Which website KPIs should a small business track?
The eight website KPIs worth tracking for a small business are: qualified enquiries, conversion rate by landing page, lead source, non-brand search clicks and impressions, top landing pages, Core Web Vitals pass rate, uptime, and, for online stores, one combined sales number covering revenue, average order value and checkout completion.
If your monthly report opens with pageviews, sessions and bounce rate, it is telling you how busy the site was, not whether it brought you customers.
Each of those numbers either leads to money or explains why money did not arrive. That is the test we use: if a figure went up by 30% next month, would you do anything differently? If the honest answer is no, it is a vanity number.
Why traffic alone misleads
A Sukhumvit clinic can double its visits by ranking for a health question asked by people in another country. The report looks great, the appointment book stays the same. A hotel can lose half its blog traffic after a Google update and still take more direct bookings, because the pages that sell rooms held steady. Traffic is an input. You track it to diagnose, never as the goal.
This guide assumes tracking already works. If it does not, start with our walkthrough of GA4 setup for small business, then come back. For more on reporting and site performance, browse our SEO, speed and analytics guides.
The eight KPIs at a glance
Keep the list short enough to review in one sitting. The table shows each KPI, where the number lives, and the decision it should trigger. Anything not on this list can still be looked at, but only when one of these eight moves and you need to know why.
| KPI | Where it lives | What to act on |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Qualified enquiries | Lead log (sheet) plus GA4 key events | Fewer real leads: check forms, buttons and top pages first |
| 2. Conversion rate by landing page | GA4, key events by landing page | Pages with traffic but no enquiries need a clearer offer or call to action |
| 3. Lead source | GA4 session source plus the question "how did you find us?" | Shift effort toward channels that bring buyers, not browsers |
| 4. Non-brand search clicks and impressions | Search Console, Performance report, brand queries filtered out | Falling reach for service terms: review content and titles |
| 5. Top landing pages | Search Console and GA4 | Protect the pages that bring enquiries; improve the ones that almost do |
| 6. Core Web Vitals pass rate | Search Console, Core Web Vitals report | Failing URL groups: fix images, scripts or hosting |
| 7. Uptime | An uptime monitor with email alerts | Repeated downtime: talk to your host or developer |
| 8. Store sales (revenue, AOV, checkout completion) | Shopify or WooCommerce reports plus GA4 e-commerce events | Carts started but not finished: look at shipping, payment and checkout steps |
Counting WhatsApp, LINE and phone leads
Many Bangkok enquiries do not end on a thank-you page. People tap the WhatsApp or LINE button, or call, and the conversation carries on in the app. Analytics sees the tap, then nothing. So KPI 1 needs two layers.
Layer one: click events
Every chat button, phone link and form submit should fire an event in GA4, marked as a key event so you can see it by page and source. A tap is intent, not a lead: some people tap by mistake, some never send a message.
Layer two: a simple lead log
Whoever answers LINE, WhatsApp and the phone adds one row per real conversation to a shared sheet: date, channel, what they asked about, and whether it became a quote or a sale. It takes seconds per lead. Once a month you compare the log with the click events. If GA4 shows 60 WhatsApp taps and the log shows 20 real chats, that ratio is your baseline, and a sudden change in it points to a broken button or a spam problem.
Add one question to the first reply: "How did you find us?" Staff can record Google, a friend, Facebook or walked past. It fills the gaps analytics cannot see, such as a customer who found you on the phone and later messaged from a laptop.
Search visibility KPIs
Once Google Search Console is set up, its Performance report gives you clicks, impressions, average position and the queries behind them. Two views matter.
KPI 4: non-brand clicks and impressions
People who search your business name already know you. The growth signal is the rest: "dental clinic Ari", "serviced office Asok", "ร้านดอกไม้ส่งด่วน". Add a query filter that excludes your brand name and its Thai spelling, then compare the last 28 days with the previous 28. Impressions rising before clicks is normal; it means Google is testing you for new terms.
KPI 5: top landing pages
Sort the Pages tab by clicks and keep a list of the ten pages that bring the most visitors. Cross-check them with KPI 2. A page with strong search traffic and a weak enquiry rate is your cheapest win: better headings, a clearer price hint, a visible chat button. Markup such as local business schema markup can help Google understand those pages, but it will not fix a page that does not answer the searcher.
Ignore single-day swings. Search data is noisy, and a public holiday such as Songkran can move a week of numbers on its own.
Speed and uptime as KPIs
Speed and uptime sound technical, but they sit on the list for a business reason: a site that is slow on mobile data, or down on a Saturday evening, loses enquiries you never hear about. When the speed numbers slip, website speed optimization is usually the fix.
KPI 6: Core Web Vitals pass rate
The Core Web Vitals report in Search Console groups your URLs as good, needs improvement or poor, separately for mobile and desktop, using real visitor data. Track the share of mobile URLs rated good. When it drops, the usual causes are oversized photos, a new plugin or a heavy chat widget. Our guide to image optimization for faster websites covers the most common fix. Small sites may show no data at all, because the report needs enough real visits; in that case run PageSpeed Insights on your top pages instead.
KPI 7: uptime
Set up a free or low-cost uptime monitor that checks the home page every few minutes and emails you when it fails. Review the monthly log, not just the alerts. Several short outages at night can point to a hosting limit. A CDN layer such as the one described in our article on Cloudflare CDN and security can soften traffic spikes and some attacks, though it does not replace decent hosting.
Extra KPIs for online stores
For a Shopify or WooCommerce shop, KPI 8 combines three figures that only make sense together: revenue, average order value (AOV) and checkout completion, meaning the share of started checkouts that end in a paid order.
- Revenue tells you the result.
- AOV tells you whether bundles, free-shipping thresholds or upsells are working.
- Checkout completion tells you where money leaks.
Thai checkouts have their own leak points. A buyer who expects PromptPay and only sees card payment may leave. A shipping fee that appears late, after the address step, surprises people. Cash on delivery orders count as sales in the platform but can still be refused at the door, so compare paid COD orders with delivered ones through your courier, whether that is Thailand Post, KEX Express (formerly Kerry Express), Flash Express or J&T.
Why other industries' benchmarks mislead
You will find blog posts quoting an "average" conversion rate. We do not repeat them, because they mix countries, price points and industries. A cheap phone case and an expensive sofa will never convert alike. Your own trend, month over month and year over year, is the only benchmark that tells you something.
A 30-minute monthly review
Put the eight numbers in one place. A Google Sheet works; Looker Studio is free and can pull GA4 and Search Console data into a single dashboard. Then block half an hour on the first working day of each month and follow the same order every time.
If the review keeps pointing at the site itself, such as pages that attract visitors but never convert, missing tracking on chat buttons or a slow theme, that is build work. In our web design and development service, the Starter package includes contact, WhatsApp and LINE buttons, which can each carry a tracking event, along with on-page SEO. You can compare what each package includes on our web design prices page.
- Step 1
Minutes 0 to 5: enquiries
Count real leads in the log and compare with last month and the same month last year.
- Step 2
Minutes 5 to 10: sources and pages
Check which sources and landing pages produced those leads, and which pages had visitors but no enquiries.
- Step 3
Minutes 10 to 18: search
Read non-brand clicks and impressions and the top ten landing pages in Search Console.
- Step 4
Minutes 18 to 23: health
Look at the Core Web Vitals report and the uptime log for any red flags.
- Step 5
Minutes 23 to 27: store
For shops, note revenue, AOV and checkout completion, and any payment or courier issues.
- Step 6
Minutes 27 to 30: one action
Pick a single fix for the month, write it down, and check its effect at the next review.
More guides on SEO and performance
Sources
Builds and ranks the websites: the systems behind the 17 client sites whose Search Console numbers we publish. This guide was written by the Website Development Bangkok team. More about us