Understanding Website Analytics: What Should You Measure?

<p>You have installed Google Analytics on your website. Congratulations, you now have access to a wealth of data. But when you open the dashboard, you see dozens of graphs, tables, and numbers. What does it all mean? And more importantly, what should you do with it? Most business owners drown in data while having no insights. This article helps you focus on the metrics that truly matter.</p>

<h2>The four metrics every business owner should track</h2>

<p>Forget the dozens of available statistics and focus on four core numbers. First: the number of visitors. How many unique people visit your website per week or month? This is your baseline. If this number rises, you are reaching more people. If it drops, something is wrong with your visibility or marketing.</p>

<p>Second: the bounce rate. This is the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate (above 70%) means visitors are not finding what they are looking for or your page is not attractive enough to click through. Third: the average session duration. How long do visitors stay on your site? Longer sessions indicate engaged visitors who find your content valuable. Fourth: the conversion rate. What percentage of your visitors take the desired action — fill out a form, request a quote, buy a product?</p>

<h2>Setting up Google Analytics 4</h2>

<p>Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the current standard. It differs significantly from the previous version (Universal Analytics). GA4 works based on events instead of pageviews. Every visit, every click, and every scroll is an event that you can measure and analyze.</p>

<p>The basic installation is simple: create a GA4 property in your Google Analytics account, copy the Measurement ID (starts with G-), and add it to your website settings. In Webey you paste the ID in the Analytics field in your site settings. Do not forget to set up consent management so GA4 only collects data after the visitor has given consent.</p>

<h2>Setting up conversion goals</h2>

<p>Without conversion goals you only measure traffic, not results. A conversion goal is a specific action you want visitors to take. For a service provider that is probably filling out a contact form. For a webshop it is a purchase. For a blog it is a newsletter signup.</p>

<p>Set up events for these actions in GA4. Mark the most important events as conversions. Now you see not only how many people visit your site, but also how many actually take action. You can analyze which traffic sources generate the most conversions and align your marketing budget accordingly.</p>

<h2>From data to action: what do you do with the numbers?</h2>

<p>Data without action is pointless. Schedule a monthly moment — half an hour is enough — to review your analytics and draw conclusions. Look at your top five pages: which pages attract the most traffic? Are these the pages you want people to see? If your blog articles attract lots of traffic but your services page does not, you need to improve your internal linking.</p>

<p>Look at your traffic sources: does most traffic come from Google, social media, direct visits, or email? Invest more in channels that perform well and investigate why other channels are lagging. Look at your bounce rate per page: pages with a high bounce rate deserve attention. Perhaps the content does not match the search query, the loading time is too slow, or the page is not attractive enough.</p>

<h2>Common analytics mistakes</h2>

<p>Do not fall into the trap of vanity metrics — numbers that look impressive but say nothing about your business results. A thousand visitors per day is meaningless if nobody converts. A high number of page views is not useful if visitors get lost on your site and cannot find the desired action.</p>

<p>Also do not make the mistake of drawing conclusions too quickly based on too little data. A day with low traffic is not a trend. Look at periods of at least a month before making big decisions. And do not forget seasonal patterns: in December, web traffic for B2B companies is always lower than in October.</p>