The Google Analytics starter guide for business
Having an online business can be an incredibly lean and efficient way to operate. But do you know the kind of traffic you’re getting or how long people stay on a page? Google Analytics can help you measure all types of customer interactions, some of which you might find quite surprising by collecting data about these interactions.
The Google Analytics tracking code is essential for collecting data on website visitors and their behaviors. Google Analytics is a free tool provided by Google that tracks and reports website traffic and user behavior. Knowing this information can be integral to the growth and success of your business over time. But where do you look for it? This guide will show you how to use Analytics to find the most integral information about your business in a simple, easy-to-understand way.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics (GA) is a powerful tool for tracking and analyzing online traffic. It provides foundational knowledge for website owners to improve their online presence. Google Analytics provides analytical tools for insights on website performance, Android app usage, and marketing campaigns.
The latest version, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), introduces a new event-based data model that offers more flexible and detailed tracking of user interactions. Unlike previous versions, GA4 is designed to work seamlessly across websites and apps, giving a more complete view of the customer journey.
Set up Google Analytics tracking code
Start by making sure your site is connected to Google Analytics. Setting up GA will allow you to start collecting data.
Once it’s set up, it will work its magic without you ever having to interfere with it again (as long as you don’t completely redesign your site code). The tracking code is crucial for collecting data and analyzing user behavior on your website.
Creating a Google Analytics account
To create a GA account, sign in using your existing Google credentials and follow the step-by-step instructions, starting with creating an account name.
There are several ways to get Google Analytics working on your site. It depends on your site’s setup, and Google has a fairly comprehensive guide on how to do this. There are also videos that break it down for you if you need them.
To add a website to your new Google Analytics account, create and name your Property and enter the website’s URL, industry, and reporting time zone.
After this step, you’ll be shown screens to confirm details like your industry, company size, and business objectives. This helps GA understand what details are most important to you, and customize your experience.
Once complete, it’s time to choose the platform you want to track. The three options are:
- Web
- Android app
- iOS app
Unless you’ve developed a new app, you’ll want to choose web, which lets you track all types of websites. Once chosen, the next screen prompts you to enter your URL, and opt in or out of enhanced measurements.
Installing the Google tag
To set up your data stream, enter the website URL you want to track and the stream’s name. You can also fiddle with enhanced measurements to get more out of Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Google will give you a Google tag that you need to add to each site page you want to measure.
A Google tag is a code you need to add to each site page to collect data. Paste your global site tag right after the opening <head> tag on each site page you plan on measuring.
WordPress users can quickly install the tag using the Google Site Kit plugin, which can save you time and ensure the code is installed properly throughout your site. Either way, the process is relatively simple, and you can use the built-in tool to test the installation.
Where to look first: Acquisition and behavior
Arguably, the most critical information can be found under acquisition (where your traffic came from) and behavior (what the traffic did when it arrived), so here is a good place to start. Google Analytics reports provide valuable insights into acquisition and behavior metrics. Acquisition Reports explain user traffic sources and can inform marketing budget allocation for efficiency.
Acquisition
Starting from the reports tab in the left navigation, go straight to the Acquisition tab under Life cycle:
- How many people land on your site
GA4 collects data on user interactions and traffic sources. Find this out by navigating through the menu or using the search bar at the top of the screen to find the Acquisition overview standard report.
This will bring up a graph showing a day-by-day breakdown of total site traffic. The graph is the simplest, most visual way to get a sense of the direction your site is going in.
Additionally, integrating Google Analytics with Google Ads enhances comprehensive data analysis, allowing marketers to track the customer journey effectively and make informed, data-driven decisions to optimize their marketing strategies.
It’s useful to adjust the date range. To do this, click the box at the top right of your graph.
Bear in mind that, like in brick-and-mortar businesses, your site activity will fluctuate based on day/time of year, so setting a longer date range than Google’s default is a good idea — a month or two works best. It’s also worth noting that Google measures a session slightly differently from other analytics tools you may be using on your site, so be prepared for their numbers to be slightly different from others you may have seen. Google tends to be a stricter measurement tool, only counting the true sessions instead of ‘hits’. While differing from competitors, Google’s method makes the data more indicative of your site’s success. Following privacy regulations while using Google Analytics ensures compliance, protecting businesses from legal issues.
- Where traffic comes from
To explore traffic sources, navigate to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition and examine the “Session default channel group” column. Clicking each source, such as “Referral” or “Organic Search,” reveals deeper insights into where your traffic is landing and how those visitors behave.
In GA4, acquisition data is categorized into detailed traffic source types to help you better understand where your users are coming from. Organic Search refers to visitors who arrived at your site after performing a search on platforms like Google or Bing, without clicking on a paid ad. Direct traffic includes users who typed your website URL directly into their browser, used a bookmark, or whose source could not be determined. Referral traffic represents visitors who clicked a link from another website, such as a blog post or news article, that led them to your site.
Paid Search captures traffic that comes from users clicking on search ads, like Google Ads campaigns. At the same time, Organic Social refers to visitors who found your site through unpaid posts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Cross-network traffic aggregates users who arrived through ads served across multiple Google ad networks, including Display and YouTube, and helps evaluate the performance of omnichannel campaigns.
Unassigned traffic is a catch-all for sessions where GA4 could not determine the source — this often occurs when tracking parameters are missing or improperly configured.
Instead of “bounce rate,” GA4 emphasizes engagement metrics like engaged sessions and engagement rate to reflect how meaningfully users interact with your site. For instance, an engaged session lasts at least 10 seconds, includes at least one conversion event, or views two or more pages. This provides a more nuanced view of user behavior than a simple bounce metric.
- Finding out what search terms led people to your site
Clicking ‘Organic Search’ will often bring up search terms used to bring customers to your site, but be ready for this to say ‘not provided’. Often, Google restricts this information to encourage you to upgrade to Adwords packages and premium Analytics (where more detailed data is revealed).
Secondary dimension tool
While a slightly more advanced tool, I’ve included it here since it is a great way to save time learning other elements of Analytics. The ‘Secondary Dimension’ tool is one of the most useful ways to compare information quickly. It allows you to offset stats against each other to draw new conclusions. Clicking this tool essentially brings up a reduced version of the main menu and allows you to select other data to appear in a new column.
Data streams in Google Analytics 4 can be used to collect data from various sources for detailed analysis.
Adding a secondary dimension
For example, in the screenshot below, I have added ‘Browser’ (from under ‘Platform / device” and it places this data in a new column. This tool saves you from having to scroll through each part of the analytics individually and lets you quickly pair your most important data.
User engagement
Engagement, in its most basic form, is incredibly useful. It shows how users interact with your site and the importance of analyzing this behavior through metrics such as bounce rate and session duration. Understanding how the customer actually interacts with and journeys through your site is essential for enhancing user engagement and improving overall website performance.
- What pages are being viewed?
This is engatements’s raison d’être. It, quite simply, breaks down which pages are popular and how long was spent on them, and it can even track where people clicked on the page if you set up events (see our advanced section below).
How to find engagement information in GA4
In GA4, engagement metrics are grouped under the Engagement section of the left-hand navigation menu. To view how users interact with specific pages on your site, go to:
Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens
This report shows you a breakdown of your most visited pages, along with key engagement metrics like:
- Views – how many times the page was viewed
- Users – number of unique users who visited the page
- Average engagement time – how long users actively stayed on the page
- Engaged sessions – sessions that lasted at least 10 seconds, had a conversion event, or included 2+ screen/page views
- Conversions – the number of times a defined conversion event occurred on the page
The path your visitors took
The bounce rates and exit rates displayed here are specific to each page that’s been viewed. It may not include every page on your site, as some of your pages probably aren’t getting any traffic.
- Landing pages and exit pages
These are pretty self-explanatory — they are the pages on which people arrive and exit your site. It can be enlightening to see what pages people land on, as it goes some way to explaining which of your pages are indexed by search engines or linked to from other websites (for whatever reason). Likewise, with exit pages, is there one particular page where you lose your customers’ time and time again? You can see these stats by clicking the respective tabs on the ‘Explore’ tab and creating the Path exploration report using the provided template.
This shows you each customer journey as a flow diagram, a simple and visual way to view this information. You can customize the templated exploration to include additional data, as well.
User attributes
If you’ve been looking at your Google Analytics 4 dashboard alongside this article, you may have noticed we haven’t yet explored the User attributes section. This was deliberate. While GA4 allows you to get impressively specific about your audience, it’s important to remember that data like demographics, interests, and location are still generalizations. For instance, it might not be the actual account owner browsing — just someone else using the same device.
Mastering GA4 is essential for understanding user attributes and refining your marketing strategies. Though the interface may feel more complex at first, becoming proficient with GA4 can significantly improve decision-making and elevate your overall digital strategy.
That said, the User attributes data really comes into its own when:
- Your site has enough traffic to make the demographic breakdown statistically meaningful
- You’re running targeted advertising campaigns and need to align content or messaging with specific audience segments
To dig into this data, use the Explore section in GA4 and create a User attributes exploration. This tool lets you visualize characteristics like age, gender, location, device type, and language in combination with behaviors and conversions, helping you uncover who your visitors are and what drives them to engage.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a completely revamped platform compared to previous versions. GA4 has a new interface, a new tag template in Google Tag Manager, a new data model, and new steps to configure. GA4 provides information on how to navigate the interface and set up the platform. GA4 is a powerful tool for webmasters and marketers.
More advanced Google Analytics reports
It’s always useful when you’re given direction for the next level. These are our top features that you may find useful in the future if you’re an Analytics beginner, or perhaps if you’ve already taken some tentative steps into the world of Analytics. Understanding the Google Analytics interface is crucial for utilizing advanced features effectively. Custom segments in Google Analytics allow for deeper insights into specific user behaviors and interactions.
Events
Events are one of the most useful things if your main objective is to drive traffic off your site (although there are myriad other uses for them too). Perhaps you are using your website to promote a Facebook page, a product listed on an external site, or something like a song on Spotify. You don’t have access to the analytics data of the destination site, but you want to know how often people click the button you’ve placed to send them there.
Integrating Google Analytics with Search Console allows for comprehensive event tracking and analysis, providing insights into top search queries leading users to your site.
Using Tag Manager, you can create an event that ‘fires’ whenever someone clicks a button. This is a useful guide on how to set this up. You will need to sign up for Google Tags. This video will give you an overview of other uses for Google Tags.
Conversion goals
Conversion goals are ultimately the most useful way of implementing Google Analytics. They tell you when a site visitor meets your criteria of ‘converting,’ going from a casual browser of your website to making a commitment. For example, a conversion could be signing up on a mailing list or purchasing a product. If set up correctly, conversion goals can tell you almost anything about how your customer transacted.
Google Analytics reports can help track conversion goals and measure their effectiveness.
While fairly intuitive to understand once they’re set up in Google Analytics, adding them can be rather complex. To learn more about how to enable conversion goals, this guide is fairly comprehensive.
Common mistakes to avoid
Neglecting data privacy regulations can result in hefty fines and damage to reputation. Failing to comply with laws like GDPR can have severe consequences. Ensuring transparent and secure data collection and processing practices is essential. Misinterpreting data can lead to misguided decisions that harm a business. Double-checking metrics and understanding what they represent is essential. Overlooking mobile traffic can lead to missed opportunities. Ensuring a mobile-friendly website is essential for user experience. Monitoring mobile traffic closely is necessary for optimization.
What is Moz, and do I need it?
You may have heard of Moz or your Moz ranking. Moz helps you review your ranking compared to your competitors (or, more loosely, sites performing on your desired search terms). It’s also an easy tool to use.
Integrating Moz with Google Analytics reports can provide deeper insights into website performance.
Moz scores every site in its index by domain authority and individual page authority. These two metrics are known to help your search ranking and are determined by your backlinks, site content, popularity, and other factors. Moz not only helps quantify backlinks but also has other neat tools, such as a keyword research tool that can help you research and plan your site directly. Following your keyword performance can enable you to better position yourself against competitors for specific search terms/articles. For example, if you use a blog to draw traffic to your site, you can perform Moz searches to see what you have a good chance of ranking on, and then tailor it accordingly. Google Analytics can show organic traffic data when integrated with SEO tools like Moz Pro.
The sky’s the limit
Moz is just one of many useful software options outside Google Analytics. Mouseflow (and similar products) quite literally track the movement of the mouse on your website and then reproduce the exact journey someone took.
Mastering Google Analytics can complement the use of other software tools for comprehensive data analysis, enhancing your ability to make informed decisions and improve your digital strategy.
This may seem a little extreme, but companies are doing this already. Let’s face it, information can hardly get more useful than seeing exactly how long someone lingered on a button or whether they interacted with a sidebar instead of the primary CTA you thought they would use. Perhaps they traced the cursor over your text as they read it — all interesting stuff!
And the more you learn, the more you want to find out, which will lead you down new paths of discovery.
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