A boss decides based on data
Your website is live – but does anyone actually visit it? What do they look at? Where did they come from? Analytics answers these questions. Without it, a boss just guesses; with it, a boss knows.
For a kids’ or family website, pick analytics that doesn’t spy: no cookies, no tracking specific people. Good choices:
- GoatCounter – free for small websites, simple, no cookies.
- Plausible / Simple Analytics – paid, but very simple.
- GitHub Pages won’t show you anything on its own – you have to add analytics yourself.
Show me: setting up GoatCounter
- Sign up (with your parents) at goatcounter.com – you’ll pick a name, like
hawkseagles. - Add one line to the
<head>of every page:
<script data-goatcounter="https://hawkseagles.goatcounter.com/count"
async src="//gc.zgo.at/count.js"></script>- Done. At
hawkseagles.goatcounter.comyou can see: number of visits, most-read pages, where people came from, mobile vs. desktop.
Numbers aren’t everything. 20 visits a week on a youth team’s website is a success – that’s almost every parent! Don’t compare yourself to YouTubers; compare yourself to your own last month.
The other half: ask people
Analytics tells you what people do, but not why. That’s what feedback is for:
- Add a simple contact option to your website: “Something not working? Something missing? Let me know!” (email, a form, or a guestbook – you already have one!).
- Ask 3 people in person: “Try to find X on my website. Tell me out loud what you’re thinking.” And just listen. Don’t defend or jump in – just take notes.
Now it’s your turn 💪
- Set up analytics (GoatCounter or similar) and confirm it’s counting – visit your website from your phone and check the stats.
- Do a test with 3 people (a parent, a friend, a classmate). For each one, write down: what they looked for, where they got stuck, what they said.
- From your notes, pick 3 improvements and write them in
LAUNCH.md. Make at least one of them right away. - Check back in your analytics a week later: how many people came? Which page is the most popular?
Check: Analytics is running and counting visits. You’ve written down feedback from 3 people, and one improvement is already live.
What to take away from this lesson
- Analytics tells you what happens on your website; feedback tells you why.
- Pick analytics that doesn’t spy on people (no cookies).
- A boss listens to users and improves based on data, not feelings.
© 2026 Ing. Martin Polak / AlgoRhino · Content usage terms