A Simple Monthly Website Report: What to Measure

Start with outcomes, not traffic

Traffic is a means to an end. A business site exists to produce enquiries, bookings, calls or sales, so the first line of the report should be how many of those happened, and the rest of the report should help explain that number. A month with fewer visits but more enquiries is a good month; a traffic spike with no extra enquiries is worth a look, but not a celebration.

Before the first report, agree what counts as an outcome. For most service businesses that is a sent contact form, a click on the phone number or email link, and perhaps a booking or a quote request. For a shop it is purchases and revenue. Write the list down; it becomes the key events in GA4.

Key events in GA4

GA4 records actions as events, and you mark the ones that matter to your business as key events (GA4 used to call them conversions; Google's help page says you can now create Google Ads conversions from them). Google's help page on marking events as key events says you need the Marketer role or above, that a standard property can have up to 30 key events, and that GA4 marks purchase as a key event by default. You can mark a new event as a key event before GA4 has received it.

The catch for most business sites is the form. Counting a visit to the contact page, or a click on the "Send" button, overstates enquiries. Count the confirmed submission instead, for example a thank-you page or an event fired only after the form succeeds. Our GA4 basics guide explains how to set that up, and our landing page guide covers tracking the result rather than the click. To follow a lead beyond the form to a won or lost sale, see the GA4 lead events in our B2B lead generation guide.

In the report, show the count of each key event for the month, the same month last year if you have it, and the previous month. Keep them separate: ten phone clicks and ten form enquiries are not the same thing.

Where visitors come from

GA4's Traffic acquisition report (Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition) shows where new and returning users come from, grouped into channels such as organic search, paid search, direct, referral, email and social. Google notes that it differs from the User acquisition report, which shows where new users first came from.

For the monthly report, the useful view is key events by channel, not sessions by channel. It answers the question "which channels bring in work?" If you run campaigns, tag the links in emails and ads with UTM parameters so they appear as their own source rather than being lumped into direct or referral traffic.

Engagement, read carefully

GA4 replaced the old bounce rate with engagement. Google's definitions, from the same Traffic acquisition page:

• Engaged sessions: sessions that lasted 10 seconds or longer, or had at least one key event, or at least two page or screen views.
• Engagement rate: engaged sessions divided by total sessions. Google says it is the inverse of bounce rate.
• Key events: the number of times users triggered a key event.

Engagement is a supporting signal. It is useful for spotting a page or a campaign that brings in visitors who leave straight away, but it says nothing about whether they became customers. Watch it for big changes, not small ones.

Search Console: clicks, impressions, CTR and position

GA4 shows what happens on your site. Search Console shows how your site appears in Google Search before anyone arrives. Google's Performance report help page says the default view covers the past three months and defines its four metrics:

• Clicks: the number of times a user clicked through to your site from Google Search results.
• Impressions: how many times your site appeared in search results.
• CTR (click-through rate): clicks divided by impressions.
• Average position: in the chart, the average position of the topmost result from your site; in the table, the average position for that query or page.

Google's page on impressions, position and clicks adds details worth knowing before you read too much into them. An impression usually counts when your link appears on the page of results, even if it was not scrolled into view, except inside carousels and expanding sections. Clicking the same result twice after coming back counts as one click. Position is averaged over all impressions, because your link appears in different places each time, and Google says the calculation might change.

So a fall in average position is not always bad news: if you start appearing for many more searches lower down the page, the average drops while clicks rise. Report clicks first, then impressions, and use the Queries and Pages tabs to explain big moves. Search Console also notes that a query in your list may not show your site when you search it yourself, because results depend on time, place, device and search history.

Search Console clicks and GA4 sessions from organic search will not match. They count different things in different tools, and GA4 only records visitors whose browsers load the tag and, where consent is required, who allow it (see our cookie consent guide). Compare each tool with itself over time.

Annotations: write down what changed

Most surprises in a report trace back to a change: a redesign, a new page, a campaign, a broken form, a holiday. Both tools now let you mark these on the chart.

• GA4: Google's annotations help page says you right-click a point on a line chart in Reports and choose Add annotation, with a title, a short description and a date or date range. You need the Analyst role or above to create them. Google may also add its own annotations when something significant affects the data.
• Search Console: Google added custom annotations to the Performance reports in November 2025. You right-click the chart, choose Add annotation and write a note of up to 120 characters with a date. Everyone with access to the property can see them, so keep personal information out.

Add an annotation on the day of each change, in both tools. A short "what we changed" section in the report should match them.

A one-page template

1. Outcomes: each key event this month, last month and the same month last year.
2. Where they came from: key events by channel from Traffic acquisition.
3. Search: Search Console clicks and impressions against the previous period, plus the top queries and pages that moved most.
4. Pages: the pages that produced the most enquiries or sales, and any key page whose numbers dropped sharply.
5. What changed: site changes, campaigns and outside events, matching the annotations.
6. Next month: two or three actions, each tied to a number above.

Our SEO basics guide covers what to do when search numbers point to a problem.

Common mistakes

• Counting clicks on "Send" as enquiries. Count confirmed submissions only.
• Comparing with someone else's averages. Industry "benchmarks" mix very different sites. Your own history is the fair comparison.
• Comparing unlike periods. A December against a busy March tells you about seasons, not your site. Use the same month last year where you can.
• Reacting to average position alone. Read it with clicks and impressions.
• Reporting without actions. If a number would not change what you do, leave it out.

Frequently asked questions

What should a monthly website report include?

Enquiries or sales from GA4 key events, which channels they came from, Search Console clicks and impressions with the queries and pages that moved, a list of what changed on the site, and two or three actions for next month.

Why don't Search Console clicks match GA4 visits?

They are different tools counting different things. Search Console counts clicks from Google Search results; GA4 counts sessions on your site and only sees visitors whose browsers load the tag and, where required, give consent. Compare each tool with its own past rather than with each other.

What is a key event in GA4?

An event you mark as important to your business, such as a confirmed form submission or a purchase. GA4 used to call them conversions. A standard property can have up to 30, and purchase is marked as a key event by default.

Is a lower average position in Search Console bad?

Not always. Average position is averaged over all impressions, so if your site starts appearing for more searches further down the page the average can fall while clicks rise. Read it together with clicks and impressions.

Want a site that is set up to measure what matters from launch? See our website development and website maintenance services, see all our services, or email info@creahive.com.