits the website.

  2. Checking website traffic with Google Search Console

  Google Search Console is a free tool that analyses a website’s Google search traffic. The top-line report shows how many times the website has appeared in Google Search, how many clicks it has received, the average clickthrough rate and its average position in the search results.

  

  It’s a great way to understand what the website ranks for and how much traffic organic rankings generate. It will also show which pages are indexed in Google and whether there are any crawling errors.

  Unfortunately, Google Search Console is limited if a complete view of traffic is needed. While the search traffic can be analysed in great detail, it will not report how users who access the website behave on it.

  3. Checking website traffic with Similarweb

  Similarweb is a website analysis tool that estimates the total traffic of any site on the internet. It is one of the best traffic checker tools for estimating how much web traffic competitors receive.

  What’s great about Similarweb is that it estimates total traffic, not just traffic from search engines like many SEO tools. It even breaks down traffic by different channels for easy comparison.

  

  Similarweb provides an estimate of total visits, bounce rate, the average number of pages users view per visit and the average duration on the site. The company also has a free browser extension that continues checking website traffic estimates while the user is browsing the web.

  Similarweb is free to use, up to a point. However, to get the most out of this tool, you must upgrade to the premium plan, which starts at $125 per user per month.

  The price isn’t Similarweb’s only downside. Ultimately, it provides reasonably accurate estimates but is no match for a comprehensive traffic analytics tool.

  4. Checking website traffic with Semrush

  Semrush is a collection of marketing solutions for online businesses. Its Traffic Analytics tool checks the website traffic of up to 100 sites and compares that data side-by-side. For each site, it reveals the top pages, the regions from which most of the traffic comes, and the locations from which the most referrals come.

  Semrush also gathers insights into competitors’ audiences and their activity, especially activity that overlaps between the sites being checked. It extracts and analyses comprehensive data on organic and paid search, social media, and backlinks.

  

  However, there are notable downsides. Semrush can be pricey, with plans starting at about $119.95 per month or $1,199.40 annually. This cost may be prohibitive for smaller businesses or freelancers. Still, a free version offers most of the functionality but with a limited number of daily reports.

  5. Checking website traffic with Ahrefs

  Ahrefs‘s biggest strength is its organic traffic estimation capabilities. It estimates monthly visits from Google worldwide, Google keywords in the top 100 that a website ranks for, and traffic value via equivalence to PPC.

  

  Ahrefs bases its estimates on ranking data from a database of 12 billion keywords, which is why it is so powerful. It generates a detailed report that includes organic traffic estimates, backlink data, and top-performing keywords.

  However, the numbers produced by Ahrefs are estimates based on the available data and won’t always be 100% accurate. This is particularly true for smaller or newer websites that lack the data volumes needed for accuracy.

  It’s a great SEO marketing tool that’s free to use within certain limits, but there is some value in registering for a paid plan. There are several options, beginning with the $129 per month Lite plan and extending to the Enterprise Plan for $1,499 monthly.

  6. Checking website traffic with Serpstat

  Serpstat is an SEO solution that grew from a simple keyword research tool. It offers more comprehensive features to help businesses understand their website’s performance. It helps improve a site’s visibility through tools for rank tracking, keyword research, traffic checking, backlink analysis, and site auditing.

  

  It provides metrics like estimated monthly visits, traffic sources (organic, paid, and referral), and insights into top-performing pages. Serpstat also offers competitor analysis features that help to identify market trends and refine growth strategies. However, like Ahrefs, the numbers provided are estimates, which are only as good as the depth of data from which they are derived.

  The free version is fine for basic analysis, but signing up for one of the paid plans is advisable for commercial use. Pricing ranges from $59 per month to a monthly fee of $479 for the Agency plan. There is an option to pay annually at a discount.

  7. Checking website traffic with SEO PowerSuite

  SEO PowerSuite also goes some distance beyond just website traffic checking. As the name implies, it’s a suite of tools to improve website rankings.

  

  There are four tools in the suite :

  • Rank Tracker enables tracking a website’s search engine rankings across multiple keywords and search engines.
  • WebSite Auditor offers SEO analysis of website pages and recommends actions to boost performance.
  • SEO SpyGlass analyses a website’s backlink profile to highlight link-building possibilities that’d help improve performance.
  • LinkAssistant helps identify websites suitable for link-building and recommends viable outreach opportunities.

  SEO PowerSuite has a free plan and two premium plans with varying functionality. The monthly cost could be as much as $139.67, depending on the features needed. Annual pricing options are also available.

  8. Checking website traffic with Ubersuggest

  Ubersuggest is also an SEO-focused tool. It offers website traffic analysis, keyword rankings, backlink profiles, and competitor insights. These are packaged in reports that provide an overview of website traffic, including monthly organic traffic totals and the number of organic keywords the site ranks for. Ubersuggest also offers content suggestions.

  

  Like other tools in this category, Ubersuggest doesn’t collect comprehensive data, so its numbers are estimates. This means the accuracy can vary. However, it remains a solid choice for providing great insights and enhancing a website’s online presence.

  Like many tools in this category, there is a free version to give potential customers a taste, which is restricted by volume more than features. The paid plans range from around $29 per month for one website on the individual plan to about $99 per month for 8-15 websites on the Enterprise plan. Discounted annual pricing is also an option.

  9. Checking website traffic with MonsterInsights

  MonsterInsights is a tool worth considering for websites built on WordPress because it’s not a website checking tool in the usual sense. It’s a WordPress plugin that simplifies the task by integrating Google Analytics directly into a website.

  MonsterInsights then uses the raw data provided by GA4 to extract actionable insights based on audience preferences and activity. This makes it easier to focus on the relevant metrics for different types of websites. For example, the metrics used to measure a blog site would not be the same as those for an ecommerce site.

  But there are some downsides, too. While the basic version is free, it has limited features, and the most potent functionality requires a premium subscription. Those start at $249 per year for a single site, or the Pro plan at $499 for up to five sites. Agencies looking to work with up to 25 sites are in for $999.

  

  There’s another option

  Although many of these tools have free versions, those tend to be heavily restricted, and premium plans can be expensive. A website has to generate serious revenue to deliver a decent return on investment (ROI) to justify the costs.

  As more countries adopt GDPR-like privacy regulations, brands must ensure they’re using compliant, privacy-centric analytics tools.

  Matomo Analytics is one such tool. It’s an ethical, open-source solution that helps you collect accurate data about your website’s traffic and make more informed decisions. This enhances the customer experience and ensures GDPR compliance and user privacy.

  It’s completely free to install as an on-premise solution. Alternatively, there’s the subscription-based Matomo Cloud version.

  How to check website traffic on Matomo

  Apart from a better ROI picture, Matomo offers a more reliable assessment of your website’s traffic than Google Analytics 4. It also provides multiple ways to check organic search traffic :

  • Visits log report
  • Real-time visitor map
  • Visits in real-time report

  Let’s look at all of them one by one.

  The visits log report is a unique rundown of your site’s visitors. It offers a much more granular view than other traffic checker tools, which only show the total number of visitors for a given period.

  

  You can access the visits log report by clicking on the reporting menu and then clicking Visitor and Visits Log. From there, you’ll be able to scroll through every user session and see the following information :

  • The location of the user
  • The total number of actions they took
  • The length of time on site
  • How they arrived at your site
  • The device they used to access your site

  It may be overwhelming if your site receives thousands of visitors at a time. But it’s a great way to understand users at an individual level and appreciate the lifetime activity of specific users.

  The Real-time visitor map shows site visitors’ location for a given timeframe. If you have an international website, it’s a fantastic way to see exactly where your traffic comes from.

  

  You can access the Real-time Visitor Map by clicking Visitor in the main navigation menu and then Real-time Map. The map itself is colour-coded. Larger orange bubbles represent recent visits, and smaller dark orange and grey bubbles represent older visits. The map will refresh every five seconds, and new users appear with a flashing effect.

  If you run TV or radio adverts, Matomo’s Real-time Map provides an immediate read on the effectiveness of your campaign. If your map lights up in the minutes following your ad, you know it’s been effective. It can also help you identify the source of bot attacks, too.

  Finally, the Visits in Real-time report provides a snapshot of who is browsing your website. You can access this report under Visitors > Real-time and add it to your custom dashboards as a widget.

  Open the report, and you’ll see the real-time flow of your site’s users and counters for visits and pageviews over the last 30 minutes and 24 hours. The report refreshes every five seconds with new users added to the top of the report with a fade-in effect.

  

  The report provides a snapshot of each visitor, including :

  • Whether they are new or returning
  • Their country
  • Their browser
  • Their operating system
  • The number of actions they took
  • The time they spent on the site
  • The channel they came in from
  • Whether the visitor converted a goal

  Why do my traffic reports differ ?

  If you use more than one of the methods above to check your website traffic, you’ll quickly realise that every traffic report differs. In some cases, the reasons are obvious. Any tool that estimates your traffic without adding code to your website is just that : an estimate. Tools like many of those mentioned here will never offer the accuracy of analytics platforms like Matomo and Google Analytics.

  But what about the differences between these analytics platforms themselves ? While each platform records user behaviour differently, significant differences in website traffic reports between analytics platforms are usually due to how each platform handles user privacy.

  A platform like Google Analytics requires users to accept a cookie consent banner to track them. If they accept, great. Google collects all of the data that any other analytics platform does. It may even collect more. However, if users reject cookie consent banners, Google Analytics can’t track them. They simply won’t show up in your traffic reports.

  That doesn’t happen with all analytics platforms, however. A privacy-focused alternative like Matomo doesn’t require cookie consent banners (apart from in the United Kingdom and Germany). Therefore, it can continue to track visitors even after they have rejected a cookie consent screen from Google Analytics. This means virtually all website traffic will be tracked regardless of whether users accept a cookie consent banner. And it’s why traffic reports in Matomo are often much higher than in Google Analytics.

  

  Around half (47.32%) of adults in the European Union refuse to allow personal data tracking for advertising purposes, and 95% of people will reject additional cookies when it is easy to do so. So relying on cookies limits your results — and causes you to miss out on valuable user data.

  If you’re serious about using web analytics to improve your website and optimise your marketing campaigns, then it is essential to use another analytics platform alongside Google Analytics.

  What to do if website traffic levels drop

  Experiencing a drop in website traffic can be frustrating, but it happens to everyone at some point. Here’s how to address it :

  • Analyse traffic sources : Use analytics tools to pinpoint where the decline is coming from—organic search, referrals, or social media.
  • Check for technical issues : Look for broken links or slow loading times, which can deter visitors. Tools like Google Search Console can help identify errors.
  • Review recent changes : Consider any recent updates to the website. If something coincided with the drop, it might be worth reverting.
  • Evaluate content quality : Ensure the content is engaging and relevant. Update or improve underperforming posts.
  • Reassess the marketing strategy : The only constant in marketing is change. It’s wise to periodically revisit the balance between paid ads, social media and other vectors to evaluate their effectiveness and adjust the approach.

  It’s perfectly normal for website traffic volumes to fluctuate. Expect it and work with the available tools. Persistence will likely see the traffic volumes rebound.

  Get more accurate traffic reports with Matomo

  There are several methods to check website traffic. Some can provide estimates on your competitors’ traffic levels. Others, like Google Analytics, are free. But data doesn’t lie. Only privacy-focused analytics solutions like Matomo can provide accurate reports that account for every visitor.

  Join over one million organisations using Matomo to check their website traffic accurately and ethically.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Start your 21-day free trial — no credit card required.