--- title: "Build GA4 reports that show organic traffic, key events, and revenue" description: "Rebuild SEO reporting in Google Analytics 4: isolate organic traffic, set key events, build landing page reports, link Search Console, and report revenue." canonical: "https://scalewithsearch.com/articles/ga4-seo-reports-guide" date: "2026-03-20" modified: "2026-09-25" --- ## Site navigation - [Scale With Search](https://scalewithsearch.com/) - Real estate - Real estate - [Real estate](https://scalewithsearch.com/for/real-estate) - Work - Start here - [Send your brief](https://scalewithsearch.com/work#send-your-brief) - [Prepare your six-question brief](https://scalewithsearch.com/work#prepare-your-six-question-brief) - Build - [Site build, content library with SEO, signal desk](https://scalewithsearch.com/work) - For your business - Trades and home services - [Auto body and collision shops](https://scalewithsearch.com/for/auto-body-and-collision-shops) - [Foundation and home repair contractors](https://scalewithsearch.com/for/foundation-and-home-repair) - 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Google Analytics 4 (GA4) replaced Universal Analytics. Standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing data on July 1, 2023. Many SEO reports built on the old tool did not survive the move. Organic segments disappeared, the landing page report moved, and goals became events. Freelancers and agencies that relied on Universal Analytics templates lost the reports that showed their return. This article rebuilds SEO reporting in GA4 in six steps. You isolate organic traffic, track key events, and build a landing page report. Then you add Search Console query data, build a dashboard, and report revenue. ## Know what changed Universal Analytics was built on sessions. GA4 is built on events: every page view, click, scroll, and form submission is an event. That gives finer data and different reports. | Universal Analytics | GA4 | Effect on SEO reporting | |---|---|---| | Source and medium in every standard report | Source dimensions are session-scoped or user-scoped, and you choose | Pick the session-scoped dimension for organic landing traffic | | Landing Pages report under Behavior | Landing page report under Engagement, added in 2023, with no organic filter by default | Add a filter or comparison for organic search | | Goals | Events marked as key events | Each conversion needs an event first | | Bounce rate | Engagement rate, with bounce rate as its inverse | A high engagement rate is good; bounce rate is 100% minus it | | Time on page | Average engagement time | Counts only time with the page in focus | If you moved to GA4 and did not rebuild the reports, you lost clear sight of organic performance. The [SEO analytics setup guide](/articles/seo-analytics-setup-guide) covers the base configuration. ## Step 1: isolate organic traffic GA4 does not ship an organic-only report. Filter for it. ### Use the default channel group 1. Open the GA4 property. 2. Go to Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition. 3. Set the primary dimension to "Session default channel group." 4. Read the "Organic Search" row, or add a filter for it. This shows users, sessions, and events from organic search, and you can break it down by source: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and others. It does not break the traffic down by landing page. ### Build an organic exploration 1. Go to Explore and create a Free form exploration. 2. Add dimensions: "Session source / medium" (values such as `google / organic`), "Landing page + query string," and "Session campaign" if you use UTM parameters. 3. Add metrics: sessions, engaged sessions, key events, and average engagement time. 4. Add a filter: "Session default channel group" exactly matches "Organic Search." A filter on "Session source / medium" that contains "organic" also works. You now see organic traffic, engagement, and key events per landing page. Save the exploration. ## Step 2: track key events GA4 has no goals. You mark events as key events. Google renamed "conversions" to "key events" in GA4 in March 2024. Google Ads still uses the word "conversions" for the key events you import there. Common SEO key events: - `form_submit` for lead forms; - `purchase` for ecommerce transactions; - `sign_up` for account creation; - `file_download` for resource downloads; - a custom event such as `book_demo` for demo requests. To set one up: 1. Go to Admin, then Data display, then Events, and check whether the event already arrives. 2. If it does not, open Admin, then Data streams, then your web stream. Turn on the right option under Enhanced measurement. "Form interactions" covers many forms and "File downloads" covers downloads. Send custom events through Google Tag Manager. 3. Mark the event as a key event. In the Events list, turn on "Mark as key event." Alternatively, go to Admin, then Data display, then Key events, and create a key event with the exact event name. 4. Confirm it in Reports, then Engagement, then Key events, after the next submissions. ### Attribute key events to organic search 1. Create a Free form exploration. 2. Add dimensions: "Session source / medium" and "Landing page + query string." 3. Add metrics: key events and session key event rate. 4. Filter to organic search. You see how many key events came from organic search, which landing pages produced them, and each page's rate. This view shows traffic that converts, which is the result clients pay for. ## Step 3: build the organic landing page report Universal Analytics had Behavior, Site Content, Landing Pages. GA4 has a Landing page report under Engagement, added in 2023, but it shows all channels. Build an organic version: 1. Create a Free form exploration. 2. Add dimensions: "Landing page + query string" and "Session source / medium." 3. Add metrics: sessions, engaged sessions, engagement rate, average engagement time, key events, and session key event rate. 4. Filter to organic search. 5. Sort by sessions, descending. The report shows the top organic landing pages, the pages that hold attention, and the pages that convert. Use it to find pages with high traffic and few key events. Those are the pages to improve first. ## Step 4: add query data from Search Console GA4 does not show keywords. Google has hidden most organic keywords from analytics tools as "(not provided)" since 2013. Search Console has the query data, and you can link it to GA4. 1. In GA4, go to Admin, then Product links, then Search Console links. 2. Select Link, choose the Search Console property, and choose the web stream. 3. Open Reports, then Library, and publish the Search Console collection, so that its reports appear in the navigation. The collection adds two reports: - **Queries:** the organic Google queries that brought clicks, with clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position. - **Google organic search traffic:** the landing pages that received organic clicks, with the same Search Console metrics plus GA4 engagement metrics. The query data comes from Search Console, so you cannot connect a query to the key events that followed. Cross-reference instead: 1. In Search Console, find a query such as "best invoicing software for contractors": 1,200 impressions, 120 clicks, 10% click-through rate, average position 4. 2. In GA4, filter the landing page `/best-invoicing-software-contractors/` to organic search: 110 engaged sessions, 8 key events, a key event rate of 7.3%. The query ranks and earns clicks, and the page converts. Monitor it, and build related content such as comparisons and use-case guides around it. The guide to [Search Console by role](/articles/google-search-console-by-role) covers the query reports in depth. ## Step 5: build a monthly dashboard Manual reporting takes one to two hours per client per month. Automate it in Looker Studio, which Google renamed from Data Studio in 2022. It connects to GA4 and Search Console and refreshes on its own. **Page 1, traffic:** - a scorecard of organic sessions against last month and the same month last year; - a 12-month line chart of organic sessions; - a table of the top 10 organic landing pages with sessions, engagement rate, and key events. **Page 2, key events:** - scorecards for organic key events, the change, and the organic key event rate; - a table of key events by landing page; - a funnel from organic sessions to engaged sessions to key events. **Page 3, queries from Search Console:** - a table of the top 20 queries by clicks, with impressions, click-through rate, and average position; - a line chart of clicks over time; - a table of pages with falling average position, which are the pages to improve. **Page 4, engagement:** - scorecards for average engagement time and engagement rate; - a table of pages with low engagement, which are candidates for a rewrite. To build it: 1. Open `lookerstudio.google.com`, and select Create, then Report. 2. Add GA4 as a data source. 3. Add Search Console as a second data source. 4. Add the scorecards, charts, and tables. 5. Filter every GA4 chart to organic search. 6. Set the date range to the last 30 days, compared with the previous period. Share a view-only link with the client. The [Looker Studio reporting guide](/articles/looker-studio-seo-reporting) covers layout, and the [freelance reporting templates](/articles/freelance-seo-reporting-templates) cover the written narrative that goes with it. ## Step 6: report revenue For ecommerce and SaaS clients, revenue matters most. ### Ecommerce revenue GA4 reports revenue when the site sends the recommended ecommerce events, such as `purchase` and `add_to_cart`, through gtag.js or Google Tag Manager. 1. Create a Free form exploration. 2. Add the dimension "Session source / medium." 3. Add metrics: purchase revenue, transactions, and average purchase revenue. 4. Filter to organic search. You see revenue from organic search, the average order value, and the number of transactions. Put it next to the monthly fee: "Organic search produced [revenue] from 180 transactions this month, [multiple] times the SEO retainer." ### Lead generation revenue When leads have no revenue value in GA4, estimate it: ```text estimated organic revenue = organic leads x average deal size x close rate ``` With 50 organic leads, a 20% close rate, and your client's average deal size, the estimate is 10 closed deals times the deal size. Keep the calculation in Google Sheets or the CRM and use it in reports. The [SEO ROI calculation guide](/articles/seo-roi-calculation-guide) covers the rest of the return math. ## Avoid five mistakes **No organic filter.** Default reports blend every channel. Filter or compare on organic search every time. **Users and sessions confused.** Users are unique people. Sessions are visits, and one user can have several. For SEO reporting, track sessions. **Engagement ignored.** An engaged session lasted longer than 10 seconds by default, had a key event, or had two or more page views. Bounce rate is still available in GA4 as the share of sessions that were not engaged. Set engagement benchmarks from your own site's history, by page type, rather than from a general target. **No key events.** Without them, you can report traffic and rankings, not business results. Configure forms, signups, and purchases as key events before the first report. **Keywords expected in GA4.** GA4 has no keyword data of its own. Use Search Console for queries and cross-reference with GA4 landing page data. ## Handle four common reporting gaps **Lower organic traffic than in Universal Analytics.** The two tools count sessions differently, and GA4 filters bots differently. Counts differ, so compare trends within one tool, not totals across the two. **Organic traffic by location.** Add "Country" or "City" to the exploration, filter to organic search, and sort by sessions. This helps local SEO clients. **"Google organic search traffic" against the "Organic Search" channel.** The first report uses Search Console data: clicks, impressions, and queries from Google only. The channel uses GA4 data: sessions, engagement, and key events from every search engine. **Rankings.** GA4 does not track rankings. Use the average position in Search Console, or a rank tracker such as Ahrefs, Semrush, or AccuRanker. For more tooling, Supermetrics pulls GA4 data into Google Sheets for clients who prefer spreadsheets. 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