Use GA4 to properly analyse and read your data

Gemma says: “Don’t forget the importance of properly analysing and reading data for your website.”

Has every website moved over to GA4 now?

“They don't have another option if they were using Google Analytics tools. Since 2023, Universal Analytics has stopped recollecting data, so everybody who wants to use Google Analytics needs to move to GA4. However, the important thing is not only to migrate to GA4 but to properly set it up as well.”

What are the big changes from Universal Analytics to GA4?

“The big changes are in how Google Analytics shows and organises the data. It has changed and it's important that people know where everything is. GA4 has also changed the way that Google wants us to analyse information. They are trying to help us more. For example, they have prepared a lot of guidance on how to organise events. However, it’s only guidance and people need to understand what's really important for them and how to set it up in a proper way.”

Is GA4 better?

“It's definitely not worse; I think it's more or less the same.

I really don't hate it, but it's true that it can take a long time to properly understand how to analyse all your data for different types of clients.”

How can an SEO set up GA4 correctly and what typically gets missed?

“To set it up properly, there are different things that you need to take into account. First of all, you need to define what you really need to analyse for your business. It's very different for a B2B company, an e-commerce company, or a SaaS company.

Define your KPIs, and then go to the events and set up the ones that you really need. You might need to use the main tools from GA4 or you might need to use Google Tag Manager, for example. With this done, set it up properly as conversions and then it will be easier for you to analyse all of your data.

If you set this up in a proper way, then you will be able to create your audiences and your reports, and explore the data that you really want to analyse. It's important to know what you want, know where that is in GA4, and then only set up the things that you need.

It's not enough to just install the script because there are events, conversions, audiences, and a lot of things that you need to set up.

There are also other things that you need to publish. Google gives you some reports, but some are not published. If you want to see all of your Google search data, it's not published in the reports. You need to go to the library and publish it.

That’s why you need to think about what you want. Do you want your Google search data to be shown on the tool? Then you need to search for where that data is and publish it. In Universal Analytics, it was already published. In GA4, you need to find it first and then make it visible.”

How is the data different in GA4 compared with Universal Analytics?

“It's different and not different at the same time. It's different in the way that it is shown. Take, for example, traffic acquisition. In Universal Analytics, everything was all on one report. Now, traffic acquisition is two different reports. The user acquisition report helps you to understand how you capture a user for the first time, whereas the traffic acquisition report is more on a session level. You need to understand that it's a little bit different from before.

Something else that is different is everything related to events and the interactions that are happening on your website. Before, this was only shown in the behaviour report on Universal Analytics. Now, it's the most important thing in the engagement report. You need to understand these differences and manage the best way for your business to analyse them.”

What key events might businesses be missing in GA4?

“There aren’t a lot of interesting events that are not being tracked. However, there are some that happen almost automatically, like form submissions or video reproductions, that tend to be important. These should be set up automatically, however, it sometimes doesn’t work the way that it’s supposed to, so you need to do it with Google Tag Manager.

For example, a really important event is add-to-cart, when a user wants to add a product to a cart. For e-commerce, this is very important, and you need to set it up via Google Tag Manager. There are some important events like these that you need to take out and analyse, and they are not there.”

What's the difference between an event and a conversion in GA4?

“An event is something that is happening on your website, and a conversion is something that is happening on your website that you want to highlight.

Basically, you can have a lot of different events because you think that they might be interesting for you, but the conversions will be the events that you know are KPIs for you, so you want to mark them and publish them in a different report.”

How do you use all the data in GA4 to help guide your SEO strategy?

“There are a lot of different things that you can do with GA4. The first thing that I would recommend is to create a Looker Studio report and link all the information that is important for your SEO strategy in there. For example, the way that you acquire users on your website and the way conversions are happening on your website. Link this with your parameters so you have more information and you can analyse it further.

You will find a lot of things that can be useful for an SEO. You can analyse the performance of your pages, you can analyse how users interact with your content, etc. This kind of data is very helpful for understanding what's happening on your website and refocusing your strategies.

You might want to merge pieces of content or focus on a different style of content that is performing better. You will be able to see these opportunities and have even more information if you link everything with parameters via GA4.

You can also combine the data from GA4 and Search Console in Looker Studio to see which pages are ranking. You can integrate even more information than you could in Universal Analytics, so you’re able to analyse all your information together and come to conclusions more easily.”

Is it realistic for all SEOs to be able to understand GA4 by themselves?

“In the beginning, you might want to hire a GA4 consultant, as they will help you to set things up and organise what you really need.

You can also create your own reports in GA4. If you go through the library, you can create your own personal reports, not only use the reports that GA4 offers. Depending on your business, that might be better suited for you than using the default tool. Using a consultant will help you come to that conclusion more easily and make sure you have all the data you really need.

Then, with everything set up and knowing what you are looking for, any SEO can use it on their own.”

Do SEOs need to conduct GA4 training throughout the business?

“Totally. For example, there is a report that is only focused on paid channels, so it would be necessary to explain that to the relevant team.

In Universal Analytics (especially 1/2 years ago), you would still divide the acquisition channels into five different typologies. Now, there are many more. You now have so many easy options for analysing your channels of acquisition. If all of those different departments know about this, it will be easier for them to analyse the results.

If you want to show a resource to other people within your business, don’t show them the tool, because it's not very intuitive. You want to look at the Explorations report instead.

You can create your own report via Explorations or link it to Looker Studio. That’s the best way to show insights from GA4 to other departments. You can show how it is working, your data, your results, and the impact of your strategies because you can play with filters in Looker Studio a lot.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2024?

“Stop trying to do so many things with ChatGPT. The tool is very powerful, and you can do a lot of things with it but if you cannot analyse how those efforts are performing, then it makes no sense.

It's very cool to try all the new tools that are out there but it's important to know how it actually performs on your website. Try to gather all your data in a proper way and then do all the cool things that you want to do. Maybe it will change your business.”

Gemma Fontané is Co-Founder at Orvit Digital, and you can find her over at OrvitDigital.com.