Google Analytics Basics: 3 Metrics Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Google Analytics (GA4) is an extremely powerful tool, but the amount of data and graphs can easily be daunting for a beginner. The good news is you don't need to know every menu item to gain valuable insights into your website's performance. To start, it's enough to get familiar with three basic metrics that help understand your visitors.

1. Users

What does it mean? This number shows how many unique visitors visited your website in a given period. If a person visits your site multiple times, Analytics (using cookies) tries to count them as one user.

Why is it important? This is the simplest measure of your website's popularity. If your marketing campaigns are successful, this number should grow. It's also worth watching the "New Users" count, which shows how many completely new visitors you managed to attract.

2. Sessions

What does it mean? A session is the user's active period on your website. By default, a session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity or at midnight. If someone browses your site in the morning and returns in the evening, that's one user but two separate sessions.

Why is it important? The number of sessions is always higher than users. The "Sessions per User" ratio shows how "sticky" your site is, i.e., whether your visitors return. A high ratio (e.g., above 1.5) indicates that your content is interesting and your visitors are loyal.

3. Engagement Rate

What does it mean? This is one of GA4's most important innovations. A session counts as "engaged" if it lasted at least 10 seconds, OR at least one conversion event happened, OR at least 2 page views occurred. The engagement rate is the percentage of engaged sessions compared to all sessions.

Why is it important? This metric is the successor to the old "bounce rate", but says much more. It doesn't just look at whether someone left after one page, but also whether they interacted with the content. A high (e.g., above 60-70%) engagement rate indicates that your visitors find your site relevant and interesting.

Tip: Don't just look at aggregated data! Break down your traffic by source (e.g., Google, Facebook, Newsletter). This reveals which channel brings the most engaged visitors.

Summary

If you check these three metrics regularly, at least once a month, and think about the reasons for changes, you will be able to develop your website and marketing much more consciously. Start with this, and as you become more confident, dive deeper into the world of Analytics!