Top 11 Google Analytics Metrics to Track

Plenty of website owners have Google Analytics installed. Having the tool doesn’t answer the most important question, though: which Google Analytics metrics actually matter?

We’ve worked with a lot of WordPress site owners over the years, and the same pattern keeps coming up. Google Analytics is set up, the data is flowing, but it’s hard to know where to look first.

Google Analytics has no shortage of metrics. What’s often missing is clarity about which ones to watch.

In this post, we’ll walk you through which 11 Google Analytics metrics matter most, what each one tells you, and where to find it.

In This Article:

What is a Metric in Google Analytics?

In Google Analytics, a metric is a number, such as a count, total, average or rate. Sessions, views, engaged sessions and key events are all metrics.

A dimension is the attribute that number is broken down by, like the page, country or traffic source. Google Analytics reports pair the two, such as sessions by country.

That pairing is why several items on our list are reports where you read those numbers, rather than single metrics. For a tour of where each one lives, see our guide to Google Analytics reports.

Below, I’ll walk through my top 11 metrics to track. But first, if you’re on WordPress, here’s how to get your analytics set up without touching code.

Don’t have WordPress? Skip to the metrics.

How to Connect Google Analytics to WordPress

If you have a WordPress website, you can install and connect Google Analytics with MonsterInsights, the Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.

MonsterInsights connects Google Analytics to your site without code. It then shows straightforward reports about your traffic right inside WordPress.

Besides bringing key Google Analytics metrics into WordPress, MonsterInsights also tracks eCommerce stats, form submissions, link clicks, video plays and more.

Each of the 11 metrics below comes with a path to its report in MonsterInsights, so you can follow along in your own WordPress admin as you read.

The Publishers, Search Console and Landing Page reports used in this guide come with MonsterInsights Plus and higher plans. To compare what each plan includes, visit the MonsterInsights pricing page.

Once you’ve picked a plan, we walk through the setup step by step in our guide on how to add Google Analytics to WordPress.

The Top 11 Google Analytics Metrics for Websites

Each of the 11 Google Analytics metrics below comes with the steps to find it in Google Analytics. You’ll also see where to find many of the same numbers in the MonsterInsights reports inside WordPress, so you don’t have to open Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Metric #1. Overall Traffic and Traffic Sources

How many people visited your site in the last week?

How many of those people came to your site by clicking a link on Facebook or on another site?

Those are the kinds of questions you can answer with the Google Analytics traffic sources report. Not only will it give you the total traffic to your site, but it’ll also break it down by how those people found your site.

In MonsterInsights, go to Insights » Reports to open the Overview report. With the Traffic tab selected, the chart tracks Sessions, Engaged Sessions and Key Event Rate.

Below the chart, the Key Metrics card splits your sessions into organic, social, paid media, email, referral and direct traffic.

For traffic sources by channel, head to Insights » Reports » Traffic » Overview. Its Traffic Details table lists sessions and engaged sessions for each channel, plus purchases and revenue if you track eCommerce.

To access the traffic sources report in Google Analytics, go to Reports » Acquisition » Traffic acquisition. Here, you’ll see an overview report about how your traffic came to your site.

Scroll down to the table to see more specifics and metrics for each channel. Hover over a heading (Engaged sessions, for instance) for a helpful tooltip about what the metric means.

Google Analytics’ date comparison feature lets you compare your current traffic against the same period last year. Spotting seasonal patterns early helps you plan content and campaigns at the right time.

Google Analytics Metric #2. Audience Location

Whether your traffic is international or local, the Demographics report shows where your website visitors are located.

In MonsterInsights, the Overview report’s Demographics card lists your top countries under the Country toggle.

To drill down further, head to Insights » Reports » Publishers » Country Report. The table lists sessions, engaged sessions and bounce rate for each country or region, and you can click the arrow beside a country to expand it.

In Google Analytics, navigate to Reports » User attributes » Overview. The card at the top displays users by country, and the card beneath it shows users by city. Click View countries or View cities, depending on which one you need.

Once you know where your visitors are, you can decide which regions deserve their own content or a share of your ad budget.

Google Analytics Metric #3. Landing Pages

Which pages on your site are visitors landing on? The pages people enter your site on can tell you:

• Which pages search engines and social posts send people to first
• Which links people are clicking on from your social media profiles
• Which landing pages lead to the longest website visits
• What content resonates the most with your audience

In MonsterInsights, go to Insights » Reports » Traffic » Landing Page Details. The Top Landing Pages table shows sessions, engaged sessions and conversion rate for each page people land on first.

In Google Analytics, you’ll find a Landing page report under Reports » Engagement » Landing page.

We go deeper into this report in our guide to landing pages in Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Metric #4. Demographics

Google Analytics gives you demographic and interest reports on your visitors, like gender, age, and more. You can use that information to tailor your message to your audience and to decide who to target with Google Ads and social media.

These reports fill in only after you turn on Google signals, and Google may hide rows when user counts are low to protect privacy.

In MonsterInsights, go to Insights » Reports » Publishers » Overview and scroll to the Age and Gender cards. The Gender chart also shows an Unknown share alongside male and female visitors.

In Google Analytics, find your demographics reports, such as gender, interests, and age, under Reports » User attributes » Overview.

If the age or gender mix surprises you, check whether your content and ad targeting still speak to the people who visit your site.

Google Analytics Metric #5. Social Media Traffic

The social media traffic report is worth checking if you post on Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram or Pinterest. Is your social media traffic engaging with your content? Are those users viewing more than one page?

Are they completing any key events, such as purchases or sign-ups? Those answers tell you whether social media sends you readers or just clicks.

In MonsterInsights, the Overview report’s Top 10 Referrals card lists the sites sending you visitors, including social networks.

Or, head to Insights » Reports » Traffic » Social to see traffic metrics from each social network. The Social Networks table breaks down sessions, engaged sessions and bounce rate for Facebook, X (Twitter), Pinterest and more.

In Google Analytics, the Traffic acquisition report shows Organic Social as a single channel. To see each network side by side, you can build a free-form exploration filtered to that channel.

We walk through that exploration step by step in our guide to Google Analytics social media tracking.

Whichever route you take, compare engaged sessions across networks, not just raw visits. A smaller network that sends engaged readers could deserve more of your posting time.

Google Analytics Metric #6. Search Queries (Search Console)

When you connect Google Analytics with Search Console, you get reports about the Google searches that bring people to your site. Search Console shows which queries your pages rank for and which ones bring in clicks. That lets you focus your SEO on the keywords that matter.

For instance, do you see a query with a lot of impressions but not many clicks, which means a low click-through rate (CTR)? Search that keyword in Google to see what the pages ranking above you cover that yours doesn’t.

When I analyze Search Console data in MonsterInsights, the high-impression, low-CTR queries are the first ones I look at.

In MonsterInsights, open the Search Console report from Insights » Reports. The Top 50 Google Search Terms table lists the clicks, impressions, CTR and average position for each search term.

In Google Analytics, the link adds two Search Console reports: Google organic search queries and Google organic search traffic. Both are unpublished by default, so you need to publish the Search Console collection from the Library first.

You’ll find the same query data directly in Search Console, too. To get there, go to Google Search Console and sign in with your account.

Then click Performance » Search results in the left-hand menu. Here, you can see a graph of your total clicks, impressions, average CTR, and average position.

Now, scroll down to see the Queries table. It shows the top Google search keywords people use to find your website. You can also click over to Pages, Countries, Devices, Search appearance, or Dates to see your search data in different ways.

Queries with plenty of impressions but an average position just off page one are worth a closer look, too. A stronger title or content that matches the search more closely could help those pages climb.

Our Search Console SEO guide has more ways to put this data to work.

Google Analytics Metric #7. Key Events (Conversions)

What’s the goal, or goals, of your website? Is it to get prospects to contact you, or for customers to buy a product? Or maybe it’s for users to read posts and click ads?

Whatever your specific goals are, you can track them in Google Analytics. Google Analytics calls the actions that count toward those goals key events.

Apart from purchase, which Google Analytics marks as a key event by default, you choose your own key events, because every site’s goals are different.

In Google Analytics, click the Admin gear, then Data display » Events. Find the event on the Recent events tab and click the star icon next to it to mark it as a key event.

Your key events now show up in reports such as Reports » Acquisition » Traffic acquisition, where the Key events column breaks them down by channel.

We walk through tracking key events with MonsterInsights in our guide to conversion tracking in WordPress.

Google Analytics Metric #8. New vs. Returning Visitors

New vs. returning visitors is a simple metric that shows whether people come back after their first visit. Comparing the two shows whether you’re attracting the right kind of visitors.

If you sell products, a site where almost every visitor is new could mean past customers aren’t coming back for a second purchase.

In MonsterInsights, open the Overview report’s Demographics card and select New vs Returning. The table compares sessions and engagement for new and returning visitors.

In Google Analytics, find New users and Returning users in the Reports » Retention report.

If returning visitors are only a small slice of your traffic, a newsletter or a regular publishing schedule could give people a reason to come back.

Google Analytics Metric #9. Average Engagement Time

Engagement is one of the most important things to measure in Google Analytics. It shows whether visitors find what they’re looking for on your site and stay to read it.

You can find several user engagement metrics in Google Analytics, but we’ll focus on overall average engagement time and engagement time per page.

Average engagement time shows how long, on average, each active user had your site open and in focus. Time spent in a background tab doesn’t count.

In practice, average engagement time is one of the first metrics I check when analyzing a site’s content performance. It quickly separates the pages that hold readers’ attention from the ones they leave early.

In MonsterInsights, select the Engagement tab on the Overview report, where the Key Metrics card shows Session Duration and Engagement Rate. For page-level numbers, Insights » Reports » Publishers » Overview lists Avg. Duration for each top landing page.

In Google Analytics, you can find average engagement time under Reports » Engagement » Engagement overview.

To find your average engagement time per page, navigate to Reports » Engagement » Pages and screens, then scroll to the table. Depending on your screen size, you might have to scroll the table to the right a little bit to find the Average engagement time column.

If a few pages sit far below your site-wide average, those are the ones to work on first.

Google Analytics Metric #10. Views (Pageviews)

The Pages and screens report in Google Analytics lists every page on your site and how many views it got, plus other engagement metrics. While the Landing page report shows where people entered your site, the Pages and screens report counts all views.

So, no matter how a person gets to your site, what are the top pages that person might visit next? What content are visitors finding once they get to your site?

On their own, views can turn into one of the website vanity metrics that waste your time. Next to engagement time, though, they show which popular pages hold readers’ attention.

In MonsterInsights, open Insights » Reports » Publishers » Pages Report. Its Page Views column counts every view of each page, and the View All Pages link opens the full list.

In Google Analytics, find the pages report under Reports » Engagement » Pages and screens. Scroll down to the table to see each page’s views for the date range you selected.

Your most-viewed pages are a natural home for your calls to action, especially the ones that also hold readers’ attention.

Google Analytics Metric #11. Mobile Devices

The device reports in Google Analytics show which phones, tablets and computers people use to visit your site. If a large share of your visitors browse on phones, a layout problem on one device can cost you engagement without you noticing.

These reports can point to a problem with a certain device. If one device type has much lower engagement time than the others, it’s worth testing your site on that device.

In MonsterInsights, the Overview report’s Devices card has Browser, OS and Size views. The Size view compares sessions and engagement for desktop, mobile and tablet visitors.

For a fuller breakdown, Insights » Reports » Traffic » Technology shows a Device Breakdown and a Browser Breakdown side by side.

In Google Analytics, find mobile devices under Reports » Tech » Overview. Scroll all the way to the bottom to find the Users by Device model card. Click View device models to see the full report.

In the table on the next page, you’ll find information for each device model that visited your site. Desktop visits often appear under a browser name, such as Chrome or Safari, rather than a hardware model.

Check these eleven numbers on a regular schedule, and you can spot problems while they’re still small. That could be a traffic source going quiet, or a page that loses readers on one device.

Video Tutorial: Top Google Analytics Metrics for Your Website

In the video below, we walk through the top Google Analytics metrics and where to find each one.

FAQs: Important Google Analytics Metrics

If you’re not sure where to start, begin with the metrics tied to your main goal, such as sales or sign-ups. I hope this article helped you understand the most important Google Analytics metrics to track. If you liked this article, check out the following beginner-friendly guides:

• Top eCommerce Metrics & KPIs to Track in Google Analytics 4
• Content Marketing Metrics That Matter the Most
• SEO Analytics and Reporting Tips to Boost Organic Traffic
• Best Ways to Measure SEO Performance in Google Analytics
• Best PPC Metrics & KPIs to Track
• Google Analytics for Beginners: How It Works + How to Use It

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