Google Analytics Dashboard: What Is It & How to Create One

What Is a Google Analytics Dashboard? 

A Google Analytics Dashboard is simply a customized postulation of information that offers a broad presumption of a website's performance, idiosyncratic interactions, and different metrics and events. 

This is what a Google Analytics Dashboard tin look like:

Creating customized Dashboards successful the now-retired Universal Analytics was easy. You could simply import a template from the Google Analytics Solutions Gallery.

But Google Analytics 4 is simply a spot much challenging.

Which is wherefore we created this usher to amusement you however to acceptable up your customized reports and way the information that’s astir important to your brand.

Why Are Google Analytics Dashboards Important?

Google Analytics Dashboards contiguous information successful an easy digestible format you tin stock with different teams without them needing to beryllium Google Analytics experts to propulsion the information

In summation to easiness of sharing, Google Analytics Dashboards person the pursuing benefits:

• Streamlined information analysis: In different words, you don’t request to propulsion the aforesaid study time aft day, week aft week. You make it erstwhile and show from past on. 
• Customization: Users tin zoom successful connected the information that genuinely matters to them. Instead of relying lone connected the out-of-the-box reports Google Analytics offers. 
• Real-time insights: With features specified arsenic real-time visitant counters, Google Analytics Dashboards supply contiguous entree to cardinal show indicators. 

Data dashboards, successful general, are effectual astatine rallying assorted teams astir shared goals and a shared knowing of advancement toward those goals. They’re arsenic overmuch an organizational instrumentality arsenic they are an operational oregon analytical tool. 

How to Create a Custom Google Analytics 4 Dashboard

Google Analytics 4 is simply a customizable events-based tracking platform. Which means that if you privation much circumstantial analytics, Google Dashboards tin beryllium acceptable up to way those information points.

You tin acceptable up a Google Analytics customized Dashboard for galore purposes, but we’ll locomotion done a circumstantial Google analytics SEO Dashboard here. 

Here’s however to acceptable up your customized report.

1. Go to the Reports Dashboard

Logging into GA4, you’ll spot a Dashboard with default information:

To physique customized Google Analytics 4 reports, hover implicit the left-hand paper and click connected “Reports.” 

You’ll spot different default Dashboard (the Reports snapshot), and respective different default reports based connected the goals you chose during setup. Like the “User acquisition” oregon “Generate leads” report.

2. Choose Relevant Cards

Cards are charts, barroom graphs, and different visualizations that contiguous information you privation to track.

Your Google Analytics 4 Dashboards are made up of aggregate cards.

To make your customized report, click connected 1 of the pre-made dashboards disposable successful your reports tab.

In this case, we chose “Acquisition” > “Overview.”

Then, click connected the pen fastener successful the precocious close country of the dashboard.

A sidebar volition look with each the cards presently connected your dashboard.

From there, you tin region irrelevant cards by clicking connected the “x” fastener beside each metric. And adhd cards by clicking connected the “+ Add Cards” button.

When adding cards, marque definite to spell done some the “Summary Cards” and “Other Cards” tabs to find the cleanable metrics for your dashboard.

For example, if we privation to cognize if radical are speechmaking our blog posts, past we mightiness prime the “Other Cards” > “Average engagement time, +2.”

Doing truthful would adhd the paper to our existing dashboard. And amusement america however agelong users walk connected the site, successful a glance.

3. Customize Your Cards

Most of the cards successful Google Analytics 4 person drop-down menus you tin usage to specify what metrics and dimensions you privation to track.

Further customize your Dashboard utilizing that drop-down menu.

And voila! You person your customized GA4 report. 

Bonus: Create an Exploration

You tin besides usage the “explore” tab to make information visualizations and customized analyses, which tin beryllium included successful dashboards. The 3 default options are escaped form, funnel exploration, and way exploration. 

You tin besides commencement “blank” oregon usage the templates gallery:

While each of these explorations tin beryllium utile for creating customized dashboards, the escaped signifier and funnel exploration tools are peculiarly utile arsenic a complement to default reports. 

If, for example, we wanted to spot lawsuit counts by league medium, we tin usage the escaped signifier exploration instrumentality to visualize this:

As you tin see, GA4 is thing but customized dashboards, eliminating the thought of a abstracted UI to physique customized dashboards. It’s all customized successful the caller satellite of Google Analytics. 

At the extremity of the day, Google Analytics dashboards are endlessly customizable. Which is wherefore it’s important to commencement with cardinal concern questions and lone past proceed into dashboard creation. 

5 Best Practices for Dashboard Configuration and Visualization

To make the champion Google Analytics Dashboards, it helps to travel definite information visualization champion practices. 

The astir important happening is to recognize your assemblage and the actions you privation to drive. This volition acceptable the instauration for what accusation you show and however you show it. 

Keep these 5 champion practices successful caput arsenic you physique your Google Analytics Dashboards:

1. Answer the Right Business Question

Since you tin make a Google Analytics dashboard for beauteous overmuch anything, an important archetypal measurement is to find which concern question you’re hoping to reply with the dashboard. 

The people assemblage for your dashboard besides matters. 

For example, if you’re presenting reports to a lawsuit oregon stakeholders, you whitethorn request to portion the information otherwise than if you were simply creating the dashboard for your ain investigation purposes. 

Try to authorities intelligibly the intent of the dashboard. For example, “we volition usage this dashboard to way integrated show implicit clip and study connected advancement toward our quarterly goals.” Or, “we volition usage this dashboard to show and place imaginable breached pages connected our site.” 

2. Choose the Right Metrics and KPIs

Align your KPIs (key show indicators) with the concern objectives. Avoid displaying unnecessary data, and absorption connected what drives decisions. 

Many radical effort to compression arsenic overmuch information successful arsenic possible, but simplicity is cardinal with dashboards. Consider the presenter’s paradox and opt for little information, but absorption lone connected captious information. 

More is not better. In SEO reporting, representation your visualizations backmost to what radical attraction about, which is usually postulation and gross growth, and past springiness the enactment to drill down by leafage oregon different dimensions. 

Metric clip bid charts, barroom charts divided retired by a magnitude similar root oregon landing page, and a array to dive into the details presents viewers with easy accessible accusation from which they tin dive further into analysis.

Typical KPIs to see successful integrated show dashboards see starring indicators similar hunt impressions and clicks, arsenic good arsenic sessions oregon leafage views by URL. They should besides see concern metrics similar leads, purchases, oregon gross divided by transmission and page.

Avoid including excessively galore segments and filters successful your dashboards, arsenic they volition often obfuscate learnings. 

Instead, usage dashboards arsenic a advancement indicator. And usage segments and filters to drill down and behaviour investigation based connected higher level performance. 

3. Set Up Events to Track Site Activity

To get the astir retired of Google Analytics dashboards, you archetypal person to acceptable up events that correspond to meaningful interactions connected your website. 

Out of the box, you’ll beryllium capable to study connected affluent information similar postulation sources, instrumentality types, and which pages users visit. 

But with a coagulated lawsuit setup, you tin way anything. This could beryllium video plays oregon completions, circumstantial CTA clicks, scroll depth, acquisition amount, and more. 

This besides gives you the quality to acceptable up absorbing idiosyncratic way investigation reports to spot the bid successful which users are triggering definite events. 

This is simply a large mode to recognize idiosyncratic behaviour connected your tract and statesman to amended and optimize it.

4. Use Benchmarks to Analyze Data

Use benchmarks, targets, oregon humanities information comparisons to supply context. It helps users recognize if the numbers are bully oregon atrocious and leads to actionable insights.

Data successful isolation is hard to enactment upon. However, erstwhile metrics are compared crossed clip periods, you tin rapidly find whether your efforts are paying disconnected oregon are falling abbreviated of your projections. 

Benchmarks tin beryllium applied wrong an manufacture oregon a acceptable of competitors. Or you tin usage your ain information to make benchmarks. For example, Google Analytics gives you the quality to comparison a day scope with the aforesaid day scope past year, giving you an apples-to-apples examination of the metrics:

5. Ongoing Maintenance and Iteration

A dashboard is not a "set it and hide it" tool. Regularly reappraisal it with extremity users and marque indispensable adjustments to guarantee it stays applicable and valuable.

On a regular interval, reappraisal your dashboards and get stakeholder feedback to spot however you tin amended the inferior of your dashboards. 

Sharing dashboards is precise casual with Google Analytics 4. 

If you’re creating Google Analytics Dashboards straight successful the interface, simply look for the “Share this report” icon connected the apical close menu:

Click this, and you tin take either to stock the nexus directly, oregon download the record (in either CSV oregon PDF format) and nonstop it to your peers:

5 Free Google Analytics Dashboard Templates to Consider

While the Solutions Gallery isn’t utile successful the GA4 age, determination are inactive plentifulness of escaped Google Analytics Dashboard templates to get you started. 

These scope from GA4 exploration study templates to Looker Studio starter templates. 

Here are 5 large Google Analytics Dashboard examples for integer marketers:

1. Semrush SEO Dashboard

The Semrush Project Dashboard is simply a beauteous mode to wed Google Analytics postulation and conversion insights with Semrush hunt show insights. 

As a default, the dashboard shows you each of the SEO metrics to rapidly diagnose the wellness of your property, from domain analytics similar authorization score, traffic, and keywords, to a backlink audit that shows you the toxicity of your nexus profile.

Clicking into immoderate of the fixed cards successful the dashboard presents you with an awesome heavy dive into circumstantial SEO reports. 

For example, the Organic Traffic Insights study shows you metrics crossed Semrush, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics, to springiness you broad insights by landing page:

It’s a payment to having each of your cardinal analytics platforms successful 1 place. That unsocial saves time. 

But the existent worth is successful combining and comparing metrics crossed the antithetic tools, similar Google Analytics and Google Search Console, to get a existent knowing of your integrated hunt performance. 

2. Path Exploration

Path Exploration is simply a default template wrong the “Exploration” tab successful Google Analytics 4. 

Path Exploration answers 1 of the astir communal questions: How are radical navigating my website?

While leafage way investigation tin sometimes confuse alternatively than illuminate, it does assistance marketers fig retired idiosyncratic acquisition bottlenecks arsenic good arsenic the astir communal leafage paths connected their site. 

In conjunction with qualitative probe and heatmaps, this tin assistance marketers physique amended accusation architecture and content, hole idiosyncratic acquisition issues, and thrust amended website performance. 

3. Funnel Exploration

Funnel Exploration allows you to acceptable up a sequential funnel of events oregon pages and spot the dropoff astatine each step.

For example, you tin spot the dropoff from homepage to merchandise leafage to adhd to cart to acquisition for an ecommerce website. 

This is 1 of the astir utile ways to place areas of the website to optimize and improve, arsenic you tin place the biggest dropoffs and find solutions to amended the dropoff rate. 

Funnel Exploration is simply a default template wrong the “Exploration” tab successful Google Analytics 4. 

4. Conversions Exploration

The Conversions Exploration dashboard lets you analyse and comparison antithetic conversion events connected your website crossed customized dimensions similar instrumentality benignant oregon different segments. 

This tin assistance you place which conversion events and offers are resonating champion with which audiences. The insights tin besides pass your attack to creating and optimizing offers. 

This dashboard is disposable arsenic a default template successful the “Explorations” conception of GA4. 

5. Google Organic Search Traffic

The past Google Analytics Dashboard illustration is simply a default study disposable successful GA4. 

It takes a small spot of effort to find, but it’s worthy it for hunt marketers. Take this way to find the report:

“Reports” > “Acquisition” > “Acquisition Overview” > “Google Organic Search Traffic”

This volition springiness you insights from Google Search Console arsenic good arsenic Google Analytics. In its default state, it shows you a clip bid and barroom illustration of Google hunt impressions by landing page. 

However, if you click connected immoderate of the different metrics successful the report, it volition alteration the charts to bespeak that metric. 

For example, we tin change the dashboard by clicking connected “Organic Google Search Click Through Rate,” and present each of the charts volition bespeak SEO click done rates:

This dashboard is almighty for SEOs and marketers since it collates a ample magnitude of information you would typically person recovered successful antithetic locations, and it allows you to chopped hunt information successful galore antithetic ways, including utilizing on-site metrics similar engagement complaint and conversions. 

Enhance Semrush Dashboards with GA Data

In the past, customized dashboards were underutilized and often hard to acceptable up. Now, customized dashboards are the default mode to usage Google Analytics 4. 

From out-of-the-box reports similar Google Organic Search Traffic to customized exploration reports similar Funnel Exploration oregon Path Exploration, you tin easy reply concern questions successful Google Analytics. 

Even better, by leveraging Semrush SEO Dashboard and connecting your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts, you tin get a holistic representation of your hunt selling efforts. Try it present for free.