How to setup Google Analytics 4 On Your Blog

Beginner’s guide on how to properly setup Google analytics 4 on your blog for tracking visitors traffic and activities on site.

Today, I’ll guide you through setting up Google analytics 4 and installing it on your website using Google Tag Manager, making sure you’re all set to leverage its powerful insights.

Setting up a new Google analytics 4 property is a crucial step, so let’s walk through the process.

By the end of this guide, you’ll be equipped to make the most out of this valuable tool and track your website’s performance like a pro

Benefits of Google analytics 4

Here are the benefits of Google analytics 4

1. Flexible Data Model: Google Analytics 4 introduces a new and flexible data model that empowers you to have complete control over the information you send to GA and how it appears in your reports. 

This enhanced flexibility allows for a more tailored analysis of your website’s performance.

2. Customization Options: With the latest version of Google Analytics 4, you get access to new customization options, enabling you to personalize the standard reports according to your specific needs. 

This level of customization helps you focus on the metrics that matter most to your business.

3. Automatic Tracking of User Actions: GA now automatically tracks crucial actions that visitors take on your website, such as scrolling behavior, interactions with embedded YouTube videos, clicks on outbound links, and more. 

This granular tracking provides deeper insights into user engagement and behavior.

4. Diverse Range of New Reports: Embrace the power of Google Analytics with an array of new reports that cater to different aspects of your website’s performance. 

These fresh perspectives help you gain a comprehensive understanding of your audience and their interactions with your digital presence.

5. Consolidated Reporting for Websites and Apps: If you have both a website and an app, Google Analytics allows you to consolidate data into a single set of reports. 

This unified view provides a holistic overview of your users’ activities across various platforms.

6. Built-in Machine Learning: The latest version of Google Analytics comes equipped with built-in machine learning capabilities. 

This intelligent technology drives automated insights, identifies trends, and even introduces new predictive metrics, enabling you to make data-driven decisions effortlessly.

How to setup google analytics 4 property

You have the option to use the ‘Setup Assistant,’ but based on my experience, starting from scratch proves to be less confusing and ensures a smoother process. 

Additionally, using the ‘Setup Assistant’ has been known to cause issues for some users. 

Therefore, let’s proceed by creating a brand new Google Analytics 4 (GA) property.

Follow these steps to set up your new GA property:

Instead of using the ‘Setup Assistant,’ click the ‘Create Property’ button located at the top of the page.

Start by providing a name for your new GA property. You can choose any name that suits your business, but for this demonstration, let’s call it ‘Shakeworldonline’.

Next, select the reporting time zone and currency that best aligns with your business needs.

Click ‘Next’ to proceed.

Optionally, you can provide some details about your business, but these fields are not mandatory. 

For now, we will click ‘Create’ at the bottom to skip this step.

Now, let’s create a data stream. A data stream is used to send data to Google Analytics.

Since we are tracking a blog, select the ‘Web’ option.

Enter the URL of your website and provide a name for the data stream.

Notice that the ‘Enhanced Measurement’ feature is enabled. This automatically tracks important actions on your website.

You can click the configuration icon to see what actions will be automatically tracked. If there are any actions you don’t want to track, you can disable them from this menu.

Once you’ve reviewed the settings, click ‘Close’ to return to the previous page.

Finally, click ‘Create Stream’ to complete the setup.

Your data stream has been successfully created.

Setup google analytics 4 with google tag manager

Now that we have the ‘Measurement ID’ copied from the top right corner, let’s add it to our website using Google Tag Manager.

If you aren’t already using Google Tag Manager on your website, now is a perfect opportunity to migrate your tracking code. 

Google Tag Manager simplifies the process of installing multiple tags on your website, and it also enables you to configure more advanced tracking without modifying any code directly on your website.

Let’s proceed with adding the ‘measurement ID’ to Google Tag Manager:

Head over to Google Tag Manager, and if you’re already using it on your website, you can simply add an additional tag to your container.

Create a new tag and name it ‘Google Analytics GA Page View’.

Select ‘GA Configuration’ as the tag type.

Now, paste the ‘measurement ID’ into the tag configuration.

We need to set a trigger for the tag. Let’s choose ‘All Pages,’ which will fire the tag on every page of our website.

Save the tag settings.

Click ‘Submit’ to publish the changes to your website.

Next, head back to your website and reload the page. This action will trigger the new tag, initiating data collection into your newly created GA property.

Overview of Google analytics 4 reports

To get started exploring the reports, we’ll use Google’s demo property. 

Let’s open the demo property to see the insights it offers.

On the left-hand side, you’ll find navigation to access different reports:

‘Home‘: This section provides a top-level summary of your website’s performance. It’s personalized and shows reports you’ve recently viewed, along with automated insights tailored to your data.

‘Reports’: Here, you can view pre-configured reports that offer valuable information about how people find your website, the pages they view, conversions, demographics, and device details.

‘Explore’: This allows you to create custom reports and visualize data in various ways, including tables, funnel visualizations, and more.

‘Advertising’: In this section, you’ll find dedicated attribution reports that reveal the relationship between your marketing channels and their impact on website conversions.

‘Configure’: Use this section to customize the data included in your reports. For example, you can configure conversions to suit your specific needs.

‘Admin’: Located at the bottom left corner, this section grants access to additional settings for your account and property management.

Let’s begin by selecting ‘Reports’, then ‘Acquisition’, followed by ‘Acquisition Overview’. 

These acquisition reports shed light on how users are finding your website. Moving down, you can explore how new users discover and engage with your site.

Next, let’s select ‘Engagement’ and then ‘Pages and Screens’. 

This insightful report displays the pages people are viewing on your website. 

The table shows pages based on their page title, sorted by the number of views (page views) by default.

Now, let’s refine the data by changing the default dimension. Select ‘Page Path’ instead, and this will show the pages based on their URLs. 

The report displays everything after your website’s domain, akin to the ‘All Pages’ report in Universal Analytics.

Moving on, choose ‘Demographics’, and then ‘Demographics Overview’. 

Here, you’ll gain a top-level summary of the people viewing your website, including their geographical location by country and city. 

Additionally, you’ll see their language preferences based on their device settings.

As you collect more data, I recommend taking the time to explore the various reports available in your Google Analytics property. 

This will provide deeper insights into your website’s performance and help you make data-driven decisions.

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