If you manage a website, publish blog posts, or run digital marketing campaigns, you probably want answers to a few basic questions. How many people are visiting? Where is the traffic coming from? Which pages are performing well?

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) provides this information, but finding it across different reports can feel overwhelming, especially for beginners.

The good news is that you can create a simple dashboard directly inside GA4. In this tutorial, I'll walk you through the process, explain which metrics matter, and show you how to build a dashboard you can review every week.

What Is a GA4 Dashboard?

A GA4 dashboard is a customizable reporting page that brings your most important website metrics together in one place.

Instead of switching between acquisition, engagement, and page performance reports, you can organize useful information into charts, tables, and scorecards.

For example, a basic dashboard could show:

• How many active users visited your website.
• How many sessions your website received.
• How engaged your visitors were.
• Which marketing channels generated traffic.
• Which pages received the most views.

Google Analytics includes a built-in dashboard builder where you can arrange visualizations and select the metrics you want to monitor.

You don't need advanced technical skills to create your first dashboard. The important part is knowing what you want to measure.

If you're still learning GA4, I recommend reading my guide on how to track website traffic using five essential GA4 reports before building your dashboard.

Step 1: Choose Your Website Performance Metrics

Before creating anything, decide which questions your dashboard should answer.

One common beginner mistake is adding too many metrics. A dashboard filled with numbers might look impressive, but it isn't always useful.

I recommend starting with three essential metrics.

These metrics help you understand traffic volume and basic visitor engagement.

GA4 considers a session engaged when it lasts longer than 10 seconds, includes a key event, or contains at least two page or screen views.

Beyond these three numbers, two additional breakdowns can make your dashboard more useful.

Traffic acquisition: Shows where visits originate, including Organic Search, Direct, Organic Social, and Referral channels.

Top-performing pages: Identifies the content receiving the most views.

Together, these metrics provide a useful starting point for monitoring a blog, portfolio, or small business website.

Step 2: Create Your GA4 Dashboard

Google Analytics supports custom dashboards directly within its reporting interface.

To create one, you need Editor or Administrator access to the GA4 property.

Open the Dashboard Builder

1. Visit Google Analytics and sign in.
2. Select the GA4 property for your website.
3. Click Reports in the left navigation.
4. At the top of the Reports navigation, click + Create.
5. Select Dashboard.

This opens the dashboard editor, where you can arrange your metrics and visualizations.

If you don't see the option to create a dashboard, check whether you have the necessary permissions.

Add Your Three Main Metrics

Start by adding scorecards for your most important KPIs.

A scorecard displays a single metric, making it useful for information you want to check quickly.

In the dashboard editor:

1. Drag a scorecard visualization onto the canvas.
2. Select the scorecard.
3. Choose Active users as its metric in the configuration panel.
4. Add another scorecard for Sessions.
5. Add a third scorecard for Engagement rate.

Arrange these three scorecards across the top of your dashboard.

This layout makes it easy to see your main website performance indicators immediately.

Add Traffic and Page Performance Charts

Next, add visualizations that explain the numbers.

For traffic acquisition, create a bar chart or table using:

• Dimension: Session default channel group
• Metric: Sessions

This helps you compare how much traffic comes from search engines, social media, direct visits, and referrals.

For content performance, add a table using:

• Dimension: Page title and screen name
• Metric: Views

This shows which website pages or blog posts receive the most attention.

You can also add a line chart using Date and Sessions to see how traffic changes over time.

Drag the visualizations into a logical order and resize them as needed.

Save and Publish Your Dashboard

Once the layout looks good, save your dashboard with a clear name, such as:

Website Performance — Weekly Overview

Click Save, then Publish to make the dashboard accessible through the Reports navigation.

Remember that publishing a GA4 dashboard makes it available to users with access to that Analytics property. It does not publish the dashboard as a public website.

For additional instructions, refer to Google's official dashboard documentation.

Step 3: Understand an Example GA4 Dashboard

Now let's look at what a simple dashboard might show.

The following figures are fictional demonstration data, not actual analytics results from a real website.

Example: Website Performance Over 7 Days

Imagine your website recorded these results during a seven-day period.

The dashboard tells you that 1,240 active users interacted with the website, generating 1,650 sessions. Approximately 61% of sessions met GA4's engagement criteria.

However, these numbers alone don't tell you whether performance improved.

To understand progress, compare them with the previous seven days.

Example: Where Visitors Came From

In this fictional example, Organic Search generated the largest number of sessions.

That could be a reason to examine which search-driven landing pages attract visitors and whether those visits lead to meaningful actions.

For content performance, your dashboard might show that a tutorial receives more views than your homepage. You could then explore whether that tutorial also encourages visitors to read other articles.

The purpose of a dashboard isn't simply to collect numbers. It's to identify patterns worth investigating.

Step 4: Build a Simple Weekly Dashboard Review Habit

Creating a dashboard is only the beginning. Reviewing it consistently is what makes it useful.

You don't need to check every metric throughout the day.

For a personal website or small business, I recommend setting aside 15 minutes once a week.

Here's a practical review routine:

First five minutes: Check your main KPIs.

Look at active users, sessions, and engagement rate. Compare the latest seven days with the previous seven days when the relevant comparison option is available.

Next five minutes: Review traffic sources.

Check whether visitors are coming from organic search, social media, direct visits, or referrals.

If social traffic suddenly increases, consider whether you recently published or promoted something that could explain the change.

Final five minutes: Review your top pages.

Identify the pages receiving attention and look for opportunities to improve internal links, content quality, or calls to action.

Write down one observation and one action to take before your next review.

For example:

"Organic search is bringing more visitors to a beginner tutorial. Review its internal links and make the next recommended article easier to find."

That simple habit turns website reporting into a process for continuous improvement.

Common GA4 Dashboard Mistakes to Avoid

Even a simple dashboard can become confusing when it isn't designed carefully.

Tracking too many metrics: Start with three important KPIs, then add charts that help explain them. You can always expand your dashboard later.

Confusing users with sessions: One person can visit a website multiple times. Sessions and users measure different things and shouldn't be treated as interchangeable.

Ignoring date ranges: A dashboard showing the last seven days may tell a different story from one showing the last 90 days. Always check the reporting period before drawing conclusions.

Assuming every traffic increase is positive: More sessions don't automatically mean better results. Engagement, relevant content, and important website actions also matter.

Forgetting the dashboard's limitations: GA4's dashboard builder does not currently support every advanced reporting feature, including segments and card-level comparisons. For deeper analysis, use the appropriate GA4 reports or Explorations.

If you eventually need a more flexible reporting setup, consider Looker Studio. I've included it in my guide to seven free digital marketing tools for beginners.

Final Thoughts: Start Tracking Three Metrics Weekly

You don't need a complicated analytics setup to understand how your website is performing.

A simple GA4 dashboard with active users, sessions, engagement rate, traffic sources, and top-performing pages can provide a useful overview of your website.

Start small. Build your dashboard, review it weekly, and focus on the changes that matter.

As your website grows, you can add metrics for important actions, such as form submissions, registrations, or purchases.

Your next step: Open GA4, create your first dashboard, and start tracking three metrics every week.

The goal isn't to build the most impressive dashboard. It's to create one that helps you understand your website and make better decisions.

Originally published by Subash Kafle on SubashKafle.com.

Whether you’re managing a WordPress website, building a personal portfolio, or maintaining a small business site, regular reviews can improve the experience for your visitors.

I prefer starting with one page instead of trying to audit an entire website at once.

In this guide, I’ll share my practical six-step process for reviewing mobile usability, navigation, calls to action, speed, analytics, and basic SEO. I’ll also use my own portfolio’s Projects page to show what I could verify and what still needs testing.

Step 1: Check Mobile Usability (5 Minutes)

Your website might look great on a laptop but feel completely different on a smartphone.

Open the page on your phone or use your browser’s mobile device preview.

Look for these common problems:

• Text that is difficult to read.
• Buttons that are too small or close together.
• Images extending beyond the screen.
• Navigation menus that are difficult to use.
• Sections that create unnecessary horizontal scrolling.

Try moving through the page as a first-time visitor.

Can you read everything comfortably? Can you open the menu and select a project without difficulty?

My checklist: Check readability, spacing, navigation, and button accessibility on a narrow screen.

Five minutes won’t replace complete accessibility testing, but it can reveal obvious usability problems.

Step 2: Review Navigation and Important Links (5 Minutes)

A good website should help visitors find information without unnecessary effort.

Start with the main navigation menu. Look at the labels and ask whether they clearly describe the destination.

Next, click the important links on your chosen page.

For a portfolio website, that might include project cards, case studies, your resume, and contact information.

I recommend checking three things:

• Does each link open the intended destination?
• Can visitors return to the previous section easily?
• Are important pages accessible through clear navigation?

My portfolio website guide explains why project organization matters when presenting professional work.

My checklist: Test the main menu and at least three important links.

Step 3: Evaluate Calls to Action (5 Minutes)

Every important page should give visitors a useful next step.

A call to action, or CTA, might encourage someone to explore a project, download a resource, read another article, or contact you.

The wording should explain what happens when visitors click.

For example, “Explore the Case Study” provides more context than a generic “Click Here.”

During this step, I ask:

• Is the main action easy to identify?
• Does the button describe its destination?
• Is there a clear next step after reading the page?

You don’t need buttons everywhere. A few relevant CTAs are usually more useful than several competing actions.

My checklist: Identify the primary CTA and verify its destination.

Step 4: Test Website Speed (5 Minutes)

A slow website can frustrate visitors before they have a chance to explore your content.

For a quick performance review, I recommend Subash Kafle Free Website Check Tool

Enter the page URL and review both mobile and desktop results.

Pay attention to:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which measures when the main content becomes visible.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP), which reflects responsiveness.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which measures unexpected visual movement.

You don’t need to understand every technical recommendation immediately.

Start by looking for large images, unnecessary scripts, or other issues highlighted in the report.

Remember that a single test is not a complete picture of real visitor performance.

My checklist: Run the test and record the most important improvement opportunity.

Step 5: Verify Analytics Tracking (5 Minutes)

A website can look perfectly functional while its analytics setup is incomplete.

If you use Google Analytics 4, open Reports → Realtime and visit your website in another browser tab.

Check whether your activity appears, accounting for consent settings, processing delays, and any filters that might exclude your visit.

Next, review whether important interactions are being measured.

Depending on your website, these might include:

• Contact form submissions.
• Important button clicks.
• Resource downloads.
• External project link clicks.

Don’t assume every interaction is automatically tracked.

You can learn more in my guide to tracking website traffic with GA4.

My checklist: Confirm page tracking and identify one important action to measure.

Step 6: Review Basic SEO and Search Visibility (5 Minutes)

The final step focuses on whether search engines can understand and discover your page.

Start with the page title, main heading, and URL.

Ask whether they clearly describe the content.

Next, review internal links and check whether images have meaningful alternative text where appropriate.

If you have access to Google Search Console, use its URL Inspection tool to review the page’s indexing status.

Google’s SEO Starter Guide provides additional guidance on descriptive content, navigation, and search visibility.

For a more detailed review, see my SEO checklist for a new website.

My checklist: Review the title, heading, internal links, and indexing status.

A Practical Example: Reviewing My Projects Page

I used the Projects page on SubashKafle.com to demonstrate this process.

Here’s what I could verify from its publicly accessible content and links.

What worked:

• The page presents four main areas of work: SEO, paid media, analytics, and website optimization.
• Each featured project card links to an individual case study.
• The Protect From Day One section links to the live website and explains my contribution.
• The “Get in touch” CTA leads to my contact page.

What I would improve or investigate:

• Consider a more prominent project-related CTA near the introduction.
• Test the full mobile layout and interactive navigation on actual devices.
• Run PageSpeed Insights to identify any performance issues.
• Confirm GA4 tracking and indexing status using account-level tools.

These are observations and follow-up checks, not a claim that every part of the website passed a technical audit. I haven’t assigned performance scores or reported analytics results without supporting data.

The exercise also reminded me that a useful audit doesn’t always end with a long list of problems. Sometimes, it confirms what is working and helps prioritize what to examine next.

Final Thoughts: Small Website Improvements Add Up

A useful website audit checklist doesn’t need to be complicated.

Start with one important page. Spend five minutes reviewing each of the six areas, and record what works, what needs attention, and what you couldn’t verify.

Then choose one or two improvements you can realistically address.

For me, the purpose of a website audit is not simply to collect scores. It’s to make the website clearer, more useful, and easier to navigate.

Try this 30-minute website audit checklist on one page of your website today. Keep your findings simple, make one meaningful improvement, and use what you learn during your next review.

Originally published on SubashKafle.com.

Written by Subash Kafle, sharing practical insights on SEO, WordPress, analytics, and digital marketing.

If you have ever shared the same link in multiple places, you already know how hard it can be to tell which post or campaign performed best. Without proper tracking, your traffic data can feel incomplete or confusing. In this guide, I’ll explain what UTM parameters are, how they work, how to create tracking links, and where to find the results in GA4. I’ll also share a simple naming convention you can reuse for future campaigns.

But here’s the question: How do you know which campaign actually brought visitors to your website?

You might see traffic from social media, email, and other sources. However, identifying the exact post, newsletter, or campaign can be difficult without consistent tracking.

That’s where UTM parameters become useful.

UTM parameters help you identify where your website traffic comes from and which marketing efforts are driving visits.

In this guide, I’ll explain what UTM parameters are, how they work, how to create tracking links, and where to find the results in GA4. I’ll also share a simple naming convention you can reuse for your campaigns.

What Are UTM Parameters? UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module. UTM parameters are short pieces of information added to the end of a website URL to identify the source of a visit.

For example, a regular website link might look like this:

https://example.com/guide/

Now imagine sharing that page through LinkedIn.

With UTM tracking, your link could look like this:

https://example.com/guide/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=guide_launch

The destination is the same. The difference is the tracking information added to the URL.

When someone clicks the tagged link, Google Analytics can use those values to identify the marketing source, medium, and campaign associated with the visit.

UTM parameters don’t collect analytics data by themselves. Your website still needs a properly configured analytics system, such as GA4, to collect and report that information.

The Five UTM Parameters You Should Understand Google Analytics supports several campaign parameters, but these five cover most common tracking needs.

Parameter What It Identifies Example utm_source Where the traffic originates linkedin utm_medium The marketing channel social utm_campaign The campaign or promotion guide_launch utm_content A particular link or creative feed_post utm_term A paid-search keyword analytics_tools

1. utm_source: Where did the visitor come from? This identifies the specific traffic source.

Examples include linkedin, facebook, newsletter, and google.

2. utm_medium: How did the visitor arrive? This describes the marketing channel.

Examples include email, social, cpc, and referral.

For an unpaid LinkedIn post, you might use utm_source=linkedin and utm_medium=social.

3. utm_campaign: Which marketing effort generated the visit? This identifies the campaign being promoted.

For example, utm_campaign=guide_launch.

If you promote the same guide through LinkedIn and email, use the same campaign name across both links. This makes it easier to review the campaign as one initiative.

4. utm_content: Which link or creative was clicked? This optional parameter is useful when testing multiple links or content variations.

For example, utm_content=header_button and utm_content=footer_link could distinguish two links in the same newsletter.

5. utm_term: Which paid keyword was used? This optional parameter is mainly used for paid-search keyword tracking.

For most beginner campaigns, I recommend starting with source, medium, and campaign, then adding the other parameters when they serve a clear purpose.

Google also recommends using these three core parameters consistently in its official UTM parameter documentation.

How to Create UTM Parameters Step by Step You don’t need coding experience to create UTM tracking links.

Here’s a simple process.

Step 1: Choose your destination URL Start with the website page you want visitors to open.

For this example, I’ll use:

https://example.com/guide/

Replace this with your own website URL when creating a real campaign.

Step 2: Identify your traffic source Decide where you will share the link.

For a LinkedIn post:

utm_source=linkedin

Step 3: Choose the marketing medium Since this example uses an unpaid social media post:

utm_medium=social

Step 4: Name your campaign Choose a campaign name that explains what you’re promoting.

For example:

utm_campaign=guide_launch

Avoid vague names like test1 or campaign2.

Step 5: Combine the parameters Your complete tracking link becomes:

https://example.com/guide/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=guide_launch

Notice how the URL is structured.

A question mark (?) begins the query string, an equals sign (=) connects each parameter with its value, and an ampersand (&) separates the parameters.

If your destination URL already contains a query string, append additional parameters with & rather than adding another ?.

You can also use the free Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder instead of creating links manually.

UTM Tracking Examples for LinkedIn and Email Newsletters Let’s imagine you’re promoting a new analytics tutorial through two channels.

Example 1: LinkedIn post Tracking values:

Source: linkedin Medium: social Campaign: analytics_guide_launch Content: feed_post Complete URL:

https://example.com/guide/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=analytics_guide_launch&utm_content=feed_post

This helps identify visits attributed to your LinkedIn post.

Example 2: Email newsletter Tracking values:

Source: newsletter Medium: email Campaign: analytics_guide_launch Content: main_button Complete URL:

https://example.com/guide/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=analytics_guide_launch&utm_content=main_button

Both links share the same campaign name because they promote the same initiative.

The source and medium values distinguish the channels, while the content values help identify the individual links.

This structure makes comparing campaign traffic much easier.

My Recommended UTM Naming Convention One of the most important habits in campaign tracking is consistency.

Google Analytics treats parameter values as case-sensitive. For example, LinkedIn and linkedin can appear as separate values.

I recommend using a simple standard:

Field Naming Rule Example Source Lowercase platform name linkedin Medium Consistent channel name social Campaign Descriptive campaign name analytics_guide_launch Content Specific placement or creative feed_post My reusable UTM template:

https://example.com/page/?utm_source=SOURCE&utm_medium=MEDIUM&utm_campaign=CAMPAIGN&utm_content=CONTENT

Replace the uppercase placeholders with your actual lowercase values.

I also recommend keeping a shared tracking spreadsheet with the destination URL, source, medium, campaign name, content variation, and final tagged link.

That way, you don’t need to remember which naming format you used last month.

Google Sheets is one of the tools I recommend in my article on free digital marketing tools for beginners.

Where to Find UTM Campaign Traffic in Google Analytics 4 Creating UTM tracking links is only the first step. You also need to know where to review their performance.

Once your website is collecting GA4 data:

Open Google Analytics. Select your GA4 property. Navigate to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition. Open the dimension dropdown above the report table. Select Session source / medium or Session campaign, depending on what you want to analyze. Search or filter for the relevant traffic source or campaign. For example, when reviewing our sample LinkedIn campaign, you would look for source/medium values such as linkedin / social.

Switching to Session campaign lets you examine visits associated with analytics_guide_launch.

You can then review metrics such as sessions, engagement, and key events to understand what happened after visitors arrived.

Keep in mind that GA4 reporting can take 24–48 hours to process fully, and your website must be collecting data correctly.

Google explains these reporting options in its Traffic acquisition documentation.

If you’re still learning GA4, I’ve also written a practical guide on how to track website traffic in GA4 using five essential reports.

Common UTM Tracking Mistakes to Avoid Even a properly formatted link can create reporting problems if your tracking strategy isn’t consistent.

Here are five mistakes worth avoiding.

1. Mixing uppercase and lowercase values

Using LinkedIn, linkedin, and LINKEDIN across different campaigns can split your reporting data.

Choose one format and follow it.

2. Using different campaign names for the same initiative

If LinkedIn uses guide_launch while your newsletter uses analytics_launch, comparing the full campaign becomes harder.

3. Tagging internal website links

UTM parameters are designed to identify incoming marketing traffic.

Avoid adding them to ordinary navigation links between pages on your own website because they can interfere with campaign attribution.

4. Forgetting to test tracking links

Before sharing a campaign link, open it and confirm the destination loads correctly.

Check that redirects preserve the UTM parameters. After testing, verify that your analytics system receives the visit.

5. Assuming UTMs measure conversions automatically

UTMs identify campaign information. They don’t automatically track form submissions, purchases, or registrations.

Those actions need appropriate event and key-event tracking in GA4.

For Google Ads, also check whether auto-tagging already handles your campaign attribution before adding manual tags.

Do UTM Parameters Help With SEO? UTM parameters are measurement tools, not a direct way to improve search rankings.

They help explain which marketing links bring visitors to your website. They don’t make a page rank higher simply because the URL includes campaign tracking information.

For organic search performance, Google Search Console is a more suitable tool for reviewing search queries, impressions, and clicks.

If you haven’t configured it, my Google Search Console setup guide explains the process.

I prefer using GA4 and Search Console together because they help answer different questions about website discovery and visitor behavior.

Start Tracking Your Campaigns With More Confidence UTM parameters might look technical at first, but the basic idea is simple.

Add consistent campaign information to the links you share, then review that information in Google Analytics.

Start with three parameters: source, medium, and campaign.

Once you’re comfortable, use content values to compare different posts, email buttons, or creative variations.

You don’t need a complicated tracking system to get started. You need clear naming rules, working links, and a habit of reviewing the results.

Try creating two tracking links for your next campaign: one for LinkedIn and one for your newsletter. Use the same campaign name and compare their performance in GA4.

The goal isn’t just to count more clicks. It’s to understand which marketing efforts are helping people find and engage with your content.

Originally published on SubashKafle.com.

Written by Subash Kafle, sharing practical insights on SEO, WordPress, analytics, and digital marketing.

Publishing a website is one thing. Understanding what happens after people visit it is another.

You might spend hours writing blog posts, improving your SEO, or sharing content on social media. But how do you know whether people are visiting your website? Where are they coming from? Which pages are getting the most attention?

That’s where Google Analytics 4 becomes useful.

If you’re new to GA4, the dashboard can feel overwhelming. There are reports, charts, metrics, and settings everywhere. The good news is that you don’t need to understand everything to start making better decisions.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through five essential GA4 reports, explain what they measure, and show you how to use them to understand your website’s performance.

What Is Google Analytics 4? Google Analytics 4 is Google’s free website and app analytics platform. It helps you understand how people discover your website and what they do after arriving.

With GA4, you can answer questions such as:

How many people visit my website? Does my traffic come from Google, social media, or other websites? Which blog posts receive the most views? Are visitors engaging with my content? Are people completing important actions? Before reviewing these reports, make sure GA4 is properly connected to your website.

If you haven’t installed it yet, follow Google’s official GA4 setup guide. WordPress users can also connect GA4 through Google’s Site Kit plugin.

Once data collection is working, you’re ready to explore your reports.

How to Track Website Traffic: Important GA4 Metrics Before looking at individual reports, it’s helpful to understand a few terms.

Metric What It Means Active users People who interacted with your website, measured according to GA4’s active-user rules Sessions Visits or periods of interaction with your website Views Total page or screen views, including repeated views Engaged sessions Sessions lasting at least 10 seconds, containing a key event, or including at least two page or screen views Key events Important actions you’ve chosen to measure, such as a completed registration Here’s a simple example.

Someone visits your website, reads three articles, and leaves. That might count as one user, one session, and three page views.

If the same person returns later, they can generate another session without necessarily becoming a new user.

That’s why it’s important not to treat users, sessions, and views as the same number.

1. Realtime Report: See Who Is Visiting Right Now Question it answers: Is anyone visiting my website right now?

The Realtime report is a useful starting point because it shows recent visitor activity.

How to find it Open Google Analytics. Select your GA4 property. Click Reports in the left menu. Select Realtime. The report shows activity from the last 5 and 30 minutes, including active users, page views, and events.

For example, imagine publishing a new article on LinkedIn. You can open Realtime to check whether visitors are reaching your website shortly after you share it.

It’s also helpful when testing your tracking setup. Open your website in another browser tab, navigate through a few pages, and see whether activity appears.

Just remember that Realtime is meant for immediate monitoring. It shouldn’t replace your regular traffic reports when evaluating long-term performance.

2. Traffic Acquisition Report: Track Website Traffic Sources Question it answers: Which channels bring traffic to my website?

This is one of the most useful GA4 reports for digital marketing.

Go to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition.

The report groups website sessions by traffic sources and marketing channels.

You’ll commonly see channels such as:

Organic Search: Visitors arriving through unpaid search results. Direct: Traffic without an identified referring source. Organic Social: Visitors arriving from unpaid social media activity. Referral: Traffic from links on other websites. Email: Traffic identified as coming from email campaigns. Paid Search: Traffic from paid search advertisements. When learning how to track website traffic, understanding where your visitors come from is one of the most important steps.

Start by reviewing the Sessions column. Then look at engagement metrics to understand whether those visits were useful.

You can also change the report’s primary dimension to Session source / medium for more detail.

For example, google / organic identifies traffic attributed to unpaid Google Search.

What should you look for? Suppose you regularly share articles on LinkedIn, but Google Search brings most of your website sessions.

That tells you something important: your search content is attracting visitors beyond your social media audience.

But traffic volume isn’t everything.

If one channel produces many sessions with little engagement, while another brings fewer but more engaged visitors, you should investigate the difference before changing your strategy.

For email or social campaigns, use properly tagged UTM links so GA4 can identify campaign traffic more accurately.

Google explains these options in its Traffic acquisition report documentation.

3. Pages and Screens Report: Check Your Most Popular Pages Question it answers: Which pages are people viewing?

If you’re running a blog, this report is especially valuable.

If you want to know how to track website traffic for individual blog posts, the Pages and screens report is a useful place to start.

Navigate to Reports → Engagement → Pages and screens.

You’ll see pages from your website along with metrics such as Views, Active users, and Average engagement time.

Start by sorting the table by Views.

This helps identify your most frequently viewed articles and pages.

But don’t stop there.

Pay attention to average engagement time. A page attracting visitors but receiving limited engagement might need improvement.

For example, consider whether:

The introduction answers the reader’s question. The headings make information easy to find. The article provides enough practical detail. Related articles are linked naturally. The page works properly on mobile devices. Low engagement doesn’t automatically mean an article is poor. Sometimes visitors find their answers quickly.

Use the report to identify questions worth investigating, not to judge an article based on one metric.

You can also search for a specific page or apply a filter to examine its performance.

4. Landing Page Report: See Which Pages Bring People Into Your Website Question it answers: Where do visitors start their sessions?

The Landing page report is different from Pages and screens.

Pages and screens shows the content visitors viewed throughout their sessions.

The Landing page report identifies the first page they reached when starting a session.

Find it under Reports → Engagement → Landing page.

Imagine someone searches Google for a WordPress tutorial and lands directly on your blog post.

That article is their landing page, even if they never visit your homepage.

This matters because individual articles can serve as entry points to your entire website.

When reviewing the report, look at:

Which pages receive the most landing sessions. Whether visitors engage after arriving. Whether those sessions lead to important actions. For blog owners, strong landing pages are opportunities to improve internal linking and guide readers toward related resources.

If a page attracts visitors but doesn’t encourage further exploration, consider adding a relevant next step rather than simply trying to increase its traffic.

5. Events Report: Understand What Visitors Actually Do Question it answers: What actions are people taking on my website?

Website traffic tells you that people arrived. Events help explain what happened next.

Go to Reports → Engagement → Events.

GA4 automatically collects certain events, including page_view and session_start.

Depending on your enhanced measurement settings, you may also collect events such as scroll and outbound click.

Not every button click or form submission is automatically tracked. Some interactions require additional configuration.

The Events report shows how often each collected event occurred and how many users triggered it.

What are key events? A key event is an action that matters to your website’s goals.

For example:

A visitor successfully submits a contact form. Someone registers for a webinar. A customer completes a purchase. A reader completes a newsletter subscription. To measure these actions, you must first ensure the appropriate event is collected. Then you can mark it as a key event.

Avoid marking every event as important.

A page_view can tell you that a page loaded, but a verified generate_lead event may tell you something more meaningful about your website’s performance.

Google’s key events guide explains how these measurements work.

The First Three Website KPIs I Recommend Tracking Once you’re familiar with these reports, you don’t need to monitor every GA4 metric.

For a growing website, I recommend starting with three:

1. Active users

This helps you understand how many people are interacting with your website over time.

2. Organic Search sessions

This shows how much website traffic comes from unpaid search results. It’s especially useful when you’re investing time in SEO and publishing helpful content.

3. Key events

This measures whether visitors complete actions that support your website’s goals.

If you haven’t configured meaningful key events yet, start by reviewing engaged sessions while you work on event tracking.

Compare these metrics over consistent periods, such as the last 28 days versus the previous 28 days.

Look for patterns instead of reacting to every daily increase or decrease.

Google Analytics 4 vs. Google Search Console: What’s the Difference? GA4 and Google Search Console are useful together, but they answer different questions.

Learning how to track website traffic becomes easier when you use GA4 and Google Search Console together.

Google Search Console helps you understand how your website performs in Google Search, including impressions, clicks, search queries, and indexing.

Google Analytics 4 focuses on the activity measured after visitors reach your website, including sessions, engagement, and events.

For example, Search Console might show which keywords helped someone discover your article. GA4 can help you understand what visitors did after arriving.

If you haven’t connected Search Console, follow my step-by-step Google Search Console setup guide.

Using both tools gives you a more complete picture of your website’s search visibility and visitor behavior.

Common GA4 Problems Beginners Should Know No website traffic appears

Confirm you’ve selected the correct GA4 property and installed the Google tag. Test your website in Realtime. New tracking installations can take time to begin collecting data.

A report is missing

GA4 navigation can vary depending on the property’s reporting collections. Some reports aren’t visible by default. Users with sufficient permissions can customize the report navigation.

Traffic appears as Direct

Direct traffic doesn’t always mean someone manually typed your website address. Missing referral information, untagged campaigns, and other attribution limitations can also produce Direct traffic.

GA4 and Search Console show different numbers

These platforms use different measurements and reporting methods. Search clicks aren’t the same as GA4 sessions, so their totals won’t always match.

Your website gets traffic but isn’t growing in search

Review both your analytics and technical SEO setup. My SEO checklist for a new website covers indexing, internal links, and other fundamentals worth checking.

How to Track Website Traffic With Confidence Learning how to track website traffic doesn’t require mastering every feature in Google Analytics 4.

Start with five reports: Realtime, Traffic acquisition, Pages and screens, Landing page, and Events.

Together, they help you understand where visitors come from, what content they view, and whether they’re taking meaningful actions.

The most important part isn’t collecting more numbers. It’s learning to ask better questions about what those numbers mean.

If you’re managing a blog or business website, open GA4 today and choose three metrics to review regularly. Use what you learn to improve your content and create a better experience for your visitors.

Originally published on SubashKafle.com.

Written by Subash Kafle, sharing practical insights on SEO, WordPress, analytics, and digital marketing.

October 14, 2026·8 min read·By Subash Kafle

KEY TAKEAWAY

Set up Google Search Console early to help Google discover your website, identify indexing issues, and understand your search visibility.

Building a new website is exciting. You choose a domain, design your pages, publish your content, and finally make everything live.

But there’s an important question worth asking after launching your website: Can Google find your pages, and how will you know if people are discovering them through search?

That’s where Google Search Console comes in.

If you’re new to SEO, the setup might look a little technical at first. You’ll see terms like domain verification, DNS records, XML sitemaps, and indexing. Fortunately, you don’t need to be a developer to understand them.

In this guide, I’ll explain how to set up Google Search Console for a new website, verify ownership, submit a sitemap, and start checking your website’s search performance.

What Is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free tool that helps website owners understand how their websites appear in Google Search.

It provides information about:

• Which search queries bring people to your website
• How often your pages appear in Google Search results
• How many people click through to your website
• Whether Google has indexed your important pages
• Problems that might prevent Google from accessing your content

You can also use it to inspect individual URLs and submit an XML sitemap.

One thing to understand is that Google Search Console doesn’t automatically improve your rankings. It helps you identify problems and opportunities so you can make better SEO decisions.

If you’ve recently launched a WordPress website, I recommend reviewing the basics in my SEO checklist for a new website before moving forward.

Step 1: Open Google Search Console

Start by visiting Google Search Console.

1. Click Start now.
2. Sign in using your Google account.
3. If you’re using Search Console for the first time, you’ll be prompted to add a property.
4. If you already have an account, open the property selector and choose Add property.

Google will ask whether you want to create a Domain property or a URL-prefix property.

Both options let you monitor your website, but they work differently.

Step 2: Choose Domain or URL-Prefix Property

This is one of the most important decisions during setup.

Option 1: Domain Property

A Domain property covers your entire domain, including different subdomains and HTTP or HTTPS versions.

For example, if your website is example.com, enter:

example.com

Don’t include https:// or www.

The advantage is that Google can combine search data from different versions of your domain into one property.

However, you’ll need access to your domain’s DNS settings to verify ownership.

My recommendation: If you own the domain and can manage its DNS records, choose a Domain property.

Option 2: URL-Prefix Property

A URL-prefix property monitors URLs that begin with the exact address you enter.

For example:

https://example.com/

This property doesn’t automatically include http://example.com/ or https://www.example.com/.

URL-prefix properties offer more verification methods, including HTML tags and HTML file uploads.

They’re useful if you don’t have access to DNS settings or want to monitor a specific section of your website.

Step 3: Verify Your Website Ownership

Google needs to confirm that you own or manage the website before giving you access to its private search data.

The verification process depends on the property type you selected.

Method 1: DNS Verification

If you selected a Domain property, Google will guide you through DNS verification.

Here’s how it generally works:

1. Select your Domain property in Search Console.
2. Copy the verification TXT record provided by Google.
3. Log in to the service that manages your domain’s DNS records.
4. Open the DNS management section.
5. Add a new TXT record using Google’s provided value.
6. Save the record and return to Search Console.
7. Click Verify.

For many DNS providers, the host or name field is @, although your provider might use a different format.

DNS changes aren’t always immediate. Google says verification records can sometimes take two or three days to become available.

If verification fails, double-check the record and try again later.

Important: Don’t delete the verification record after verification succeeds. Google may check it again.

For more details, Google’s website ownership verification guide explains the available methods.

Method 2: HTML Tag Verification

If you selected a URL-prefix property, you may be able to use an HTML verification tag.

Google provides a small piece of code that belongs in your homepage’s HTML <head> section.

You can add it through your website’s settings, an SEO plugin that supports verification, or direct access to your website’s code.

After saving the tag, return to Search Console and click Verify.

Make sure the tag remains on your website so Google can continue confirming ownership.

Step 4: Connect Google Search Console to WordPress

If your website uses WordPress, you have another convenient option: Google’s free Site Kit plugin.

Site Kit connects several Google services to WordPress and displays useful information inside your dashboard.

To install it:

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to Plugins → Add New.
3. Search for Site Kit by Google.
4. Click Install Now, then Activate.
5. Open Site Kit → Dashboard.
6. Sign in using your Google account.
7. Follow the instructions to verify ownership and connect Search Console.

Site Kit can connect an existing property or create a new URL-prefix property during setup.

If you already verified your website using a Domain property, you don’t need to repeat that process unnecessarily.

You can follow Google’s official Site Kit installation guide for detailed instructions.

Another option is Yoast SEO. For URL-prefix verification, go to Yoast SEO → Settings → Site connections and use the Google verification field.

You don’t need both plugins simply to verify ownership.

Step 5: Submit Your XML Sitemap

After verification, the next step is to help Google discover your website’s important pages.

An XML sitemap is a file containing URLs that you want search engines to know about.

For a WordPress website using Yoast SEO, the sitemap index is usually available at:

https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml

If you’re using WordPress’s built-in sitemap functionality without an SEO plugin replacing it, the default address is generally:

https://example.com/wp-sitemap.xml

Replace example.com with your actual domain.

Open the address in your browser first to confirm it works.

Then follow these steps:

1. Open Google Search Console.
2. Select your website property.
3. Under Indexing, click Sitemaps.
4. Find the Add a new sitemap field.
5. Enter your working sitemap URL, or its remaining path if the property address is already shown.
6. Click Submit.

Once Google processes the file, you’ll be able to review its status.

A successful submission means Google could read your sitemap. It doesn’t mean every page has been indexed.

Google may discover pages through internal links without a sitemap, but submitting one is a useful way to monitor discovery and processing issues.

Step 6: Check Whether Google Has Indexed Your Pages

Once your sitemap is submitted, you can inspect individual pages.

Google Search Console includes a feature called URL Inspection.

Here’s how to use it:

1. Copy the complete URL of a published page.
2. Paste it into the URL Inspection bar at the top of Search Console.
3. Wait for Google to display the inspection results.
4. Review whether the page is indexed or has any problems.

If a page isn’t indexed, you can select Test live URL to check whether Google can access its current version.

If the page is eligible, you can click Request Indexing.

Keep in mind that requesting indexing doesn’t guarantee Google will add the page to its search results.

You should also check the Page indexing report to understand which pages are indexed and why others might be excluded.

Step 7: Understand Your First Performance Reports

Once Google starts collecting search data, open Performance → Search results.

You’ll find four important metrics.

Total clicks: How many times people clicked through to your website from Google Search.

Total impressions: How often your website appeared in search results.

Average CTR: The percentage of impressions that resulted in clicks.

Average position: Your website’s average search result position across the searches included in the report.

For example, a page might receive impressions without getting many clicks. That could be a reason to review its search title, description, relevance, or ranking position.

You can also explore the Queries tab to see search terms associated with your website, and the Pages tab to identify which URLs receive search visibility.

For a new website, it may take several days before useful data starts appearing.

I prefer using these numbers to understand what readers are searching for rather than looking at traffic totals alone.

I shared more about that approach in my article on digital marketing career lessons, curiosity, and data.

Common Google Search Console Setup Problems

Even when you follow the instructions, a few things can go wrong.

Ownership verification failed: Check your DNS record or HTML tag. Make sure the verification value matches Google’s instructions.

Sitemap couldn’t be fetched: Open the sitemap URL directly. If it returns an error, check your sitemap settings, website accessibility, or caching configuration.

Pages aren’t appearing in Google: Use URL Inspection and check your Page indexing report. For WordPress, also review Settings → Reading and make sure the option to discourage search engines from indexing your public website isn’t selected.

No performance data yet: Give Google time to collect information. Also make sure you’re viewing the correct property.

These problems are common, especially when a website is new. Fix the underlying issue before repeatedly requesting indexing.

Final Thoughts

Setting up Google Search Console is one of the first things I recommend doing after launching a new website.

You don’t need advanced SEO knowledge to get started. Verify ownership, submit your sitemap, inspect your important pages, and begin reviewing your search data.

The real value comes after setup.

As you publish more useful content, Search Console can help you understand which topics Google associates with your website, which pages attract search interest, and where improvements might be needed.

If you haven’t connected your website yet, open Google Search Console and check your site’s search visibility today.

Originally published on SubashKafle.com.

Written by Subash Kafle, sharing practical insights on SEO, WordPress, analytics, and digital marketing.