Read Your Numbers Without Getting Lost

Website analytics can feel like a wall of charts and unfamiliar terms—but underneath all the noise, they’re just answers to a few simple questions:

• Are people finding us?
• What are they doing once they arrive?
• Where are things working—and where are they falling flat?

This post is about cutting through the clutter so you can actually use your analytics to make decisions. We’ll walk through the key numbers Osaze pays attention to, how to connect them to real‑world actions, and how the Osaze Dashboard can simplify everything into one clear view.

Why analytics matter (and why they feel overwhelming)

Your website and online presence are working all the time, even when you’re not. Analytics are how you check in on that work—what’s happening when you’re not in the room. But most tools were built for data people first and humans second, which is why so many dashboards feel confusing.

Our approach at Osaze is simple:

1. Focus on a small set of meaningful metrics
2. Look at trends over time, not just single days
3. Ask, “So what?” for each number—what would we actually do differently?

You don’t need to know every chart or acronym. You just need to know which ones matter for your goals.

The core metrics we actually care about

Different organizations have different goals, but there are a few metrics that almost always matter. In the Osaze Dashboard, we usually highlight:

1. Traffic & sessions (How many visits are you getting?)

This tells you how many times people came to your site in a given period.

We look for:

• Overall trend (up, down, flat over weeks/months)
• Major spikes or drops around campaigns, events, or changes

What it can tell you:

• Did that campaign, post, or event send people to your site?
• Are you slowly gaining more attention, or do you have long quiet stretches?

If traffic is consistently low, it might be time to focus on visibility: SEO, Google Business Profile, or events/campaigns that drive people to your site.

2. Top pages (What are people actually looking at?)

This shows which pages people visit most.

We pay attention to:

• Are the top pages what you want people to see (e.g., Home, Services/Programs, Contact, key offerings)?
• Are there important pages that rarely get visits?
• Are unexpected pages getting lots of traffic (old content, test pages, etc.)?

What it can tell you:

• Whether your navigation and internal links are doing their job
• If people are finding important information easily
• Which content is resonating or being discovered in search

If a crucial service page never shows up in your top list, you might need:

• A clearer link from the homepage
• Better navigation labels
• SEO or content tweaks

3. Traffic sources (How are people finding you?)

This breaks visits down by where people came from, such as:

• Search engines (Google, Bing)
• Direct (typing your URL or using bookmarks)
• Social media
• Email campaigns
• Referrals from partner websites or directories

What it can tell you:

• Is search doing a lot of the work, or are most people coming from direct links and word of mouth?
• Are your social or email efforts actually driving site visits?
• Which partnerships or directories are sending you meaningful traffic?

If you’re spending a lot of energy on a channel that barely shows up here, it may be time to rethink your focus.

4. Key actions (Are people doing what you want them to do?)

Traffic is nice, but actions are what really matter. Depending on your goals, this might be:

• Contact form submissions
• Clicks on email addresses or phone numbers
• Event registrations or sign‑ups
• Resource downloads
• Donations or purchases

We try to track these in a way that makes sense for your org, then watch:

• How many key actions happen in a period
• Which pages or sources tend to lead to them
• Changes over time, especially after site updates or campaigns

What it can tell you:

• If your website is just being looked at—or actually being used
• Which pages and traffic sources are most valuable
• Where you might need better calls‑to‑action or fewer barriers

5. Basic engagement (Are people sticking around at all?)

We don’t obsess over every engagement metric, but we care about a few simple signals:

• Average time on site or key pages
• Bounce/exit patterns (are people leaving quickly, especially from key pages?)
• Device breakdown (desktop vs mobile)

What it can tell you:

• If people are finding anything worth reading/doing
• If a specific page may be confusing or off‑putting
• If your mobile experience needs more attention

How to connect numbers to decisions

Numbers on their own don’t change anything. The real magic is in the questions they raise and the decisions they inform. Here’s how we like to work:

1. Notice a pattern.

• “Our Services page gets almost no traffic.”
• “We get visits, but almost no form submissions.”
• “Mobile visitors leave faster than desktop visitors.”

1. Ask what might be causing it.

• Is the page hard to find or buried in the menu?
• Is the form too long or unclear?
• Does the page look or behave badly on phones?

1. Make one or two specific changes.

• Add a clearer link from the homepage.
• Simplify the form and clarify benefits.
• Improve mobile layout or load speed.

1. Watch what happens.

• Did traffic to that page go up?
• Did completed actions increase?
• Did mobile engagement improve?

This loop—notice → adjust → review—is the real power of analytics.

How the Osaze Dashboard fits in

Most raw analytics tools answer all of these questions, but they don’t present the info in a friendly way. That’s where the Osaze Dashboard comes in.

When we set up a dashboard for you (starting at $450 setup, with ongoing access built into our hosting tiers), we:

• Pull key metrics into one simple, branded view
• Highlight the numbers that match your goals (not a generic template)
• Organize the dashboard into clear sections:
• Traffic & sources
• Top pages
• Key actions (events, forms, clicks)
• Basic engagement and device breakdown

For clients on Tier 2 and Tier 3 hosting, the dashboard isn’t just a static report:

• Tier 2: You get full dashboard access plus quarterly insight summaries, where we point out patterns and recommend next steps.
• Tier 3: You get the same access plus monthly performance breakdowns (often with a Loom video or call), where we walk you through what’s happening and what we suggest adjusting.

The goal is to turn your analytics from something you avoid into something you feel comfortable checking and using.

When you’re ready to get more out of your data

If you want to start on your own:

• Log into your current analytics tool and look for:
• Overall traffic trend (3–6 months)
• Top pages
• Traffic sources
• One or two key actions (forms, clicks)
• Write down one question each metric raises, and one small change you could test.

If you’d rather have a partner:

• Consider starting with an Online Presence Audit, where we’ll look at your site, basic analytics, and presence together.
• Add an Osaze Dashboard Setup if you want a single, understandable place to see your numbers.
• Move into a hosting & care plan if you want us checking your analytics with you over time, not just handing you a one‑time report.

You don’t need to become a data analyst to benefit from analytics. You just need a clear view, a few key metrics, and someone to help you turn what you’re seeing into smart next steps. That’s exactly what we’re aiming to provide with the Osaze Dashboard and our ongoing support.