How to Track Website Visitors in Google Analytics 4 (G4)

Although creativity runs in my veins, I have a secret affection for analytics – yes, you heard that right! Getting into website traffic and social media metrics is my guilty pleasure. So, today, let’s explore the new version of Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

Introduction to Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

If you’re not familiar with Google Analytics 4 or GA4, as it’s commonly known, it’s the newest iteration of Google’s analytics platform. If you were still holding on to memories of Universal Analytics, those days are officially in the rearview mirror! Google stopped processing data from UA back in July 2023, pushing GA4 into full effect as the absolute standard.

If you haven’t fully embraced it yet, jump in now and get comfortable with GA4’s features, because the platform has only gotten smarter over the last couple of years with AI-powered insights and deeper cross-device tracking.

Users and Events in GA4

One significant shift from Universal Analytics to GA4 is the focus on users and events rather than sessions. Now, every action your website visitor takes is considered an event. In the old days, you had to manually set up complex, custom tracking codes just to see if someone played a video or scrolled down a page.

Now, GA4’s “Enhanced Measurement” automatically collects events like page scrolls, outbound clicks, file downloads, and video engagement right out of the box. This data gives you a more precise picture of user interaction and behavior on your site, helping you see how people consume your content, not just that they loaded a page.

GA4 Dashboard: Your Data’s Snapshot

GA4’s dashboard presents a snapshot of your data, providing real-time insights. This feature is incredibly useful when launching a new product or releasing fresh content. You can monitor real-time traffic and user interaction. But GA4 doesn’t stop at real-time data; it also provides valuable information on acquisition, engagement, monetization, and retention.

The best part about the GA4 dashboard is that it is entirely customizable. Don’t care about a specific metric? You can easily edit the report cards to show exactly what matters to your business. Plus, GA4 now includes an AI-driven Analytics Advisor directly in the interface.

You can literally type plain-English questions into the search bar at the top—like, “Why did traffic spike last Tuesday?” or “What are my top landing pages?”—and Google will automatically pull the answers and charts for you.

Digging into Acquisition and Engagement

Acquisition and engagement are two critical areas that I advise beginners to explore first. These two reports are essentially the bread and butter of understanding your marketing funnel. Acquisition tells you how visitors got to your digital doorstep, and Engagement tells you what they did once they walked inside. Let’s dive into each of these.

Acquisition

Acquisition reveals how visitors discover your site. It uncovers the effectiveness of your SEO strategies, ads, and marketing efforts on different platforms.

One major thing to watch here is the split between User Acquisition and Traffic Acquisition. User Acquisition looks at the very first time a person found you (for example, they discovered your blog via a Google Search). Traffic Acquisition looks at what brought them back for their most recent session (for example, they clicked a link in your email newsletter). Checking both sets of acquisition data can help you decide which strategies to maintain or modify for capturing new leads versus nurturing returning fans.

SEO Tip: Out of the box, GA4 won’t show you exactly which Google searches are bringing people to your site. To unlock this, you need to link your Google Search Console account to your GA4 property. Once linked, a new set of reports will appear in your GA4 dashboard, showing you exactly which search queries and keywords are driving your organic traffic. As an SEO strategist, this is the very first thing I set up for my clients!”

Engagement

Switching to the ‘Pages and Screens’ tab under ‘Engagement’ shows which pages and posts attract the most traffic. Experimenting with different timeframes can provide even more insights. For instance, a year-end review can highlight annual trends in traffic, helping you identify the most and least popular content. This information can guide your content creation strategies for the following year.

A big shift to note here: GA4 completely did away with the old, often-misunderstood “Bounce Rate” and replaced it with a much more helpful metric called Engagement Rate. A session is considered “engaged” if a user stays on your site for longer than 10 seconds, views more than one page, or triggers a conversion event. Keep a close eye on your Average Engagement Time alongside your top pages to see where visitors are actually stopping to read and linger!

Key Events

If you are logging into GA4 looking for your ‘Conversions,’ you might be scratching your head. In 2024, Google officially renamed Conversions to ‘Key Events’ to separate website actions from Google Ads data. A Key Event is simply an action you deem crucial to your business—like submitting a contact form, downloading a pricing guide, or completing a purchase. You can easily toggle on which events you want to mark as ‘Key’ in your admin settings, allowing you to track your true ROI.”

Exploring Paths in GA4

The ‘Explore’ tab offers a graph-based visualization of your content and user interactions. My favorite feature here is the ‘Path Exploration.’ It’s enlightening to see the journey users take through your website. This feature can help you understand user behavior better and optimize your site accordingly.

To access this, navigate to the ‘Explore’ tab and choose ‘Path Exploration’. From there, select ‘Page Title’ and ‘Screen Name’ in the ‘Event Name’ dropdown. Clicking on a page title will show you the subsequent pages users clicked on from the original page.

The best trick is that you can even do this in reverse! If you have a specific goal in mind—like a “Thank You for Purchasing” page or a Contact Form submission—you can set that as the ending point and work backward to see exactly which blog posts and service pages convinced them to take action. It’s incredibly powerful for identifying where your sales funnels are working perfectly and where users are dropping off.

Change Your Data Retention

Before you dive into analyzing your data, there is one setting you must change today. By default, GA4 only retains your user data for customized reports for 2 months. To ensure you can do year-over-year comparisons (like that year-end review we talked about earlier!), go to your Admin settings, click on ‘Data Collection and Modification,’ then ‘Data Retention,’ and change the dropdown from 2 months to 14 months. It takes 10 seconds and saves you massive headaches later.”

Wrap-Up

Remember, this overview of GA4 only scratches the surface. There’s a wealth of in-depth information you can uncover. But don’t let that intimidate you! Even a basic understanding of what’s working, what content resonates with your audience, and how users navigate your website can provide valuable insights for your business growth.

Set aside just 15 minutes this week to log in, customize your home dashboard with the metrics you care about most, and check your top traffic sources. Your future self will thank you!