Visitor stats: Google Analytics or PostHog

Two tools come up most for small business websites.

• Google Analytics is free, and it's Google's, like Search Console and your Business Profile. Many site builders, including Wix and Squarespace, have a setting for it. On Shopify, you add Google's free Google & YouTube app. Its screens are crowded, and it uses cookies.
• PostHog starts free. Its web stats page is simpler to read, it can keep your data in Europe if you choose Europe when you sign up, and it has a connector for Claude, which the lesson "Connect it, so you don't have to export" covers. Its install guides cover Shopify, Webflow, WordPress and a few others, but not Wix or Squarespace, where you'd paste its code into a custom code setting. It uses cookies too, unless you set it up not to, which takes some code.

If you're on a site builder and have no reason to pick otherwise, pick Google Analytics. Steps 3 to 6 walk through it.

1. Pick one. Use one tool, not both.
2. If you picked Google Analytics, skip Step 2.

connector A link between Claude and another app or service, like Google Calendar or Linear, so Claude can read from it or work in it. All words×

PostHog's own install guides cover each kind of site. Follow the one for yours.

1. Sign up at posthog.com. Choose Europe if you want your data kept there.
2. Follow its web analytics install guide for your site.
3. Open your website on your phone.
4. Check your visit on PostHog's Web analytics page.
5. Go to Step 7.

An account holds your business. A property inside it holds your website's numbers.

1. Go to analytics.google.com and sign in with your business Google account.
2. Click Start Measuring.
3. Type your business name as the account name, leave the data-sharing boxes as they are, or untick any you don't want, and click Next.
4. Type a property name, like your business name, pick your time zone and currency, and click Next.
5. Pick your industry and business size, click Next, choose how you plan to use it, and click Create.
6. Read and accept the Terms of Service and the Data Processing Amendment.

account A sign-in with a company, like a domain, email or hosting. Whoever owns the account controls what's in it. All words×

A web stream connects the property to your website, and gives you the ID your site needs.

1. Click Admin. Under Data collection and modification, click Data streams.
2. Click Add stream, then Web.
3. Type your website address and a name, like Website. Leave enhanced measurement on, as Google recommends.
4. Click Create stream.
5. Under Stream Details, copy the Measurement ID. It starts with G-.

The ID goes into your site builder in the next step. It isn't a password: anyone can see it in your site's code.

Measurement ID The short code, starting with G-, that tells Google Analytics which website a visit belongs to. All words×

Google's help lists Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, GoDaddy, Google Sites and others as builders with a Google Analytics setting. On Shopify, it's done through the Google & YouTube app.

1. Open your site builder's help pages and search for Google Analytics.
2. Follow its steps, and paste your Measurement ID where it asks.
3. Save, and publish your site.

If someone else looks after your site, send them the Measurement ID and ask them to add it.

Google's help says data can take up to 30 minutes to start showing. The Realtime report shows visits as they happen.

1. Open your website on your phone.
2. In Google Analytics, click Reports in the menu on the left, then Realtime.

Visitor stats collect information about the people on your site, so your site needs to say so. Google's terms for Google Analytics say you must post a privacy policy, say that you use Google Analytics and how it collects and processes data, and give notice of cookies. Google also suggests a link to its page "How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services".

AI drafts and sorts; a person approves anything with a price, a date or your name on it. This section goes out under your name, so you check every line against what your site really does.

1. Open the Claude app or claude.ai and start a new chat.
2. Copy the prompt below.

I've added [Google Analytics or PostHog] to my small business website to count visitors. Draft a short section for my website's privacy policy, in plain words. Say that I use it, and that it may collect things like which pages people visit, their rough location, their device and browser, and how they found my site. Write FILL IN for whether my setup uses cookies. Say who provides it, and how a visitor can block cookies or opt out. If it's Google Analytics, add a line pointing to Google's page "How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services". Write FILL IN for every link, my business name, how to contact me and the date. Don't promise anything I haven't told you, and don't say it meets any particular law. Put a line at the top saying it's a draft for me to check, and a list at the end of each thing it says the tool collects, so I can check them against the tool's own help pages.

3. Paste it into the chat. Replace the part in square brackets with the tool you picked.
4. Send it.
5. Fill in every FILL IN, and add the section to your site's privacy policy page.

If you're unsure whether it covers everything, have a lawyer read it.

privacy policy A page that tells visitors what information your site collects about them and what you do with it. All words×AI Short for artificial intelligence. Here it means a program like Claude that reads what you write and writes back in plain words. All words×Claude app Claude on your phone or computer, where you chat with it by typing. claude.ai is the same thing in a web browser. All words×prompt What you type to Claude. A good one says what you want, how to work and what never to do. All words×

Rules on cookies and asking visitors' consent depend on where your business is and where your visitors are. In some places you have to ask before a site stores cookies. Google's terms also ask you to get consent where the law requires it. This prompt looks for the official page that covers your visitors.

1. Copy the prompt below.

Search the web for the official government or regulator page that explains the rules on website cookies and asking visitors' consent, for a small business based in [your country, and state or province] whose visitors are mostly in [where your visitors are]. Use only official pages. Give me the link, and say in plain words what it says a small business with visitor stats on its website has to do. If you can't find an official page, say so. Don't give me legal advice, and don't fill gaps with what other countries do.

2. Paste it into the same chat. Replace the parts in square brackets with where you're based and where your visitors are.
3. Send it.
4. Open the link and check the page is from a government or a regulator.

If the official page says you have to ask visitors first, a cookie banner does the asking.

1. Search your site builder's help for cookie banner. Many builders have one you can switch on.
2. Turn it on, and link it to your privacy policy page.
3. Publish your site, and open it in a private browser window to check the banner shows.

cookie banner The notice on a website that asks visitors whether it may store cookies, the small files that remember them between visits. All words×