These are the best Google Analytics reports to help you find useful information about your site. Google Analytics can be extremely overwhelming especially if you are a new blogger! This powerful blog analytics tool can do so much that it’s hard to know where to begin.
I have a Dashboard in Google Analytics that I use to view specific reports. These reports help me understand what’s working on my site, so I can create more of that type of content.
What is GA4?
GA4 (Google Analytics 4) is the latest version of Google’s web analytics platform that was launched in October 2020.
It is designed to be more user-friendly, flexible, and advanced than the previous Universal Analytics (UA). It uses machine learning to provide deeper insights.
GA4 has simplified data collection and setup compared to UA. For example, there is no longer a need to create separate website profiles for each domain or app platform.
It enables cross-platform measurement across websites, Android apps, and iOS apps. This provides a unified view of users across all platforms rather than siloed data.
The data model and reporting interface of GA4 are somewhat different from UA. Things like metrics, dimensions, reports, and processes have all changed.
GA4 focuses more on modeling users and their journeys versus UA’s focus on sessions and pageviews. This enables a better understanding of user behaviors.
Importantly, GA4 introduces new protections for user privacy in alignment with trends like the phase-out of third-party cookies.
GA4 Reports
Here are the Google Analytics GA4 reports that I use the most!
Intelligence Home Report
I use the home page of GA4 to keep track of the users, sessions, and page views my website receives. These statistics are useful on sites where my goal is to get the site accepted into Mediavine or Raptive.
I’ve edited the metrics to show me Users, Visitors, and Page Views. I also added “Average Session duration” just for kicks. It’s interesting to see how long people spend on my site.
Looker Studio
Now here’s where you can get the real data you can actually digest and understand.
Looker is the best resource for making sense of GA4 data. There is even a handy template you can use after importing your data.
Click “Use my own data” after signing up for Looker.
More GA4 Data to Analyze
- 404 error views
- See which /tags/ are viewed most often on your site for new post ideas
- See what users are searching for on your website