Search and measurement
Measuring enquiries with GA4 and Search Console
Two free Google tools answer two different questions. Here is what each one shows, what counts as an enquiry, why a tap is not a sale, and what to decide about privacy first.
If you have a website, you will be told to “set up analytics”. Two Google tools do the job, and they answer different questions. Knowing which question each answers is most of the work.
Search Console: how you appear in Google
Search Console shows how your pages appear in Google Search. Its Performance report shows clicks, impressions (how often a page appeared in results), click-through rate and average position, broken down by the search queries and pages involved. By default it shows the last three months.
Two limits are worth knowing. The newest data may be preliminary and can change over the next few hours. And what Google shows you when you search for your own business is not a reliable check, because results vary with the searcher’s location, device and history. Use the report, not your own search.
To use it you prove you own the site. A domain property is verified through DNS only. A URL-prefix property can be verified with an HTML file, an HTML tag, a Google Analytics or Tag Manager link, or DNS. If your site sits on a subdomain provided by a host and you do not control the DNS, the URL-prefix methods are the practical choice.
GA4: what visitors do on your site
Google Analytics 4 records what visitors do once they arrive: which pages they open and which actions they take. Setting it up means creating an account, a property and a web data stream. The stream gives you a Measurement ID that starts with “G-”, which is added to the site as a tag. You can confirm it works in the Realtime report, though it can take some time before reports fill in.
What counts as an enquiry
For most business sites, an enquiry is one of three actions:
- A tap on the phone number.
- A tap on the WhatsApp button.
- A submitted enquiry form.
GA4 records these as events, and any event can be marked as a key event, the term Google uses for an action that matters to the business. The choice of which events to mark is yours.
A tap is not a sale
A tap on a phone or WhatsApp link means someone tried to contact you. It does not mean the call connected, the message was sent or the person bought anything, and the tool cannot see the conversation. Count these as “enquiry attempts” and keep your own simple record of real enquiries and what became of them. Compare the two once a month. If taps are rising and real enquiries are not, that is worth knowing.
What not to send
A sensible rule, and the one the enquiry-tracking code on this site is written to follow, is to send the type of action and nothing a visitor typed or that identifies them. That means the contact method, but not the phone number, the name, the e-mail address or the text of a message. If a tool or plugin offers to send more, decline it unless you have a clear reason and have thought through the privacy consequences.
Privacy and consent: decide before you switch it on
Google’s tags set and read cookies to identify unique users across sessions. Whether you need to tell visitors, ask for their consent, or both, depends on where your visitors are and what the law there requires. Rules such as the European GDPR, UK law and India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act may apply in different ways. This note cannot tell you which apply to you, and a cookie banner alone does not settle the question: what it does, and what the tags do before and after a choice, both matter. If you are unsure, ask someone qualified, or decide to run without analytics until you have an answer.
What to look at after a month
Two longer notes follow each tool: GA4 explained for a business website and Search Console in your first month.
- In Search Console: which pages appear, for which queries, and whether impressions are growing.
- In GA4: how many enquiry attempts, from which pages.
- In your own record: how many real enquiries came in, and from where.
Three honest numbers are more useful than a dashboard of thirty.
Which package includes this
Essential is frontend only and does not include GA4 setup, Search Console setup or enquiry tracking. Growth and Complete set up GA4, Search Console and enquiry-click and form tracking when you supply the account access and details. The pricing page lists it exactly.