One such platform is Google Analytics 4<\/a>.<\/p>\n Analytics platforms grant you access to website data and website metrics that help you understand how visitors find your website, behave once on your pages, and engage with your website content.<\/p>\n Although different types of websites aim at different goals, and therefore different Google metrics for websites are being monitored for different website projects, there are still several universal metrics that are important for each website.<\/p>\n Table of contents:<\/p>\n Read also:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), website analytics metrics<\/span><\/span><\/span> are quantitative aspects of user behavior on your website.<\/p>\n Site analytics metrics<\/span><\/span><\/span> are always displayed in numbers and give you precise information about how your website is performing and what site visitors are doing once landed on your pages.<\/p>\n Furthermore, metrics can help you monitor how effective your marketing campaigns are and give you insight into how you can improve your website for optimal performance and conversion rate.<\/p>\n An example of a metric is website visitors. Such a metric can be measured for a certain period. For example, a given website can have 57,439 website visitors in the last 3 months.<\/p>\n Another example of a metric is session duration. It showcases how much time site visitors spend on your website on average.<\/p>\n Yet other examples include numbers of button clicks, page views, following links, and making purchases.<\/p>\n There are many website metrics you can monitor via GA4 and in the next paragraphs, you will read about the most important ones.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are several very important website metrics that you should be aware of and constantly check when you are working on your Google Analytics 4 reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Users is a website analytics <\/span><\/span><\/span>metric that showcases how many individual site visitors have viewed and interacted with your website. This metric is always bound to time boundaries \u2013 the number of site users is always counted within a specific period.<\/p>\n For example, you can count the number of site users for today, the last month, the last four months, or, for a bigger period \u2013 for the last year, for example.<\/p>\n The greater the number of users, the better your website is performing.<\/p>\n You can quickly see the number of your site analytics metrics<\/span><\/span><\/span> about your visitors via the home section in GA4:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The page views metric measures the number of times a given page on your website has been seen by visitors.<\/p>\n Each time a web page loads in a given web browser, a page view is counted.<\/p>\n Similar to the Users metric, Page Views can be measured in a specific period \u2013 for the past week, for the past 4 months, for the last year, or any other custom period.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that a certain visitor can open a single page more than once and each time they do so, a count to the Page Views is being added.<\/p>\n Page Views help you get an overall insight into which web pages of your websites are most popular and most often loaded. Use this data to include important links on such pages, offers, contact and registration forms, CTA buttons, and ads, should you decide to monetize your website.<\/p>\n In most cases, the greater the Page Views number is, the better your website is performing.<\/p>\n To monitor page views in GA4, via the home screen go to Reports->Engagement->Pages and Screens<\/strong> and have a look at the chart:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Average engagement time in GA4 is a time metric, describing the average time each user spends on any page on your website. Page exits and bounces are not included (we will be checking these further in this article).<\/p>\n The average engagement time is not unique for each site visitor. This metric takes the number of all page views for some time and divides this number by the overall time spent by all visitors for this same period.<\/p>\n For example, if there have been 3000 page views for a month, who altogether spent 600 minutes on any page, the example average time would be:<\/p>\n 600 minutes\/3000 page views = 0.2 minutes, or 12 seconds.<\/p>\n To monitor the metric, via Reports navigate to Engagement->Pages and Screens<\/strong> and check the Average engagement time<\/strong> column in the chart:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Via this metric, you can monitor on which pages your site visitors stay the most and use this information to your advantage \u2013 add more CTA buttons on them, prompt them to fill out a registration form, or add some ads that can ensure more revenue.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Event count is a very important metric, regardless of the industry and niche your website operates in.<\/p>\n Events mark specific types of visitor engagement on your website. In most cases, events mark site visitor activity that is of greater importance for your website and business.<\/p>\n Examples of Events are clicks, following links, filling up a registration form, adding products to the shopping cart, checking out, and completing a purchase.<\/p>\n To see the Event Count number in GA4, via Reports, head to Engagement->Events:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n A session in GA4 is a set of interactions with your website that a single user has completed within a given period.<\/p>\n For example, a user opens your website, scrolls down the page, fills up the registration form, then opens another page, browses some of your e-commerce products, adds some to their shopping cart purchases these, and then leaves your website. If all these activities and events take place within 30 minutes, then they all are considered as a single session.<\/p>\n Session duration is simply the time it takes for a single session to start and to end.<\/p>\n Durations are important, as they indicate how much your site visitors are engaged with your website. The greater the session duration, the bigger the interest in your website is.<\/p>\n Another term, directly connected to sessions, is engaged session. This is a session that lasted longer than 10 seconds, has a conversion, or at least 2 different page views or screen views.<\/p>\n To monitor sessions and session duration in Google Analytics 4, via Reports, go to Acquisition->Traffic Acquisition <\/strong>and have a look at these columns:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bounce rate can be a bit tricky to understand, however, it is important to know what this metric is all about, as it is also essential for your website.<\/p>\n In short, the bounce rate is the complete opposite of an engaged session.<\/p>\n An engaged session in GA4 is a session that lasted more than 10 seconds, triggered an event, or triggered 2 or more pages.<\/p>\n To have a bounce in Google Analytics 4, a session should be below 10 seconds, not trigger any event, or have only a one-page view.<\/p>\n In most cases, the bounce rate is calculated in percentage by dividing the number of bounces by the overall number of sessions for a given period. Then, the result is multiplied by 100.<\/p>\n For example, your site had 1500 sessions in the last month. 600 of those were engaged sessions. This means that the rest are bounces (1500\u2013600=900).<\/p>\n Then you take these 900 sessions and divide them by the number of overall sessions \u2013 1500:<\/p>\n 900\/1500 x 100 =60% bounce rate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The New Visitors metric showcases the overall number of visitors who come to your website for the first time.<\/p>\n New users are defined by the unique ID that is logged in the GA4 database once a new visitor loads your website.<\/p>\n In most cases having new visitors is a sign that your website is growing and your marketing campaigns attract new visitors.<\/p>\n To see how many new users your website has acquired, simply go to Acquisition->User Acquisition<\/strong> report and have a look at the New Users<\/strong> column:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the name suggests, the metric Returning Visitors grants the overall number of site visitors who have visited your website more than once.<\/p>\n The greater the number of returning visitors, the more engaging and useful your website is, so when analyzing your GA4 reports, definitely check the ratio between new and returning visitors and make sure you improve your website, so more people return to it.<\/p>\n To monitor the number of returning customers, go to Explore<\/strong> and click on Cohort exploration<\/strong>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This will open the cohort chart that can help you get a deeper understanding of your returning visitors:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Conversion rate is a metric calculated in percentage and reveals how many visitors have triggered an event.<\/p>\n The greater the conversion rate, the better your website performs in turning visitors into leads and customers.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the formula that is used to calculate your conversion rate:<\/p>\n Conversion rate = number of users who triggered an event on your website\/total number of users for the same period.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example:<\/p>\n If your website had 2000 visitors for the past month and 60 of them triggered an event, then to calculate the conversion rate for that period, you simply divide the number of conversions to the overall number of visitors for that period and multiply the result by 100:<\/p>\n 60\/2000 x 100 = 3%<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Landing pages is a term referring to the page of your website a given user first opens.<\/p>\n This metric is important, as it helps you understand how your marketing endeavors are performing in several ways:<\/p>\n\n
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What is a Metric in Google Analytics 4<\/h2>\n
\u00a012 Most Important Website Metrics to Track in Google Analytics 4<\/h2>\n
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Users<\/h3>\n
![\"Users](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/1-google-analytics-4-metrics-users-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPage Views<\/h3>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/2-google-analytics-4-metrics-page-views-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAverage Engagement Time<\/h3>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/3-google-analytics-4-metrics-average-engagement-time-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEvent Count<\/h3>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/4-google-analytics-4-metrics-event-count-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAverage Session Duration<\/h3>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/5-google-analytics-4-metrics-average-session-duration-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBounce Rate<\/h3>\n
New Visitors<\/h3>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/6-google-analytics-4-metrics-new-visitors-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\nReturning Visitors<\/h3>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/7-google-analytics-4-metrics-returning-visitors-explore-report.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/8-google-analytics-4-metrics-returning-visitors-cohort-analysis.jpg\")
<\/p>\nConversion Rate<\/h3>\n
Landing Pages<\/h3>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/9-google-analytics-4-metrics-landing-page-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/10-google-analytics-4-metrics-exit-page-explore-report-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/11-google-analytics-4-metrics-exit-pages-blank-exploration-template-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/12-google-analytics-4-exit-pages-visitors-analysis-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/13-google-analytics-4-metrics-rexit-pages-analysis-pages-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/14-google-analytics-4-exit-pages-add-dimensions-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/15-google-analytics-4-exit-pages-visitors-add-new-metric-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/16-google-analytics-4-metrics-exit-page-add-dimension.jpg\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/17-google-analytics-4-metrics-exit-page-add-dimensions-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/18-google-analytics-4-metrics-exit-page-report-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.awardspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/19-google-analytics-4-metrics-exit-page-report-awardspace.jpg\")
<\/p>\n