How to Set Up Google Analytics 4 on WordPress

Google Analytics 4 replaced Universal Analytics in 2023. Without it, you don't know how many people visit your site, where they come from, or whether they contact you. Here's how to set it up correctly.

Step 1: Create a GA4 Property

Go to analytics.google.com → Admin → Create Property. Enter your website name, timezone, and currency. Select "Web" as platform. Enter your website URL. Copy the Measurement ID (G-XXXXXXXXXX).

Step 2: Install on WordPress

Easiest (plugin): Install "Site Kit by Google" — the official Google plugin. Connects Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights in one setup wizard. Better (advanced): Use Google Tag Manager — install GTM plugin on WordPress, create GA4 Configuration tag in GTM, publish. More flexible long-term.

Step 3: Set Up Conversion Tracking

Raw traffic data alone isn't actionable. Track what matters: contact form submissions, phone number clicks, email clicks, download clicks, and WooCommerce purchases. Most WordPress form plugins push form events to GA4 automatically.

Step 4: Connect Google Search Console

In GA4: Admin → Product Links → Search Console Links. See which search queries bring visitors to your site, directly in GA4 reports.

Step 5: What to Actually Look At

Acquisition → Traffic Acquisition: Where visitors come from. Engagement → Pages and Screens: Which pages get traffic. Conversions: Goal completions. Demographics: Who your visitors are. Review these monthly as part of your maintenance routine.

Privacy Note

GA4 collects data subject to GDPR and CCPA. Update your privacy policy and implement a cookie consent banner (CookieYes or Complianz) for full compliance.

Common GA4 Setup Mistakes

The most frequent issue is installing the tracking code twice — once through a plugin like Site Kit and again manually, or through a theme setting — which inflates your numbers and makes every report unreliable. Another common mistake is never configuring conversion events, so months go by with traffic data but no way to tell whether that traffic actually led to a phone call or a form submission. A third is forgetting that GA4 doesn't backfill history the way Universal Analytics data could sometimes be recovered — data only starts accumulating from the moment it's correctly installed, so the sooner it's set up properly, the sooner you have a real baseline to compare against.

Enhanced Measurement and Custom Events

GA4 tracks more than page views by default. When you create a property, "Enhanced measurement" is turned on automatically and captures several events without any extra setup: scroll tracking (when a visitor reaches roughly the bottom of the page), outbound clicks to other domains, on-site search, video engagement on embedded YouTube videos, and file downloads. Check Admin → Data Streams → your web stream → Enhanced measurement to see exactly which of these are active, and turn off any you don't need.

These default events cover a lot, but they won't tell you whether someone clicked your specific "Request a Quote" button versus just scrolling past it. For that, you need custom events. If you're using Google Tag Manager, this means creating a trigger (a button click, a specific page visit, a form field) and a tag that sends that trigger to GA4 as a named event. If you're using a plugin like Site Kit or a form plugin's built-in GA4 integration, many common events — form submissions in particular — are handled without any manual tag setup at all.

Once events are flowing in, mark the ones that represent real business value — a form submission, a phone click, a completed purchase — as "Conversions" in GA4's Admin panel under Events. This is what turns raw event data into a usable report: instead of scanning a list of every click on the site, your Conversions report shows only the actions that actually matter to your bottom line, and you can build audiences and reports around them going forward.

Common Questions