Introduction course to Google Analytics 4 GA4 for SEO

In this introductory Google Analytics 4 course we are going to learn the concepts and the basic and necessary theory to then learn Google Analytics 4 in practice.

What is Google Analytics 4?

Google Analytics 4 GA4 is a service that allows us to collect web and application data to create reports about our business. In order to use it we need to configure a Google Analytics 4 property correctly.

The basic structure of GA4 is made up of the following elements:

Account. It is the basis to be able to use the tool, the Google account will be enough. Within each account, in turn, we find properties.
Properties. They are components to which the data collected on websites and applications is sent to be able to process it later and create reports to obtain interesting information when analyzing the SEO of our website.
Each property must represent a user base, if there is data that must be analyzed together, it is recommended to group it within the same property.
Data flows allow us to connect the different data sources with our GA4 property and thus process data. Examples of data sources could be a web application, an Android application, or an iOS application.

Learn Google Analytics 4 with certification

Apart from this Google Analytics 4 course, one of the best ways to learn Google Analytics 4 and its fundamentals is to obtain its free certification, which is made up of the following modules:

This certification is simple, free, it can be done completely online and upon completion we have the option of obtaining a badge to share on our social networks.

Additionally, if what you want is to learn GA4 in practice and you do not have an account with enough data to display all the graphs, tables and functionalities of the tool, you can use the GA4 test or demo accounts offered by Google:

Test or demo account of the GA4 web version.
Test or demo account of the GA4 web version and mobile application.
Test or demo account of the web version of Universal Analytics.

Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics

The main differences between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics are:

GA4 is the updated version of Google Analytics and Universal Analytics is the old and not recommended version.
GA4 can measure and collect data from different devices and platforms in a unified way without having to use different properties as was the case with Universal Analytics.
Universal Analytics uses sessions, while GA4 uses events.
A session is the set of user interactions with our website/application in a specific period of time.
An event is a specific user interaction with our website/application. This way of measuring allows GA4 to be more efficient and scalable.
GA4 uses machine learning to provide predictions that allow us to optimize web marketing.

What are duplicate instances?

Let’s take an example of duplicate instances. We have a company with a website and a mobile application. A user visits the website to see the products and, when one of them interests him, he uses the mobile application to make the purchase because they offer discounts for using the app.

If we have a system to collect data on user interactions with our website and our apps, how does said system know that the user who has visited the website is the same one who has used the mobile application to purchase? This is where duplicate instances and Google Analytics 4 come into play.

Without GA4, in the previous example, the same user would have been counted as 2 different users, the one who visited the website and the one who made the purchase through the mobile application. These are what are known as duplicate instances.

Duplicate instances are not of interest to us in data analysis because, for example, we want to know where the user has come from (for example from an advertisement on the internet), what products they have visited and which of them they have purchased.

If we do not have the information from the website and the app unified, tracking the same user on different platforms would be impossible. We need a mechanism to unify the identities on the different platforms. This is where the elimination of duplicate instances comes into play.

To delete duplicate instances, Google Analytics 4 uses, in order of priority or efficiency, from highest to lowest, the following techniques:

User Id, persistent unique user identifier, we need to assign identifiers to users and include the information in the data we send to GA4.
A user with the same User Id on different platforms is counted as one.
Google Signals uses the users’ login information in their Google account, it must be activated in the GA4 property settings.
A user who is signed in to their Google account on different platforms is counted as one.
Device identifier, uses the identifier of the device with which the user has accessed our website or mobile application, it is not necessary to do anything to use this method.
A user with the same device id on different platforms is counted as one.
But… let’s think for a moment, if a user visits the website through a desktop PC and then makes the purchase through a mobile phone, the device is different and, therefore, its identifier too…
We would have the same problem again, same user, different origin, counted as two users, instead of one. That is why this is the least recommended method, it is the one Universal Analytics used, as it can lead to duplicate instances.

How does data collection work?

As we have already discussed in this Google Analytics 4 course, data in GA4 is collected through events, however, this is not entirely true. Let’s look at a series of important concepts in GA4:

Events. User interactions with our website or app, for example adding a product to cart.
User properties, attributes that provide additional information about users to later create segments and perform analysis. An example of a user property could be the geographic location or the device from which the user is accessing.
Event parameters, additional data sent along with events that provide more detail about the action the user took. Following the previous example of adding a product to the cart, a possible event parameter would be the amount of the added item.
Conversion is nothing more than a specific type of event, those that we, as website owners, consider most important. Continuing with the previous example, a conversion would be paying for all the products that we have added to the cart.
As you can see, conversions are a subjective concept, that is, they depend on each web page, its owners and the business objectives.
Let’s imagine two very similar blogs but with different business objectives. For one of them, a conversion may be that the user clicks on one of the ads (because their business objective is to generate income with Google Ads) and for the other, that the user simply visits the “About us” section (because their business objective is to have visibility on the Internet and then offer its services to companies).

It must be taken into account that GA4 automatically collects some events, although not all, which is why it is necessary to activate improved event measurement, which will capture even more events and provide us with more information.

Difference between dimensions and metrics

Once Google has collected data, it is grouped into reports. For represent the reports dimensions and metrics are used for:

Dimensions allow us to determine what we are measuring or, put another way, they answer the questions of who, what and where. Examples of dimensions are what device they use, geographic origin or where the user spends the most time.
Metrics determine the value of what we are measuring. Examples of metrics are N number of users using mobile phones, N number of users visiting us from Spain and N number of users spending X time on a given screen.

Google Analytics 4 and audiences

Another important concept that we will see throughout the Google Analytics 4 course are audiences, which are groupings of users based on common attributes such as, for example, users who buy and who do not buy, geographic location, device, recent buyers… etc. Some examples of audiences in GA4 are:

Location, interesting from the point of view of International SEO, will allow us to answer questions such as, for example, Where do most users visit me from? What is the location that provides me with the most conversions and income?… etc
Buying and non-buying users, allows us to know, for example, where users who do not buy are stuck on our website. This, in turn, provides us with the necessary information to make changes to the website that encourage or facilitate the purchase of those undecided users.
Device, very useful when making the decision whether we should concentrate our efforts on optimizing a website for mobile or not.
If, for example, most of the users who add items to the cart and do not purchase come from mobile devices… We could ask ourselves if there is something that is preventing them from making the purchase and completing the process. An example of this is that the pay by card button is hidden by a modal and is impossible to click on from a mobile device.

As you can see, audiences are an extremely useful concept that will allow us to create personalized reports and segment them by the variables that we consider appropriate. This concept will make it easier for us to study and analyze users from different perspectives to make better decisions regarding the business.