Finding out how much traffic a website gets is essential for analyzing your competitors and creating a marketing strategy. As a digital marketing expert, I rely on website traffic checker tools to view website traffic data for any site, including competitors and my own.
While these traffic checker tools won’t give you exact visitor numbers, they provide valuable insights into how websites are performing and what keywords they’re ranking for.
I use these website traffic checker tools daily, both professionally and for my personal projects. They’ve been invaluable for keyword research, content planning, competitor analysis, and more. I honestly couldn’t do my job effectively without them!
In this guide, I’ll walk you through the best website traffic checker tools available, explain what insights you can gather from them, and show you how to easily track your own WordPress site’s traffic with a simple solution.
Let’s dive in.
Why check how much traffic a website gets?
Understanding your competition’s traffic patterns can give you valuable insights to improve your own marketing strategy.
Really, the right traffic checker tools make all the difference. They can show you which content performs best for your competitors, what keywords they’re ranking for, and even which marketing channels bring them the most visitors.
You can learn:
- Which traffic channels are sending the most traffic to your competitors
- Which keywords your competitors are ranking for
- Which keywords your competitors are losing or have lost
- Which pages or posts are getting the most traffic on your competitors’ sites
- What paid ads your competitors are running
Understanding your competitors’ keywords and traffic sources isn’t just about copying what they do. Instead, it’s about finding opportunities to create even better content that serves your audience. I’ve used this strategy successfully to grow organic traffic by identifying gaps in competitor content and creating more comprehensive resources (a.k.a. stealing their traffic).
When you know how much traffic your competitors are getting, you have a realistic benchmark to work toward. But look at their entire digital presence, not just their website traffic. don’t just stop at website traffic! I always check their social media engagement, email marketing tactics, and other marketing channels to get the full picture.
Ready to start analyzing your competition? Let’s look at the best tools for checking website traffic and how to use them effectively.
7 Best Website Traffic Checkers (+ BONUS)
- Semrush
- Ahrefs
- SimilarWeb
- Website Traffic Checker
- Sitechecker
- SERanking
- Serpstat
- BONUS: MonsterInsights
1. Semrush
Semrush is one of the leading tools to check website traffic. Beyond that, it offers a ton of powerful features that can help you boost your site’s traffic and SEO. With Semrush, you can:
- Find out which keywords your competitors are ranking for
- Get an idea of how much traffic your competitors get
- Track keyword rankings for your own website
- Mine your competitors’ backlinks to find opportunities for your site
- And more
Enter a website’s URL and Semrush will give you information about its traffic, top organic keywords, top landing pages, backlinks, and more.
It even offers a feature called Traffic Analytics. This feature allows you to see the competitor’s total number of visits, traffic sources, countries that send traffic, and more.
Plus, their Keyword Magic Tool can help you find the exact keywords that are going to be the best ones for your site to rank for. Just type in a keyword to find related keywords, volume, search trend, how hard it’ll be to rank for, and more.
Semrush is our favorite website traffic checker tool because it offers so much more than just the ability to view website traffic.
While the cost of Semrush can be too much for some, there is a limited free version you can use, too.
2. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is another popular SEO tool and website traffic checker that provides in-depth information about your competitors’ website traffic. Like Semrush, it also includes a suite of other SEO tools beyond competitor research.
If you want to measure a competitor’s organic traffic, just paste in their URL to see estimated monthly visitors, organic keywords, traffic value, competing domains, and more.
Using the organic keywords report, you can perform your own keyword research and see which search terms others are ranking for. Then use those keywords to create better content and optimize your pages.
Not only that, but you can use it to perform a technical SEO analysis on your site. Find broken links and referring domains, see anchor distribution of your competitors or your own site, identify content gaps, and more.
3. SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is another popular website traffic checker in the SEO industry. They also have a platform with multiple tools for SEO and marketing professionals. What sets SimilarWeb apart, in my opinion, though, is its Chrome extension.
Once you install the extension, you can click it to learn basic traffic metrics for any website, then click into it for even more data. You can find out:
- The global ranking of a website
- Top traffic countries
- Visits over time
- Traffic sources
- Keyword ranking
- Organic traffic estimate
You can unlock more features in its premium version. But if you’re just starting out, then its free website traffic checker extension is definitely helpful.
Besides the Chrome extension, SimilarWeb also provides a whole suite of tools for marketing teams. Their Competitive Research tool will show you your market share compared with competitors you choose, plus many of the same metrics as Semrush and Ahrefs.
4. Website Traffic Checker
Website Traffic Checker is a free website traffic checker tool by Neil Patel. It’s simpler than the other tools we’ve reviewed so far, but still has some nice features. It’s actually not a standalone tool—it’s part of Patel’s Ubersuggest keyword/SEO tool.
When you input a URL, you’ll see estimates for:
- Organic traffic
- Organic keywords
- Top pages
- Domain authority
- Backlinks
The free version is limited to the past 4 months. If you want to see more historical data, you’ll have to upgrade to the paid version of Ubersuggest.
Try Website Traffic Checker now!
5. Sitechecker
The Website Traffic Checker tool inside of Sitechecker is another tool that you can use to view website traffic for free in a limited capacity. Like the others on our list, it is located within a dashboard with other tools.
When you input a website URL into their tool, you get:
- 3 months of traffic overview
- Engagement metrics
- Traffic by country
- Traffic by source
- Top 5 organic keywords
- Top referrals
- Competitors
This is a great tool that can help you understand a competitor’s traffic on a basic level. If you need more in-depth data, you can grab a paid plan.
6. SERanking
SERanking’s Competitor Analysis Tool is another tool that lives within a whole dashboard suite of SEO and marketing tools. Submitting a URL brings you into their dashboard with multiple tools and gives you a lot of insights into the competitor you’re researching.
You’ll be able to see:
- Domain & page trust
- Estimated organic traffic
- Referring domains & backlinks
- Total keywords
- Organic keywords
- Organic competitors
- SERP features
- And more
This is a very comprehensive tool, and the free version provides a decent amount of data. If you need more or want to track your own keywords, you can buy a monthly plan.
7. Serpstat
Serpstat is another all-in-one SEO platform with a bunch of tools, including a website traffic checker. Just put in a domain and provide your email address to view website traffic and access even more data about your competitor.
You’ll get access to metrics like:
- Estimated monthly traffic
- Organic keywords
- Paid keywords
- Keyword position distribution
- Visibility, keyword & traffic trend
- Top pages
- Competitors
- And more
You’ll get the basics with a free account and can access more with a paid plan.
How to Check Your Own Website Traffic on WordPress
Once you’ve estimated the traffic of other websites in your niche, you can compare it with your own site’s traffic.
You can use Google Analytics to see how many people visited your website. However, configuring it and navigating to the right report can be tricky, especially for beginners.
MonsterInsights is here to help! It helps you properly set up Google Analytics on your WordPress website to measure traffic and provides detailed reports in your WordPress dashboard, all in just a couple of clicks.
After installing the plugin and connecting your Google Analytics, you can view traffic stats in your dashboard home.
Using MonsterInsights, you can view your site’s top posts/pages that get the most traffic, your top referral sources, average session duration, device breakdown, and much, much more.
What else can MonsterInsights tell you about your site? Check out our Ultimate Guide to MonsterInsights Dashboard Reports.
That’s it!
Not using MonsterInsights yet? What are you waiting for?
If you liked this article, you might also want to check out:
- Top 11 Important Google Analytics Metrics to Track
- How to Increase Organic Traffic in 2024 (12 Best Ways)
- How to Track Competitor Website Traffic and Ethically Steal It
- 9 Google Analytics SEO Hacks to Increase Search Traffic
Finally, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube for more helpful Google Analytics tips.
Website Traffic FAQ
How can I see the traffic of a website?
To see your website’s traffic, use tools like Google Analytics, which provides detailed visitor statistics, or third-party platforms such as SimilarWeb or Semrush for estimated traffic metrics for any website. These tools show traffic sources, user behavior, and page views, helping analyze web performance.
Can I see how much traffic a website gets for free?
You can see a website’s traffic for free using the free tier in tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or SimilarWeb. Or, use Google Analytics for free (for websites you own). These platforms offer limited insights, such as estimated traffic, top pages, and audience data, without requiring a paid subscription.
How do I check how many people visited my website?
Check how many people visited your website by using Google Analytics. Install the Google Analytics tracking code on your site to monitor visitor data. Access the “Audience” and “Acquisition” reports to view metrics such as unique visitors, page views, and session durations.