Check your homepage's performance in GA4

Key takeaways

To check homepage performance in GA4, open the landing page report, filter it to your homepage and add sessions, engagement rate, average engagement time and key events. Then split by session source or channel. That one saved report, read monthly, tells you whether the homepage moves visitors forward and which traffic it serves best.

• Use the landing page report filtered to '/'.
• Add sessions, engagement rate, engagement time and key events.
• Split by channel: branded search and social behave differently.
• Save it as a report and read it monthly in 15 minutes.

Where is homepage data in GA4?

The quickest view is Reports, then Engagement, then Landing page, filtered to your homepage path, usually '/'. That shows sessions that started on the homepage and what they went on to do. The Pages and screens report shows all homepage views, including visitors who arrived elsewhere.

• Why your homepage is not converting visitors into customers
• GA4 setup for small business websites

Which metrics matter for the homepage?

Add these columns and ignore the rest at first.

• Sessions: how many visits started on the homepage.
• Engagement rate: sessions over 10 seconds, with a key event or with 2+ page views.
• Average engagement time: active time on the page.
• Key events: enquiries, calls and bookings from those sessions.

• Time on your homepage: what a good number looks like
• Homepage conversion rate: what to expect and how to read it

How should you split the data?

Add session default channel group as a secondary dimension. Organic search, direct, referral and organic social will behave differently, and mixing them hides problems. Also compare device category: if mobile engagement is much lower than desktop, look at the mobile homepage first.

• Homepage conversion by traffic source
• Mobile and desktop in GA4: find where phones lose enquiries

What should you do with the numbers?

Record them monthly in a simple dashboard and compare four-week periods with notes of any changes made. Look for trends rather than single months. A falling engagement rate from one channel points to a mismatch between that traffic and the homepage.

• A homepage dashboard: five numbers to check each month
• Change one thing at a time: a homepage change log

When is GA4 data misleading?

GA4 undercounts when visitors decline analytics cookies, and it overcounts when your own staff visit the site every day. Standard properties also keep detailed exploration data for only 2 or 14 months, depending on your setting. Fix these before you read too much into the numbers.

• Clean homepage data: bots, staff visits and consent gaps

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a business with GA4 installed but nobody looking at it, because the default reports feel overwhelming. One saved homepage report with four metrics, split by channel and reviewed on the first Monday of each month, is usually enough to spot problems early.

• See client work
• Website Design & Development for UK businesses

GA4 homepage report checklist

• Open the landing page report and filter to the homepage.
• Add sessions, engagement rate, engagement time and key events.
• Add channel group and device as secondary dimensions.
• Save the report to your library.
• Set data retention to 14 months.
• Read it monthly and note changes.

• Mobile menus that hide your homepage's next step
• Homepage exit rate: where visitors give up

Next step

Build the report today, save it and put a monthly 15-minute reminder in your diary to read it.