We could say that measuring page views, users, and sessions in Google Analytics 4 are the 3 indicators that can be most useful; however, their meaning can be confusing. Google Analytics provides you with a vast amount of data and, generally, sometimes it can be difficult to properly understand the information.
There are so many things happening in your account, and many metrics are tracked simultaneously. But from an SEO (search engine optimization) perspective, the most important indicators are users, sessions, and page views. If a blogger says that 2 million people visit your site per month, no one will believe them. But if they show the Google Analytics graph indicating sessions, then they have something to support that claim.
However, even so, this does not confirm that 2 million people have visited your site because there is a difference between users and sessions. Interestingly, there is a difference between the three most commonly used metrics to indicate traffic on your site, including sessions, users, and page views.
Understanding sessions, users, and page views
If you have a Google Analytics 4 account, every time you look for data these three metrics will appear: Sessions, Users, and Page Views. These indicators are used in SEO to measure the traffic your website receives.
So, in that case, page views will show the highest numbers, followed by sessions, and users will show the lowest numbers. Let’s start with the basics. When we talk about sessions, we refer to visits, while when we refer to users, we are talking about people. For example, if a person visits a website 3 times this week, we will have 3 sessions and one user.
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What are Google Analytics sessions?
Sessions are generally described as the group of interactions that occur on your site during a specific period of time, usually 30 minutes. The moment a visitor arrives at your website, their session begins. However, in the case of sessions, factors like the number of page views by the visitor or what exactly the visitor is doing are not taken into account.[easy-tweet tweet=”Sessions are the group of interactions that occur on your site within 30 minutes” hashtags=”seo, posicionamientoweb, seonpage”]
Importance of Sessions
So, why is it important to measure your website’s sessions? Technically speaking, sessions give you an accurate estimate of the number of times visitors have opened your website and carried out transactions or activities.
And sometimes these sessions can last for a couple of hours. But since the duration of a session cookie is set to 30 minutes, the expiration will update each time the visitor opens any page. In that case, even if a visitor stays on your website for a couple of hours and keeps opening a page every 29 minutes, the analytics will count it as a single session.
What are views in Google Analytics?
It is one of the easiest to understand. Pageviews are the total number of times a page on the website has been viewed. Now, if a person clicks on your page multiple times, analytics will count each visit as a pageview.
Why are pageviews important?
SEO services use pageviews for different purposes, besides, of course, knowing how many people viewed your site on that particular day, week, or month. A pageviews analysis generally indicates whether your new page design or the online advertising campaign you are running is actually performing according to your expectations or not.
For this, the best way is to track your pageviews before improving your website’s design and content or implementing new marketing strategies. Get the Google Analytics data related to pageviews and then make changes or update your site as desired.
If pageviews increase, it means the changes you made are actually working and you can retain them or continue with the advertising campaign. However, if pageviews drop, it would be preferable to revert to the original site design or content. This way, pageviews can be used as measures to judge whether your new updates will yield results or not.
What are Users in Google Analytics 4?
Google Analytics tracks visitors to your website using cookies. Each time a visitor visits a website with the Google Analytics account for the first time, their user ID is created automatically.
The browser stores this identification as a cookie. Therefore, it also indicates that this particular user identification is unique to that specific visitor, but most importantly, it is more specifically identified in that particular browser. This means that if the same visitor accesses your website using a different computer or browser, Google Analytics will consider them a new user and create a new identification for them.
However, this does not happen most of the time since a person generally uses the same browser primarily to navigate different websites. Although this probability does not apply to all users, it has little impact on the statistics.
How long does the cookie retain a user’s identity?
Ideally, the cookie preserves the visitor’s identity in the form of a user ID. Interestingly, each time the user visits any webpage on your website, the expiration date is automatically reset for two years.
For example, if a new user visited your page on January 1, 2015, according to the rule, Google Analytics will create a new cookie containing their visitor or user ID and its expiration date will be set to January 1, 2017. But if the visitor visits your webpage again on January 1, 2016, their ID’s expiration date will be reset again to January 1, 2018.
If the visitor does not visit your website within these two years, the cookie containing their ID will be automatically deleted. So, when this visitor returns after a two-year interval, the Analytics account will create a new identification for them and treat them as a new user.
Importance of Web Statistics
These metrics are truly important as they show the exact number of people visiting your site, the users who keep returning multiple times, the amount of time a visitor stays on your page, and also who your new users are.
It is always better to have many recurring visitors participating in multiple sessions rather than users who browse several pages but do not return or stay for a long time on your website. This specific information related to sessions, page views, and users provided by the Google Analytics account is very useful for SEO consulting services aiming to improve lead generation opportunities, and when redesigning your website for better results and traffic.
These metrics help you measure your website’s reach and the areas that need more improvement.
Differences between Google Analytics sessions, users, and views
We already understand what sessions, users, and page views are exactly. But, what is the exact difference between these three? We can understand this more easily with an example.
Suppose I visit your site on April 1st. While on your website, I visit your About Us page, the homepage, and the contact page. If I am the only visitor on your website at that moment, the Google Analytics profile would read as follows:
- Sessions: 1
- Views: 3
- Users: 1
So, it means that I am a user who has created a session but has viewed three pages.
If I come back to your website once again using the same browser or computer the next day, that is, April 2nd. Again, I visit your homepage, the about page, and your contact page. Now the report will read:
- Sessions: 2
- Users: 1
- Views: 6
Since I arrived the next day, the 30-minute period expired and the count will calculate my next visit as the second session. But because I am using the same browser/device and have not cleared my cookies, the report will only show 1 user.
Regarding page views, it is just a count of how many web pages are loaded by a visitor, so since I have visited 3 pages, page views will be 3, and since I am the same user, the second time the pages will be 6.
