Google Analytics 4 for a small business: what to look at

Google Analytics 4 is Google's free tool for seeing who visits your website, where they came from and what they did there. It can show hundreds of numbers. A small business needs a handful: where visitors come from, which page they land on, and how many of them called, wrote or booked. Here is how to set it up, the one thing to tell it, and a 15-minute monthly check.

If you used the old Google Analytics years ago, that version is gone. Google says standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing data on July 1, 2023. Google Analytics 4 is simply Google Analytics now.

Setup in five steps

Google's help center walks through it. In short:

1. Go to analytics.google.com and create an account with your business name.
2. Create a property for your website. Pick your time zone and currency so the days and money line up with yours.
3. Add a web data stream: type your website address and leave enhanced measurement switched on.
4. Copy your measurement ID, the code that starts with "G-", and paste it into the Google Analytics field of your website builder. On a custom site, the Google tag goes right after the opening head tag of every page.
5. Open your website on your phone, then open the Realtime report. Google says data "may take up to 30 minutes to begin", and Realtime shows activity from the last 30 minutes, so you can see your own visit there.

Use a Google account that belongs to the business, and give your web person their own access with the Editor role instead of sharing your login.

Tell it what a customer looks like

Out of the box, GA4 counts page views and, with enhanced measurement on, also scrolls, clicks on links to other sites, file downloads and form interactions. Useful, but none of it says "this visitor became a customer".

That is the job of a key event. Google describes key events as actions "that are important to your business". Google Ads calls the same idea a conversion, and you can turn a key event into a Google Ads conversion, which is why many guides use both words.

For a local business, two or three are enough:

• the contact or quote form is sent
• a booking is made
• someone taps your phone number or your "Get directions" link

You mark an event as a key event in the admin settings, under Events, by clicking its star. Google says to allow up to 24 hours before it shows up in the standard reports, and it does not change past data. A standard property can have up to 30 key events, but more is not better. If every click is a key event, the number stops meaning anything.

The four reports worth a monthly look

Set the date range to last month, compare it with the month before, and open these:

1. Traffic acquisition

Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition. Google says it shows "where new and returning users come from". Read the row names: Organic Search is Google search, Organic Social is your posts, Paid Social is your ads, Direct is people who typed your address or tapped a saved link. Look at the key events column next to each row, not only at the visitors.

2. Landing page

Reports, then Engagement, then Landing page. It shows the first page people see when they arrive. If your gallery or one service page pulls in more visitors than your home page, that page deserves your best photos and a clear phone number.

3. Pages and screens

Reports, then Engagement, then Pages and screens. Here you see every page, how many views it had and the average engagement time. A pricing or menu page with many views and few key events is a page where people looked and then left.

4. Realtime

Not for the monthly check, but for the day you change something. Google lists checking that "the measurement code is working" as one of its main uses. Post a new link, tap it yourself, and look for your own visit.

GA4 words in plain English

A 50% bounce rate is not a disaster on its own. Someone who checked your opening hours in eight seconds and left happy counts as a bounce.

Label your links, or social gets lost

Here is the trap for a business that lives on Instagram. A visit only lands in Organic Social when GA4 can tell it came from a social network. If it cannot, your posts get no credit for it. A UTM tag removes the guesswork: a few words added to the end of a link that tell Analytics where the visit came from.

Google's example looks like this: ?utm_source=summer-mailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=summer-sale added after your web address. Google's own advice is to keep one source name per platform, such as "fb" for Facebook and "insta" for Instagram. Use utm_medium=social for your posts: GA4 puts any visit with that medium into Organic Social.

Worth tagging:

• the link in your Instagram and TikTok bio (we covered what to put there in Link in bio: what a local business should put there)
• the website link on your Google Business Profile
• every link in your newsletter

Two settings to change on day one

• Keep your data longer. In the property's admin settings, under data retention, choose 14 months, the longer of the two options. It affects explorations and funnel reports, not the standard reports, but there is no reason to throw data away early.
• Connect Search Console if your site is verified there. You get two extra reports: the Google searches that showed your site, and the landing pages they led to.

If you also run Google Ads, link the two accounts. Google Ads can then use your key events to judge which ads bring customers. If you run Meta ads, GA4 does not replace the Meta Pixel: each platform needs its own signal, as we explained in What is the Meta Pixel, and does a small business need it?

What you can safely ignore

Demographics, tech details, user lifetime, explorations, and the insights GA4 pops up on the home page. They are not wrong. They are just not where a small business finds its next customer. Fifteen minutes with the four reports above, once a month, tells you more than an hour of clicking around.

If you would rather not set it up yourself

Our Tracking Setup is a one-time job for $199. It covers Google Analytics 4 counting what matters to you (calls, forms, bookings or sales), the Meta Pixel and Conversions API, a cookie consent banner where the law asks for one, and a test of every action. One website, and you invite us to your accounts instead of sharing passwords. See the one-time jobs.