Measuring your website success with web analytics (beginner's guide)
Discover how to use web analytics to measure your website performance. Complete beginner's guide with concrete examples and practical tips to optimize your results.
You have a website, but do you really know if it's performing well? Google Analytics is the essential free tool to measure your online presence success and make informed decisions for your business.
In this comprehensive guide, you'll discover how to install, configure, and use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to transform your raw data into concrete actions that will boost your website performance.
Why use Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is much more than a simple visit counter. It's a complete analysis tool that reveals how your visitors interact with your website, where they come from, what interests them, and most importantly: what makes them convert or leave.
Concrete benefits of Google Analytics:
•Understand your audience: who visits your site, where they come from, what their interests are
•Measure your performance: most popular pages, time spent, bounce rate
•Optimize your investments: which marketing channel generates the most conversions
•Identify problems: pages that make visitors leave, technical errors
•Make data-driven decisions: based on facts, not intuitions
Google Analytics 4: what's new?
Since July 2023, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has replaced Universal Analytics. This new version focuses on events and user journeys rather than just page views.
Key differences with the old version:
•Event-based tracking: every interaction is an event (page view, click, scroll...)
•Cross-platform tracking: website + mobile app in one interface
•Enhanced privacy: compliant with GDPR and modern privacy regulations
•Machine learning: automatic insights and predictive analytics
•Better integration: seamless connection with Google Ads and other Google tools
Installing Google Analytics on your website
Installation is simpler than you think. Follow this step-by-step guide to get started in less than 10 minutes.
Step 1: Create your Google Analytics account
1.Go to analytics.google.com
2.Click "Start measuring"
3.Enter your account name (your business name)
4.Choose data sharing settings (recommended: keep default settings)
5.Click "Next"
Step 2: Configure your property
1.Enter your property name (your website name)
2.Choose your time zone and currency
3.Click "Next"
4.Select your business category and size
5.Choose your business objectives (you can select multiple)
6.Click "Create"
Step 3: Add the tracking code
1.Choose "Web" as your platform
2.Enter your website URL
3.Name your data stream
4.Copy the provided tracking code (gtag)
5.Paste it in the `<head>` section of every page on your site
Practical tip: if you use WordPress, install the "Site Kit by Google" plugin for automatic installation without touching code.
Step 4: Verify installation
1.Wait 24-48 hours for data collection to start
2.Go to Reports > Real-time
3.Visit your website in another tab
4.Check if your visit appears in real-time
5.If yes: congratulations, it works! If no: check your tracking code
The 5 essential reports you must know
Google Analytics offers dozens of reports. Here are the 5 most important ones to monitor your website performance.
1. Acquisition report
Where to find it: Reports > Life cycle > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition
This report shows where your visitors come from. Essential for understanding which marketing channels work best.
| Traffic source | Description |
|---|---|
| Organic Search | visitors from search engines (Google, Bing) |
| Direct | visitors typing your URL directly or using bookmarks |
| Referral | visitors from other websites (inbound links) |
| Social | visitors from social networks |
| Paid Search | visitors from your paid advertising campaigns |
| visitors from your email campaigns (if tracked) |
Practical tip: if organic search represents less than 40% of your traffic, you need to work on your SEO. If direct traffic is very low, work on your brand awareness.
2. Engagement report
Where to find it: Reports > Life cycle > Engagement > Pages and screens
Discover which content performs best on your site.
| Page metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Most viewed pages | your star content that attracts the most visitors |
| Average engagement time | pages where visitors stay the longest |
| Exit rate | pages where visitors leave your site most often |
| Events per page | interactions (clicks, downloads) per page |
Practical tip: pages with high traffic but high exit rate need optimization. Add internal links, related content, or clear calls-to-action.
3. Real-time report
Where to find it: Reports > Real-time
See what's happening on your site right now. Perfect for:
•Testing changes: verify that your modifications work
•Monitoring campaigns: track the immediate impact of a marketing action
•Managing crises: quickly detect traffic spikes or technical problems
•Live events: monitor engagement during webinars, product launches...
Practical tip: use real-time during your marketing campaigns to adjust your strategy in real-time based on initial results.
4. Demographics report
Where to find it: Reports > User > Demographics > Overview
Understand who your visitors are:
| Demographic data | Description |
|---|---|
| Age and gender | Demographic profile of your audience |
| Interests | Interest categories of your visitors according to Google |
| Detailed geolocation | Countries, regions, main cities |
| Language | Preferred languages of your visitors |
Practical tip: adapt your content and offers according to your audience profile. If 60% of your visitors are 25-34 years old, your communication should reflect this age group.
5. Technology report
Where to find it: Reports > User > Technology > Overview
Technical information about your visitors:
| Technical information | Description |
|---|---|
| Devices | Desktop vs mobile vs tablet |
| Browsers | Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge... |
| Operating systems | Windows, macOS, Android, iOS... |
| Screen resolutions | Most common screen sizes |
Practical tip: if more than 60% of your traffic is mobile, your site MUST be perfectly optimized mobile-first.
Setting up conversions and goals
Measuring traffic is good, but measuring conversions is better! Conversions are the important actions you want your visitors to accomplish.
Common conversion types:
•E-commerce: purchases, cart additions, checkout initiation
•Lead generation: contact forms, quote requests
•Engagement: resource downloads, newsletter signups
•Micro-conversions: time spent on page, deep scroll, external link clicks
How to set up a simple conversion
Example: contact form
1.Go to Admin > Events
2.Click Create event
3.Name your event: "contact_form_submit"
4.Set the condition: destination page = "/thank-you" (page after submission)
5.Enable "Mark as conversion"
6.Save
Practical tip: start with 2-3 main conversions. Too many goals dilute your focus and complicate analysis.
Interpreting your data: best practices
Having data is good, knowing how to interpret it is better. Here's how to intelligently analyze your metrics.
Define your benchmarks
"Good" metrics depend on your industry, but here are general benchmarks:
| Performance metric | Business site | E-commerce | Blog/Media |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bounce rate | 40 - 60 % | 20 - 45 % | 65 - 90 % |
| Session duration | 2 - 4 min | 2 - 3 min | 2 - 6 min |
| Pages per session | 2 - 4 | 3 - 5 | 1.5 - 3 |
| Conversion rate | 2 - 5 % | 1 - 3 % | 0.5 - 2 % |
Important: these are indicative ranges. A "good" metric is above all one that improves over time for YOUR specific context.
Avoid common analysis errors
Here are the 5 most frequent mistakes beginners make when interpreting their Google Analytics data:
Error 1: Analyzing too short a period
The mistake: drawing conclusions from 1 week of data
The solution: always analyze at least 30 days, ideally 90 days for reliable trends
Why: web traffic naturally fluctuates (weekends, holidays, seasonality)
Error 2: Ignoring mobile vs desktop differences
The mistake: analyzing global metrics without segmenting by device
The solution: always compare mobile and desktop performance
Why: user behavior differs significantly between devices
Error 3: Confusing correlation and causation
The mistake: "Traffic increased, so the new design works"
The solution: isolate variables and test one change at a time
Why: multiple factors can influence your results simultaneously
Error 4: Focusing only on vanity metrics
The mistake: celebrating page views without checking conversions
The solution: prioritize metrics that impact your business goals
Why: 10,000 visitors who don't convert are less valuable than 1,000 who do
Error 5: Not setting up proper tracking
The mistake: forgetting to exclude internal traffic or track external campaigns
The solution: configure filters and UTM parameters from the start
Why: polluted data leads to wrong decisions
Pro tip: find your IP address at whatismyipaddress.com and exclude it from your Analytics to avoid counting your own visits.
Going further: advanced tips
Once you master the basics, here are some advanced techniques to get even more value from your data.
Custom segments for precise analysis
Segments allow you to analyze specific portions of your traffic. Examples of useful segments:
•Mobile users from organic search: understand your mobile SEO performance
•Returning visitors: analyze loyalty and engagement of your regular audience
•High-value users: visitors who spend more than 5 minutes or view more than 3 pages
•Converters vs non-converters: identify behavioral differences
UTM tracking for campaigns
UTM parameters help you precisely track your marketing campaigns. Essential structure:
Example URL: `https://yoursite.com?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=summer2025`
•utm_source: traffic source (facebook, google, newsletter...)
•utm_medium: channel type (social, email, cpc...)
•utm_campaign: specific campaign name
•utm_content: (optional) ad variant
•utm_term: (optional) target keyword
Tool: use Google's Campaign URL Builder to create your UTM links without errors.
Automated alerts for monitoring
Set up custom alerts to be notified of significant changes:
1.Go to Admin > Custom Alerts
2.Click New Alert
3.Configure conditions (example: "Alert me if traffic drops by more than 25% compared to the previous week")
4.Choose notification frequency
5.Add email recipients
Recommended alerts:
•Traffic drop > 25%
•Bounce rate increase > 20%
•Conversion rate drop > 30%
•404 errors spike
Conclusion: from data to action
Google Analytics is a powerful tool, but it's only valuable if you use the data to improve your website. Here's your action plan:
Your 30-day action plan
Week 1: Install and configure
•Set up Google Analytics on your site
•Configure your main conversions
•Exclude your internal traffic
Week 2: Learn the basics
•Explore the 5 essential reports
•Identify your main traffic sources
•Note your current performance benchmarks
Week 3: Analyze and understand
•Identify your best and worst performing pages
•Understand your audience profile
•Spot technical issues (mobile, browsers...)
Week 4: Optimize and test
•Improve pages with high exit rates
•Test changes on your least performing content
•Set up UTM tracking for your campaigns
Key takeaways
✅ Google Analytics is essential but only if you use it regularly
✅ Focus on metrics that matter for your business goals
✅ Analyze trends over time, not isolated snapshots
✅ Segment your data to get actionable insights
✅ Test and measure every change you make
✅ Set up tracking properly from the start to avoid data issues
Remember: the best analytics setup is the one you actually use. Start simple, be consistent, and gradually add complexity as you become more comfortable with the tool.
Your website's success depends not just on attracting visitors, but on understanding them, engaging them, and converting them. Google Analytics gives you the keys to this understanding – now it's up to you to use them wisely.