Module 2: Google Analytics 4 — setup and basics
GA4 is free and, once configured, answers "what are visitors doing on my site." This module gets it installed correctly and teaches the three reports you'll actually use.
Installing GA4 correctly
Verify with Google's Tag Assistant (free Chrome extension): visit your site and confirm the tag fires on every page. Then, inside GA4, go to Admin → Data Streams → your stream, and enable "Enhanced measurement" — this automatically tracks scrolls, outbound clicks, file downloads, and video engagement with zero extra setup.
Critical: exclude your own visits. In Admin → Data Settings → Data Filters, create an internal-traffic filter for your office and home IP addresses (search "what is my IP" to find them). Nothing corrupts small-business analytics faster than the owner's own daily visits counting as traffic.
One more check: visit your site on your phone (not wifi — use mobile data so your IP filter doesn't hide you) and confirm Tag Assistant shows the tag firing there too. Mobile is usually 60%+ of small-business traffic, and a tag that only works on desktop is a tag that's lying to you about most of your visitors. Ten minutes of verification now saves months of decisions made on broken data.
Install it right
GA4 setup in numbers
Installing GA4 and calling it done. The default install tracks pageviews and nothing else — no conversions, no meaningful events. Until you mark your conversion actions as key events, GA4 is a very pretty traffic counter that can't tell you what works.
Build brief
Where does most of your website traffic come from today — and how sure are you about that answer?
Saved
The three reports you'll actually use
GA4 has dozens of reports; you need three. Traffic acquisition (Reports → Acquisition): where visitors come from — organic search, direct, social, referral, paid. This answers "which channels bring people." Pages and screens (Reports → Engagement): which pages get viewed and for how long. This answers "what content works." Conversions/events: which actions visitors take (we'll configure these in Module 5).
For each report, learn the date comparison: set the range to "last 30 days" and compare to the previous period. Direction matters more than absolute numbers — is organic search growing month over month? Did the new landing page lift the conversion rate? Comparisons turn data into narrative.
Bookmark these three reports in your browser. If opening GA4 ever feels overwhelming, close everything except the bookmarked three. Depth is for analysts; direction is for owners.
The three reports you'll actually use
Traffic acquisition
- Where visitors come from — organic search, direct, social, referral, paid
- Answers: which channels bring people
Pages and screens
- Which pages get viewed and for how long
- Answers: what content works
Conversions/events
- Which actions visitors take
Build brief
What is one question about your visitors you wish you could answer but currently cannot?
Saved
Linking Search Console and setting data retention
Two admin tasks that pay off forever. First, link Google Search Console to GA4 (Admin → Product Links → Search Console links). This merges your search-query data into GA4's reports, so you can see which Google searches brought visitors to which pages — the single most useful view for content decisions.
Second, fix data retention: Admin → Data Settings → Data Retention → set to 14 months (the maximum). The default is 2 months, which means GA4 quietly deletes your detailed historical data. For a small business comparing this quarter to last quarter, 14 months is the difference between useful and useless history.
While you're in admin, add any team members who need access (Admin → Access Management) with the minimum role they need — Analyst for viewers, Editor only for whoever configures things. Never share the login itself; Google accounts are free.
Why does the Search Console link matter so much? Because GA4 alone tells you that organic traffic arrived, but not why. The linked queries show you the exact phrases people typed — "emergency plumber near me" vs. "how to fix a leaky faucet" — and those phrases tell you whether you're attracting buyers or browsers. That distinction drives every content decision you'll make in this course.
Set it to the max
Data retention
GA4 SETUP CHECKLIST
□ Property created, data stream added
□ Data retention set to 14 months
□ Conversion actions marked as key events
□ Search Console linked
□ Internal traffic filtered out
□ Test: visit site, confirm events fire in Realtime report
Install GA4 on your site and set data retention to 14 months. Even before you configure conversions, the clock starts ticking on historical data — every day you wait is a day of history you'll never get back.
Why filter out your own IP addresses in GA4?