Before any digital marketing can begin, we need a reliable set of tools in place. These tools give us clean data, accurate conversions and a clear understanding of how people use your website. Without them, we are working blind, and both SEO and Google Ads become guesswork.
The good news is that you do not need dozens of platforms. A small group of proven tools gives us all the information we need to understand performance, improve your site and guide your marketing budget in the right direction.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
GA4 is the main engine room for your website data. It shows how people arrive, what they do, how long they stay and whether they convert. It tracks the real behaviour that matters rather than simply counting page views.
For our work, GA4 is essential because:
- it records meaningful actions such as form submissions, calls and downloads,
- it allows us to create clear goals (now called conversions),
- it offers deeper journey insights through reports such as Path Exploration,
- and it lets us build high-quality audiences for future advertising.
One important point is how GA4 connects to Google Ads. Google prefers conversion data that comes directly from GA4 rather than conversions fired from Tag Manager. This is because GA4 stores more context, more behavioural detail and more historical understanding. When Ads receives that richer data, its AI performs better and learns faster.
For that reason, we import conversions from GA4 into Google Ads rather than relying on Tag Manager firing Google Ads tags. It gives the systems clearer signals and usually reduces cost per lead over time.
Google Tag Manager (GTM)
Tag Manager is not an analytics tool in itself. Think of it as a container that holds all your tracking. Instead of placing scripts across your site, we place a single Tag Manager container and manage everything inside it. This keeps your site fast, organised and easy to maintain.
We use Tag Manager to:
- track custom events (clicks, button presses, scrolls),
- fire scripts only when needed,
- avoid cluttering the site with multiple tracking codes,
- and support GA4 by sending it clean, structured data.
GTM helps us measure activity, GA4 interprets it and Google Ads learns from it. They each play a different role, but they work together as a single tracking system.
Google Search Console
Out of all the tools we use, Search Console is often the one that gives us the most value. It shows how Google sees your website, how it crawls it and which search queries bring people to your pages.
Search Console helps us:
- see which keywords trigger your impressions,
- understand click-through rates to your key pages,
- spot indexing issues or errors,
- check Core Web Vitals performance,
- and validate important pages using structured data.
In simple terms, Search Console confirms what is working and what needs attention. For SEO, it is one of the most important tools we use.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing may not have the market share of Google, but it still brings valuable traffic, especially from desktop users and corporate environments. Bing Webmaster Tools works in a similar way to Search Console and gives us an extra layer of insight.
It helps us:
- see search performance on Bing,
- spot crawl issues from a second search engine,
- review backlinks from another source,
- and monitor technical signals that might not show in Google alone.
We do not need to spend a lot of time in Bing, but having it connected gives us a fuller picture.
Microsoft Clarity
Clarity is a free tool that shows how users behave visually on your site. It gives us heatmaps, scroll depth, rage click reports and screen recordings. When we want to understand why people drop off a page or where they get stuck, Clarity is extremely useful.
It helps us see:
- which parts of a page get attention,
- where people hesitate,
- which buttons or images get ignored,
- and whether visitors scroll far enough to see your key messages.
This visual insight sits alongside GA4’s behavioural data, giving us a complete picture of how your website performs in the real world.
Other SEO and Competitor Tools
Tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, Ubersuggest and SpyFu all have their place. They help with competitor research, backlink checks and keyword expansion. They are excellent for deeper SEO work, but they are not essential for day-to-day tracking.
The core tools we rely on are still GA4, Tag Manager, Search Console, Bing and Clarity. Everything else is optional and sits on top of those foundations.
How These Tools Work Together
Each tool gives us a different part of the picture:
- GA4 shows user behaviour and conversions.
- Tag Manager sends clean event data to GA4.
- Search Console shows how Google sees your website technically and organically.
- Bing Webmaster Tools adds a second set of search insights.
- Clarity shows the visual behaviour behind the numbers.
Together, they allow us to diagnose issues, plan improvements and prepare your site for the next stage of the playbook - including building high-quality audiences for remarketing and improving Google Ads performance with clean conversion data.
Putting the Right Tools in Place
Before we begin any SEO or advertising work, we set up each of these tools correctly and make sure every important action on your site is tracked. This gives us clean data from day one and ensures that the rest of your marketing is built on solid ground.
Once tracking is in place, we can move into diagnostics, planning and the improvements that help your website perform at its best.
