Garbage in, garbage out
Decisions are only as good as your data. Set analytics up deliberately:
- GA4 — install once (via a tag manager or your platform), then define key events (conversions): form submits, bookings, purchases, calls. Default pageviews aren't enough.
- Mark conversions explicitly so reports show outcomes, not just traffic.
- Filter internal traffic (your team, your office IP) so it doesn't skew data.
- Respect privacy — consent where required, and don't send personal info into analytics.
Exact steps: mark a conversion in GA4
- In GA4, click Admin (the gear, bottom-left).
- Under Data display, open Events.
- Find the event that represents a lead — for example generate_lead or form_submit.
- Toggle Mark as key event on. (Key events are GA4's term for conversions.)
- Confirm it fires: open Reports → Realtime, submit a test form on your site, and watch the event appear.
Pair with Search Console
GA4 tells you what happens on your site; Search Console tells you how you get there from Google — the queries, impressions, click-through rate, and average position. Together they're the core SEO feedback loop. To link them: in GA4 go to Admin → Product links → Search Console links → Link, pick your verified property, and finish the wizard — query data then flows into GA4's Search Console reports.
Sanity-check it
After setup, run a test conversion and confirm it lands. Mismatched or double-counted events quietly corrupt months of decisions — verify before you trust.