A landing page is the first place – aka unique URL – a user visits when coming to your site.
Sometimes “landing page” is used an industry term to refer to a page created with a specific purpose, such as to sell subscriptions to a news website or sign up for a newsletter.
Other times, as is the case in this article, the term “landing page” simply refers to the page on which a user “landed” upon entering your site. That could be your homepage, an article, a product or anywhere else on your particular domain.
Understanding why users enter your site on a particular page – and their behavior thereafter – is important to optimizing your content.
Content
- How To Create a Google Analytics 4 Landing Page Report: Summary
- How To Create a Google Analytics 4 Landing Page Report: Detailed Explanation
- Should I use Page Title, Page Location or Page Path + Query String Dimension?
How To Create a Google Analytics 4 Landing Page Report: Summary
In the Google Analytics 4 Explore tab, create a free form report with the following settings:
- Segment Comparisons: Landing page
- Rows: Page Title
- Values: Sessions
How To Create a Google Analytics 4 Landing Page Report: Detailed Explanation
1. Click the Explore tab on the left sidebar.
2. Choose “Blank” from the template gallery.
3. Click the + symbol next to SEGMENTS.
4. Select the Session segment option.
5. Click the “Add new condition” dropdown and type “landing page.” Select the only option that pops up. (You can also find this by clicking on “Page / screen” and scrolling down to Landing page. It’s the same thing.)
6. Click the + symbol next to DIMENSIONS.
7. Type “page” in the search bar and select the following to import to your variables tab: Page Location; Page path + query string; Page title.
You might not necessarily use all of these in your report, but now that they’re added to your Variables column, you have the option to do so.
8. Now click the + symbol next to METRICS (just below DIMENSIONS) and import the following to your Variables tab: Engaged sessions; Sessions; Active users; New users; Total users.
You can select more, less, or different metrics if you prefer. These are simply ones that I believe to be the most common and useful. As you begin to tweak your base Google Analytics 4 landing pages report, you’ll get a better sense of which metrics (and dimensions) you want to include.
Your dashboard should now look like this (perhaps with a different date range):
9. Double-click the segment you added, or simply click and drag it under SEGMENT COMPARISONS in the Tab Settings column.
10. Next, add one or more of your dimensions to ROWS (I prefer Page title), and add one or more metrics to VALUES (Sessions).
11. Here’s how your completed landing page report should look barring and changes to my recommendations*:
*The only thing not visible in the Tab Settings column of this screenshot is the Session Scoped: Landing Page segment
Your report will autosave as you go, so once you finish, you can access (and edit) it at anytime by going to the main Explore page. Mine is titled “Landing Page Report” in the following screenshot:
Should I use Page Title, Page Location or Page Path + Query String Dimension?
By using Page title instead of Page location or Page path + query string for dimension, we avoid dividing data from traffic that actually went to the same page.
Because of the / after the URL that used to be in some of my pages, GA4 saw them as different pages:
But when I filter by Page title, all traffic to my “Meet Brad” and “Contact” pages, respectively, are consolidated into a single row.
Confusion can still arise, however, if you change your page title format, as I did when changing my website’s CMS:
In the long run, though, I believe Page title is the best option.
Also see:
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