What to Track in Google Analytics: The Only 5 Metrics Small Businesses Need

You opened Google Analytics. You saw dozens of reports, hundreds of metrics, and a dashboard full of numbers.

You closed it and never looked again.

This is what happens to most small business owners. They know they should track website performance, but Google Analytics (especially GA4, the current version) feels impossibly complicated.

Here's the truth: 95% of those metrics don't matter for your business.

For a typical small business website, you don't need to track sessions, pageviews, session duration, bounce rate, demographics, technology reports, and 50 other data points. You just need to know:

1. Where visitors come from
2. What they do on your site
3. Whether they're becoming customers

That's it. Everything else is noise.

In this guide, we'll walk through the only 5 metrics you actually need to track in Google Analytics—what they mean, where to find them, and what to do with the information. By the end, you'll have a simple monthly routine that takes 15 minutes and tells you everything you need to know.

Why Most Businesses Track Too Much (And Learn Nothing)

Let's talk about why Google Analytics feels overwhelming.

The problem: GA4 was designed for enterprise companies with data analysts. It tracks everything possible because someone somewhere might need that information.

But you're not Google or Amazon. You don't have a team analyzing micro-conversions and user cohorts. You're a small business owner trying to figure out if your website is working.

What happens when you track too much:

1. Analysis paralysis - You don't know which numbers matter, so you look at nothing
2. Wasted time - You spend hours exploring reports instead of running your business
3. Wrong decisions - You optimize for vanity metrics (pageviews, time on site) instead of business results

The better approach: Track the 5 metrics that directly connect to revenue and business growth. Ignore everything else.

The 5 Metrics That Actually Matter

Here's your complete tracking list:

1. Traffic Sources - Where your visitors come from
2. Conversions - What actions visitors take (form submissions, calls, purchases)
3. Engagement Rate - Whether people are actually reading your content
4. Top Pages - Which content attracts and converts visitors
5. Conversion Path - How people move through your site before converting

Let's break down each one with screenshots and action steps.

Metric 1: Traffic Sources (Where Visitors Come From)

Why it matters: You need to know which marketing channels are working so you can invest more in what's effective and stop wasting money on what isn't.

How to Find It in GA4

1. Log into Google Analytics (analytics.google.com)
2. Go to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition
3. Look at the table showing different channels

You'll see traffic broken down by:

• Organic Search - Google/Bing search results
• Direct - People typing your URL directly or using bookmarks
• Referral - Links from other websites
• Social - Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
• Paid Search - Google Ads or other PPC
• Email - Email marketing campaigns
• Unassigned - Unknown sources

What Good Looks Like

For most small businesses, healthy distribution looks like:

• Organic Search: 30-50% (shows good SEO)
• Direct: 20-30% (shows brand awareness)
• Referral: 5-15% (shows links and partnerships)
• Social: 5-15% (depends on your social media effort)
• Paid Search: Varies based on ad spend
• Email: Varies based on email marketing

Warning signs:

• Over 60% Direct traffic (probably tracking problem or very limited reach)
• Under 10% Organic Search (SEO issues or new website)
• All traffic from one source (risky—what if that channel disappears?)

Action Steps Based on Your Data

If Organic Search is low (<20%):

• Your website needs SEO work
• Check if pages are indexed in Google Search Console
• Read our Local SEO Guide
• Consider investing in content and on-page optimization

If Direct traffic is very high (>60%):

• You may have a tracking issue (some traffic being misattributed)
• Check if Google Analytics is installed correctly on all pages
• Verify that UTM parameters are being used in campaigns

If Social traffic is lower than expected:

• Double-check that you're sharing website content regularly
• Ensure links in social profiles point to your website
• Consider whether social is actually valuable for your business type

If you have no Referral traffic:

• Work on getting listed in directories (Yelp, industry associations)
• Pursue partnerships that link to your site
• Create shareable content that other sites want to link to

For help improving traffic, see our guide on why your website isn't generating leads.

Metric 2: Conversions/Key Events (What Visitors Do)

Why it matters: Traffic means nothing if visitors don't take action. Conversions show whether your website is actually generating business results.

How to Set Up Conversion Tracking

Before you can track conversions, you need to define what counts as a conversion for your business.

Common conversions for small businesses:

• Contact form submissions
• Phone calls (tracked via call tracking software)
• Email signups
• Quote requests
• Online purchases
• Booking appointments
• Downloads (brochures, catalogs, etc.)

Setting up a conversion in GA4:

1. Go to Admin → Events
2. Click Create event or mark existing events as conversions
3. Common events that GA4 tracks automatically:
   • form_submit (when someone submits a form)
   • click (for specific button tracking)
   • page_view (for thank-you page visits)

If your website doesn't automatically send these events, you'll need to add code or use Google Tag Manager. Most modern websites (WordPress, Shopify, Webflow) have plugins that make this easy.

What to Track as Conversions

Don't track everything. Only mark events as conversions if they represent real business value.

Good conversions:

• Contact form submitted
• "Call Now" button clicked (on mobile)
• Purchase completed
• Appointment booked

Not conversions:

• Newsletter signup (unless this is your primary goal)
• Clicking social media icons
• Downloading a PDF (unless it's a lead magnet)
• Watching a video

The test: If someone does this action, would you count them as a lead? If no, it's not a conversion.

Interpreting Your Conversion Data

To view conversions:

1. Go to Reports → Engagement → Conversions
2. Look at conversion count and conversion rate

What good looks like:

• Service businesses: 2-5% conversion rate is solid, 5%+ is excellent
• E-commerce: 2-3% conversion rate is average, 3-5% is good
• Lead generation sites: 3-5% is healthy

If your conversion rate is under 1%, you have a problem. Read our article on why your website isn't generating leads to diagnose issues.

Action steps:

If conversion rate is low:

• Make your call to action more prominent
• Simplify your contact form (fewer fields = more submissions)
• Add trust signals (testimonials, reviews, certifications)
• Test your forms to ensure they actually work
• Check mobile experience (many forms break on phones)

Read our guide on contact form best practices for detailed optimization tips.

If conversion rate is good but volume is low:

• You don't have a conversion problem, you have a traffic problem
• Focus on SEO, content marketing, or paid advertising to drive more visitors
• Ensure you're targeting the right audience

Metric 3: Engagement Rate (Are People Actually Reading?)

Why it matters: Engagement rate tells you if visitors find your content valuable. Low engagement means people arrive and immediately leave—your website isn't resonating.

How to Find It in GA4

1. Go to Reports → Engagement → Pages and screens
2. Look at the "Engagement rate" column

What engagement rate measures:

• Sessions that lasted 10+ seconds
• OR had a conversion event
• OR had 2+ page views

Basically: did the person actually do something, or did they bounce immediately?

What Good Looks Like

Healthy engagement rates:

• Homepage: 50-70% engagement
• Service/product pages: 60-75% engagement
• Blog posts: 70-85% engagement
• Contact page: 80%+ engagement

Warning signs:

• Engagement under 40% on important pages = serious problem
• Engagement under 30% = visitors immediately leaving (bad user experience, wrong traffic, or technical issues)

How to Improve Engagement

If engagement is low across the entire site:

• Check page load speed - Slow sites kill engagement. Use PageSpeed Insights
• Check mobile experience - Visit your site on a phone. Is it usable?
• Review your headline and opening content - Do visitors immediately understand what you offer?

If engagement is low on specific pages:

• Homepage: Unclear value proposition, confusing navigation, or poor design
• Service pages: Not enough detail, missing pricing, or unclear next steps
• Blog posts: Misleading title (doesn't match content), thin content, or poor formatting

For a complete assessment, use our website audit checklist.

Metric 4: Top Pages (What Content Works)

Why it matters: Some pages drive traffic and conversions. Others sit unused. You need to know which is which so you can double down on what works.

Finding Your Best Performers

1. Go to Reports → Engagement → Pages and screens
2. Sort by Views to see most-visited pages
3. Add Conversions as a secondary metric to see which pages generate leads

Look for:

• Pages with high traffic but low conversions (optimization opportunity)
• Pages with low traffic but high conversions (promotion opportunity)
• Pages with high traffic AND high conversions (your winners—do more like this)

What to Do With This Information

For high-traffic, low-conversion pages:

These pages attract visitors but fail to convert them. This is your biggest opportunity.

Actions:

• Add or improve calls to action
• Include a contact form directly on the page
• Add testimonials or trust signals
• Make sure the next step is obvious
• Ensure the page loads quickly and works on mobile

For low-traffic, high-conversion pages:

These pages convert well but not enough people see them.

Actions:

• Link to them from your homepage
• Write blog posts that link to these pages
• Share them on social media
• Improve their SEO (better title tags, meta descriptions, internal linking)
• Consider paid advertising to drive traffic

For high-traffic, high-conversion pages:

Your winners. Study what makes them work.

Actions:

• Analyze why they perform well (topic? format? CTA placement?)
• Create more content like this
• Use similar structure on underperforming pages
• Feature them prominently on your site

Metric 5: Conversion Path (How People Become Customers)

Why it matters: Understanding how visitors move through your site before converting helps you optimize the customer journey.

Understanding the Customer Journey

Most visitors don't convert on their first page view. They explore, research, and compare before taking action.

To see the conversion path:

1. Go to Explore (in left sidebar)
2. Select Path exploration template
3. Set Starting point as your homepage or key landing pages
4. Set Ending point as conversion events

What you'll discover:

• Do people convert directly from landing pages, or do they visit multiple pages first?
• Which pages do visitors view before converting?
• Are there common paths that lead to conversions?
• Where do people drop off before converting?

Optimizing Your Top Paths

Common patterns and fixes:

Pattern 1: Homepage → Service Page → Contact

• This is ideal—clear, direct path
• Make sure your service pages have strong CTAs

Pattern 2: Homepage → About → Service → Contact

• People want to know about your company before contacting
• Ensure your About page builds trust and links clearly to services

Pattern 3: Blog Post → Homepage → Exit

• Blog visitors aren't converting
• Add stronger CTAs in blog posts
• Link blog content to relevant service pages
• Consider adding lead magnets to capture emails

Pattern 4: Landing Page → Exit (immediately)

• Traffic source might be wrong fit
• Page might not match what they expected (misleading ad or link)
• Page speed or mobile issues causing immediate bounce

For detailed help on conversion optimization, see our guide on creating high-converting service pages.

Setting Up a Simple Monthly Review Routine

You don't need to check Google Analytics daily. Here's a 15-minute monthly routine:

First Monday of each month:

1. Check traffic sources (5 minutes)

   • Which channels drove the most traffic?
   • Any unexpected changes?
   • Action: Adjust marketing focus based on what's working

2. Review conversion data (5 minutes)

   • How many conversions this month?
   • What's the conversion rate?
   • Action: If conversion rate dropped, investigate why

3. Identify top pages (3 minutes)

   • Which pages got the most traffic?
   • Which converted best?
   • Action: Create more content like your winners

4. Check engagement rate (2 minutes)

   • Overall site engagement trending up or down?
   • Any pages with concerning low engagement?
   • Action: Fix pages under 40% engagement

That's it. 15 minutes per month gives you everything you need to make smart decisions about your website.

For a more complete picture of website performance, read our guide on how to measure website ROI.

What NOT to Waste Time On

Here are metrics small businesses obsess over that rarely matter:

Pageviews - Who cares if someone viewed 10 pages if they didn't convert? Focus on conversions, not volume.

Time on page - Longer isn't always better. Someone might read for 5 minutes and leave, or skim for 30 seconds and convert.

Bounce rate - GA4 doesn't even track traditional bounce rate anymore. Engagement rate is more useful.

Demographics - Age, gender, location are interesting but rarely actionable for small businesses. You can't change your product based on this.

Technology reports - Knowing 47.3% of visitors use Chrome doesn't help you make decisions.

Real-time reports - Unless you're running live campaigns, watching live traffic is just procrastination.

Exception: If you're a local business, geographic data (city/state) can be valuable to see if you're attracting the right local audience.

Make Google Analytics Work for You

The goal of analytics isn't to collect data—it's to make better decisions.

Before you implement changes, know your baseline:

• What's your current traffic?
• What's your current conversion rate?
• What's your engagement rate?

After you make improvements, measure results:

• Did traffic increase?
• Did conversions go up?
• Did engagement improve?

Example: You redesign your homepage to make the CTA more prominent. Check next month: did conversion rate increase? If yes, apply the same principle to other pages. If no, try something different.

This simple test-and-measure approach is how you steadily improve website performance over time.

For ideas on what to test, read our article on signs your website needs a redesign.

Ready to Make Data-Driven Decisions?

At MooseBase, every website we build includes proper Google Analytics setup with conversion tracking configured from day one. We don't just hand you a website—we make sure you can measure results and understand what's working.

We can also audit your existing analytics setup to ensure you're tracking what matters and help you interpret the data to make smart business decisions.

Next Steps:

• Set up conversion tracking if you haven't already
• Review our website ROI measurement guide
• Learn what might be costing you money
• Check if your website needs a redesign
• Read about improving lead generation
• Schedule a free consultation to discuss your website analytics and performance

Stop drowning in data. Focus on these 5 metrics, and you'll know exactly how your website is performing—and what to do about it.