Why GA4 Matters for Your Business
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the current version of Google Analytics. If you are running a website without it, you are making every marketing decision blind. You have no idea how many people visit your site, where they come from, which pages they spend time on, or whether your marketing is actually working.
The problem is that GA4 can feel overwhelming. The interface is dense, the terminology is unfamiliar, and most guides are written for data analysts, not business owners. This guide strips away the complexity and walks you through exactly what you need to set up, what to track, and what to look at each month.
Step 1: Create Your GA4 Property
If you do not already have a Google Analytics account, here is how to get started:
- Go to analytics.google.com and sign in with your Google account (the one you use for Google Business Profile or Google Ads is ideal, but any Google account works).
- Click "Start measuring" if this is your first time, or click Admin (gear icon, bottom left) and then "Create Property" if you already have an account.
- Enter your property name (your business name or website name).
- Set your reporting time zone to United Kingdom and currency to British Pound (GBP).
- Select your business size and objectives. For most small businesses, select "Generate leads" and "Drive online sales" or "Raise brand awareness." This customises your default reports slightly, but you can change this later.
- Accept the terms of service and click "Create."
You now have a GA4 property. Next, you need to connect it to your website.
Step 2: Add the Tracking Tag to Your Website
GA4 uses a small piece of JavaScript code (called a "tag") to collect data from your website. There are several ways to add it.
Option A: Google Tag (gtag.js) directly in your HTML
This is the simplest method if you have access to your website code or a "Custom HTML" section in your website builder.
- In your GA4 property, go to Admin > Data Streams > Web.
- Enter your website URL and a stream name, then click "Create stream."
- You will see a Measurement ID (it starts with "G-" followed by letters and numbers). Copy this.
- Click "View tag instructions" and select "Install manually."
- Copy the code snippet provided.
- Paste this code into the <head> section of every page on your website, as high up as possible.
If you use WordPress, you can paste this into your theme header or use a plugin like "Insert Headers and Footers" to add it without touching code directly.
Option B: Google Tag Manager
If you already use Google Tag Manager (GTM), you can add GA4 through there instead. Create a new tag of type "Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration," enter your Measurement ID, set the trigger to "All Pages," and publish. This is the recommended approach if you plan to add conversion tracking or other marketing tags later.
Option C: Website builder integrations
Platforms like Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress have built-in GA4 integrations. Look for a "Google Analytics" or "Tracking" section in your platform settings and paste your Measurement ID. Most builders handle the tag placement for you.
Step 3: Verify It Is Working
After adding the tag, verify that data is flowing:
- Go to your GA4 property.
- Click "Reports" in the left sidebar, then "Realtime."
- Open your website in another browser tab or on your phone.
- Within a minute or two, you should see yourself appear as an active user in the Realtime report.
If you do not see any data after a few minutes, double-check that the tag is installed correctly. Common issues include the code being pasted outside the <head> tags, the Measurement ID being incorrect, or a caching plugin serving an old version of your page without the new code.
Step 4: Set Up Key Events
GA4 tracks "events" rather than "pageviews" (though pageviews are an event too). By default, GA4 tracks page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, site searches, and file downloads. But to get real value, you need to set up a few custom events that matter to your business.
Events every business should track:
- Form submissions. When someone fills out a contact form, enquiry form, or booking form, you want to know. If your form redirects to a "thank you" page, you can create an event based on pageview for that URL. Otherwise, you may need to set up a custom event using GTM or your form plugin settings.
- Phone number clicks. If your phone number is a clickable link (tel: link), GA4 can track clicks on it automatically under "click" events. You can then mark this as a key event.
- Email link clicks. Same principle as phone clicks. If your email address is a mailto: link, track clicks on it.
- Purchase completions. If you sell online, set up the e-commerce events (begin_checkout, purchase) to track revenue. Most e-commerce platforms have built-in GA4 integrations that handle this.
How to mark an event as a "Key Event" (conversion):
- Go to Admin > Events.
- Find the event you want to track as a conversion (or create a new one).
- Toggle "Mark as key event" to on.
Key events are what GA4 uses to measure whether your website is achieving its goals. Without them, you are just counting visitors with no understanding of whether those visitors are taking action.
Step 5: Connect Google Search Console
This is a quick win that many businesses miss. Linking Google Search Console to GA4 gives you search query data directly inside your analytics reports.
- In GA4, go to Admin > Product Links > Search Console Links.
- Click "Link" and select your Search Console property.
- Follow the prompts to complete the connection.
Once linked, you can see which Google searches are bringing people to your site, your average position for those searches, and your click-through rates. This is invaluable for understanding your SEO performance.
The 5 Metrics That Actually Matter
GA4 has hundreds of metrics and dimensions. Most of them are irrelevant for a small business owner. Here are the five you should check monthly.
1. Total Users
Where to find it: Reports > Acquisition > Overview
What it tells you: How many individual people visited your website in the selected time period. This is your top-line traffic number. Track the trend month over month. Is it growing, flat, or declining?
2. Traffic Sources
Where to find it: Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition
What it tells you: Where your visitors come from. The main channels are Organic Search (Google), Direct (typed your URL or bookmarked), Social (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), Referral (links from other websites), and Paid Search (Google Ads). If you are investing in SEO, you want to see Organic Search growing. If you are running social campaigns, check whether Social traffic is increasing.
3. Top Pages
Where to find it: Reports > Engagement > Pages and Screens
What it tells you: Which pages on your site get the most views. This tells you what content resonates with visitors and where they spend their time. If your most important pages (services, pricing, contact) are not in the top 10, you may have a navigation or internal linking problem.
4. Engagement Rate
Where to find it: Reports > Engagement > Overview
What it tells you: The percentage of sessions that were "engaged," meaning the visitor stayed for more than 10 seconds, viewed more than one page, or triggered a key event. This replaced "bounce rate" as the primary quality metric in GA4. A low engagement rate (below 40%) suggests your content or user experience needs work. A rate above 60% is strong.
5. Key Events (Conversions)
Where to find it: Reports > Engagement > Key Events
What it tells you: How many of your defined goals were completed. Form submissions, phone calls, purchases, bookings. This is the metric that connects your website traffic to actual business outcomes. Everything else is context. This is the result.
Setting Up a Monthly Review Routine
You do not need to check analytics daily. Once a month is enough for most small businesses. Block 30 minutes on the first Monday of each month and review:
- Total users: Up or down compared to last month?
- Traffic sources: Any channel growing or declining significantly?
- Top pages: Any surprises? Any important pages underperforming?
- Engagement rate: Stable, improving, or dropping?
- Key events: How many enquiries, calls, or sales came through the website?
Write down the numbers each month in a simple spreadsheet. After three months, you will have enough data to spot trends. After six months, you can start making confident decisions about where to invest your marketing efforts.
Common GA4 Mistakes to Avoid
- Not filtering out your own traffic. If you visit your site frequently, you will inflate your numbers. Create a filter to exclude your IP address or use the "Developer traffic" filter in GA4 data settings.
- Tracking too many events. More is not better. Focus on the events that represent genuine business value. Form submissions and phone clicks matter. Scroll depth on every page does not.
- Ignoring the data. The most common mistake of all. Installing analytics and never looking at it. Schedule that monthly review and stick to it.
- Not linking Search Console. It takes two minutes and gives you search keyword data you cannot get anywhere else. There is no reason not to do it.
Get Started Today
Setting up GA4 properly takes about 30 minutes. That small investment gives you ongoing visibility into how your website performs, whether your marketing is working, and where to focus your effort. If you have been putting it off, today is the day.
And if you want a broader view of your entire digital presence, not just your analytics, try the free OnOur brand audit quiz. It scores your business across 12 categories, including analytics and tracking, and tells you exactly where you stand.