How to use Google Analytics - GA4

Google Analytics can tell you a lot about your website.

The problem is that it can also throw so many numbers at you that it becomes easy to lose sight of the reason you installed it in the first place.

For most small businesses, you do not need to become a Google Analytics expert. You need to answer a handful of useful questions:

• How many people are visiting my website?
• Where are they coming from?
• Which pages are they looking at?
• Are they using a phone or computer?
• Are they clicking my contact buttons?
• Are they requesting quotes, calling, or taking some other useful action?

That is what Google Analytics 4, usually called GA4, should help you understand.

What Google Analytics 4 Actually Does

Google Analytics tracks activity on your website and organizes it into reports.

Once it is installed correctly, GA4 can show you things such as:

• Visitors and active users
• Traffic sources
• Landing pages
• Page views
• Engagement
• Device types
• Geographic information
• Events
• Important actions you choose to track

The important part is not collecting as much data as possible.

It is collecting data that helps you understand whether your website is doing its job.

If you run a local painting company, for example, you probably care more about someone viewing your services page and clicking "Request an Estimate" than you do about knowing that your website recorded 400 random events.

More data does not automatically mean better information.

Start With a Google Analytics Account and Property

Google Analytics is organized into accounts and properties.

The account is the top level. For a small business, this will usually represent the business itself.

Inside the account is a property. The property is where Analytics collects and reports data for a website or app.

If you own one business with one main website, the setup can be very simple.

You might have:

Toohey Services
Google Analytics property: Toohey Services website

If you manage completely unrelated businesses, those should generally not be thrown together into one property just to make setup easier.

Keeping things organized from the beginning saves a lot of confusion later.

Create a Web Data Stream

Inside a GA4 property, your website is connected through a web data stream.

When you create the stream, you enter your website address and give the stream a name.

Google then provides a Measurement ID that begins with "G-".

That ID connects activity on your website to the correct Analytics data stream.

Many website platforms, including popular content management systems and website builders, provide a place where you can enter the Google tag or Measurement ID.

On a custom website, the Google tag can also be added directly to the site's code.

Google Tag Manager is another option, especially when a website needs more advanced tracking, but a small-business website does not automatically need Tag Manager just because it exists.

Use the simplest setup that does the job correctly.

Make Sure Analytics Is Actually Working

Installing Analytics and assuming it works is a mistake.

After setup, open the Realtime report and visit your website yourself.

If the installation is working, your activity should begin appearing.

Google notes that new data collection can take up to about 30 minutes to begin, so do not panic if nothing appears instantly.

Realtime is particularly useful when checking:

• New Analytics installations
• Button tracking
• Phone clicks
• Form activity
• New events
• Key events

Google also provides tools such as DebugView for troubleshooting events in more detail.

I always prefer verifying tracking rather than assuming a tag pasted somewhere must be working.

Understanding Events

GA4 is built around events.

An event is basically something that happened.

Examples include:

• A page was viewed
• A visitor clicked a link
• Someone scrolled down a page
• A file was downloaded
• A video was started
• A form was submitted
• Someone clicked a phone number

Some events are collected automatically. Others can be collected through Enhanced Measurement or configured specifically for the website.

This is one of the biggest differences between GA4 and the older Universal Analytics system.

Instead of thinking only in terms of sessions and pageviews, GA4 lets you look much more closely at what visitors actually do.

For a small business, that is useful.

Someone visiting your homepage is good.

Someone visiting your homepage, reading your services, opening your contact page, and clicking your phone number tells you considerably more.

What Is a Key Event?

Not every event deserves the same level of importance.

GA4 lets you mark particularly important events as key events.

These should represent actions that actually matter to the business.

Depending on the website, that might include:

• Submitting a quote form
• Booking an appointment
• Making a purchase
• Clicking a phone number
• Completing another important lead action

Do not mark everything as a key event.

If every minor interaction is considered important, the report stops being useful.

A small-business website might generate dozens of different events while having only two or three actions that really indicate customer intent.

Those are the ones worth paying attention to.

Traffic Acquisition: Where Are People Coming From?

One of the first reports I look at is traffic acquisition.

It helps answer the basic question:

How did people find the website?

Traffic might come from:

• Google Search
• Direct visits
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Other websites
• Email
• Paid advertising
• Other search engines

This matters because total traffic alone can be misleading.

Imagine your website received 500 visits this month.

That sounds good.

But what if 450 of those visits came from an irrelevant source and immediately left?

Now imagine another month brings only 150 visits, but many of those visitors came from Google searches for services you actually provide.

The second month may be much more valuable.

Traffic quality matters more than bragging about a big number.

Look at Landing Pages

A landing page is the page someone first enters when they arrive at your website.

This report can tell you which pages are actually bringing people in.

Maybe most visitors enter through your homepage.

Or maybe Google is sending people directly to:

• A specific service page
• A location page
• A blog article
• A case study
• A product page

This is useful because sometimes the page you think is important is not the page people are actually finding.

If a blog article starts receiving a lot of traffic, for example, you might improve that article, add useful internal links, and make sure visitors have an obvious path toward the rest of the website.

That is a much better use of Analytics than staring at a total pageview number.

Engagement Rate and Bounce Rate

GA4 uses engagement differently from older versions of Google Analytics.

An engaged session is generally a session that lasts longer than 10 seconds, includes a key event, or includes at least two page or screen views.

Engagement rate is the percentage of sessions that meet those conditions.

Bounce rate is essentially the opposite. It represents sessions that were not considered engaged.

But do not treat a high bounce rate as automatic proof that a page is bad.

Context matters.

Someone might land on a contact page, find your phone number immediately, and leave because they got exactly what they needed.

A metric is not a diagnosis.

Analytics gives you clues. You still have to understand what visitors are trying to accomplish.

Pay Attention to Devices

For a local small business, device information can be extremely useful.

If most of your visitors are using phones, your website needs to work exceptionally well on a phone.

That means checking things such as:

• Button size
• Navigation
• Forms
• Phone links
• Text size
• Image loading
• Spacing
• Contact information

You should already be testing a website on mobile regardless, but Analytics can show you how important mobile users actually are to your audience.

This is one reason I do not consider mobile design an optional extra anymore.

Location Data Can Be Useful, Within Reason

GA4 can provide geographic information such as country, region, and city.

For a local business, this can help answer whether website visitors are coming from areas the business actually serves.

If you are a contractor serving Dutchess County and nearby Hudson Valley communities, traffic from those areas is naturally more interesting than random traffic from halfway across the world.

But location data is not perfect.

Do not look at one city in Analytics and assume Google knows exactly where every visitor is standing.

Use geographic information as a pattern, not a surveillance system.

Google Analytics and Search Console Are Not the Same Thing

This causes a lot of confusion.

Google Analytics tells you what happens on your website.

Google Search Console tells you more about how your website performs in Google Search.

Search Console can show things such as:

• Google Search queries
• Search impressions
• Search clicks
• Average position
• Indexed pages
• Search performance

Analytics shows what people do after they reach the website.

The two can be connected.

When Search Console is linked with GA4, Google provides reports that can help connect organic search activity with website behavior.

If you care about SEO, I recommend using both rather than trying to force Analytics to answer Search Console questions.

Google Ads Can Also Be Connected

Businesses running Google Ads can link their Google Ads and Analytics accounts.

That connection allows website activity and key events to be used alongside advertising data.

This can help answer questions such as:

Did someone click an ad and then submit a form?

Did paid visitors actually engage with the website?

Which campaigns are producing meaningful activity?

Again, the point is not to connect every Google product simply because the button exists.

Connect the tools you actually use.

Using Explorations Without Losing Your Mind

GA4 includes an Explore section for more detailed analysis.

This is where you can build customized views using dimensions, metrics, segments, and filters.

For example, you could examine:

• Visitors from Google Search
• Mobile visitors only
• Traffic to one specific service page
• People who triggered a phone-click event
• Users from a particular region
• The paths visitors take through the website

Path exploration is especially interesting because it can show how visitors move from one page or event to another.

You might discover that people commonly go:

Homepage
Services
Gallery
Contact

Or:

Google Search
Specific service page
Quote form

That is useful information.

It can help you understand how real visitors use the website instead of assuming everyone follows the route you intended when you designed it.

Reports Can Be Scheduled

GA4 can also email reports automatically.

Administrators can schedule standard and custom reports to be delivered daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly.

Reports can be delivered as PDF or CSV files.

That can be useful for a business owner who wants a regular overview without logging into Google Analytics every week.

But I would still keep the report simple.

Nobody needs a 30-page analytics report full of numbers they never use.

A useful report might focus on:

• Users
• Traffic sources
• Landing pages
• Key events
• Important service pages
• Phone clicks
• Form submissions

If a number does not help you make a decision, ask why you are tracking it.

Do Not Obsess Over Every Metric

This is probably the biggest point I can make about Google Analytics.

Analytics should answer business questions.

It should not create new problems.

For most small businesses, I would rather have five measurements that clearly tell me what is happening than 50 charts nobody understands.

Start with:

Where are visitors coming from?

What pages are they finding?

What are they doing once they get there?

Are they reaching the pages that matter?

Are they contacting the business?

Then dig deeper when something gives you a reason to.

That is how Analytics becomes useful instead of becoming another dashboard you check once, get confused by, and never open again.

Google Analytics Is Only Useful When It Is Set Up Properly

Simply installing GA4 does not automatically give you meaningful analytics.

The property needs to be configured correctly.

The tracking needs to work.

Important events need to be identified.

Key events should represent real business actions.

Search Console and other products should be connected when they actually add value.

And most importantly, someone needs to look at the information and understand what it means.

That is the part people tend to skip.

Toohey Services helps small businesses set up and organize Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other website visibility tools without turning the process into a pile of technical jargon.

If you want help figuring out what your website is actually doing, visit Toohey Services and take a look at the Google and Analytics services.

Official Sources: 
Google: Set up Analytics for a website or app 
Google: Engagement rate and bounce rate
Google: Key events
Google: Explorations
Google: Connect Search Console to Analytics
Google: Schedule reports