When we build a website, we connect it to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). GA4 helps you understand what’s happening on your site — where visitors come from, what pages they visit, and what actions they take.
If you’ve logged into GA4 and felt overwhelmed, that’s normal. There’s a lot in there. The good news is you don’t need to use everything.
This guide walks you through the three most helpful reports to review on a regular basis — and what to look for in each one.
Before You Review Your GA4 Data
Before diving into reports:
Confirm you’re viewing the correct GA4 property
Set your date range (start with the last 30 days, if you don’t have a specific timeframe)
Compare to the previous period to spot trends
Looking at trends over time is more helpful than reviewing a single day or week.
The 3 Most Important GA4 Reports
If you only review three reports in Google Analytics 4, make it these:
Traffic Acquisition
Pages and Screens
Events
These reports give you a strong overview of website traffic sources, top content, and user actions.
Traffic Acquisition Report (Where Your Website Traffic Comes From)
Location in GA4: Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition
The Traffic Acquisition report shows how visitors are finding your website. This includes channels such as:
Organic Search (Google search results)
Direct traffic
Referral traffic (other websites)
Organic Social
Email
Paid Search
What to Look For in the Traffic Acquisition Report
When reviewing this GA4 report, ask:
Which channels bring the most traffic?
Which channels bring the most engaged visitors?
Is one channel responsible for most of your traffic?
Is organic search traffic increasing or decreasing?
Focus on both volume and quality. High traffic is good, but engaged traffic is better.
Key metrics to review:
Users
Sessions
Engaged sessions
Engagement rate
Average engagement time
Helpful Tip
Use the dropdown in the first column to switch between:
Default Channel Group
Session source / medium
Session campaign
This is especially helpful if you’re running paid advertising or email campaigns.
Pages and Screens Report (Which Website Pages Perform Best)
Location in GA4: Reports → Engagement → Pages and screens
The Pages and Screens report shows which pages people visit and how they interact with them.
This report helps you understand which content is attracting attention and which pages may need improvement.
What to Look For in the Pages Report
Ask yourself:
What are my top viewed pages?
Are my main service pages getting traffic?
Are blog posts driving more traffic than landing pages?
Do high-traffic pages have low engagement?
You can change the primary dimension from “Page path and screen class” to “Page title” if that’s easier to read.
Use the search bar in the table if you want to review a specific page.
This report is helpful for:
Identifying popular content
Improving underperforming pages
Finding opportunities to update SEO content
Understanding landing page performance
Events Report (What Visitors Do on Your Website)
Location in GA4: Reports → Engagement → Events
In Google Analytics 4, an https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/12926615?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid.
GA4 automatically tracks some events. Others may be custom events depending on your website setup.
Common events include:
page_view
scroll
click
file_download
form submissions (if configured)
What to Look For in the Events Report
When reviewing this report, consider:
Which actions happen most often?
Are form submissions increasing?
Are important actions marked as conversions?
Are there events that don’t seem useful?
If you’ve set up conversion tracking, this report helps you measure how often those key actions occur.
Understanding Key GA4 Metrics
Here are a few important Google Analytics 4 terms explained in simple language:
- Users: The number of individual visitors.
- Sessions: Visits to your website. One user can have multiple sessions.
- Engaged Session: A session that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a conversion, or included two or more page views.
- Engagement Rate: The percentage of sessions that were engaged.
- Event Count: The total number of times an action occurred.
You don’t need to memorize every metric. Focus on patterns and trends over time.
How to Filter Reports in GA4
To delve further into results on a specific audience, you can add a filter to any report. For example, to view popular pages for visitors from organic search, you could filter the Pages and screens report by the Organic Search channel grouping.
Steps to Add a Filter in GA4
Click “Add filter” in the top left of a report.
Select a dimension (for example, Session default channel group).
Choose a match type (such as “exactly matches”).
Enter your value (for example, Organic Search).
Click Apply.
Filtering is useful when you want to understand specific audience behavior rather than overall traffic.
Simple Monthly GA4 Review Checklist
If you’re not sure how often to check Google Analytics 4, start with a monthly review.
Each month:
Compare traffic to the previous month
Review top traffic channels
Check your most visited pages
Review key events or conversions
Identify one opportunity for improvement
Keep it simple. You’re looking for direction, not perfection.
When You May Need Custom GA4 Setup
The default GA4 reports are helpful, but they don’t always track everything you care about.
You may need custom Google Analytics 4 configuration if you want to track:
Donation revenue
Form submissions
Phone click tracking
Campaign performance
User funnels or paths
E-commerce transactions
If you can’t find the data you need, your tracking may need adjustment.
Talk with your project manager or https://cornershopcreative.com/contact/contact us to discuss improving your GA4 setup.
GA4 Trainings
To get further acquainted with GA4, we’d recommend working through online courses to learn how GA4 collects and organizes data and how you can use that knowledge to find the analytics answers that you’re looking for within the platform.
Google provides a range of free online trainings for GA4.