How to Track Page Views in Google Analytics

Tracking page views is one of the most fundamental ways to understand how people interact with your website. This simple metric tells you which pieces of content resonate most with your audience, which pages are being ignored, and where users are spending their time. This article will show you exactly how to find, analyze, and get real value from your page view data in Google Analytics 4.

What Exactly Is a 'Page View' in Google Analytics?

A "page view" (or simply a "view" in GA4) is recorded every time a page on your website is loaded or reloaded in a browser. It's the simplest metric for content popularity - if Page A has more views than Page B, it means Page A was loaded more times. If a single user visits your homepage, then clicks to your 'About Us' page, and finally reads a blog post, that would count as three page views.

It's easy to get page views mixed up with other common metrics like sessions and users. Here’s a simple way to tell them apart:

• Users: This refers to the individual people visiting your site. One person (one user) can be responsible for many sessions and page views.
• Sessions: This is a single visit to your website. A session begins when a user arrives and ends after a period of inactivity (typically 30 minutes). One user can start multiple sessions on different days.
• Page Views: This is a count of total pages viewed. A single session can contain many page views.

Think of it like a library. A user is a person with a library card. A session is a single trip they make to the library. Page views are the total number of books they pull off the shelf to look at during that trip.

How to Find Your Page View Data in GA4

Finding your top pages in Google Analytics 4 is straightforward. The primary place you’ll look is the Pages and screens report. It gives you a clean, organized view of your most popular content.

Here’s how to get there step-by-step:

1. Log into your Google Analytics account at https://analytics.google.com/.
2. From the left-hand navigation menu, click on Reports (it looks like a small chart icon).
3. Once the Reports menu expands, look for the Engagement section.
4. Click on Pages and screens.

You'll now see a table showing all the pages on your website that have received traffic during your selected date range. Here’s a breakdown of the most important columns in this report:

• Page path and screen class: This is the part of the URL that comes after your domain name (e.g., "/blog/my-first-post"). The homepage is typically represented by a single "/". This column tells you exactly which page the data applies to.
• Views: This is it - the total number of times each page was viewed. You can click on this column header to sort the table and see your most (or least) popular pages.
• Users: The number of unique users who viewed each page. This helps you understand how broad your reach is for any given piece of content.
• Views per user: The average number of times a single user viewed the page. A high number here might indicate that people are returning to that page frequently.
• Average engagement time: This shows how long, on average, your page was the primary focus in a user's browser. It's a key indicator of whether your content is just being glanced at or is actually being read and consumed.

Analyzing Your Page View Data for Better Insights

Simply knowing which pages get the most views is a great start, but the real value comes from digging a bit deeper. GA4 provides powerful tools to slice and dice your data to uncover actionable insights.

Adjusting the Date Range

By default, GA4 shows data from the last 28 days. You can easily change this to analyze performance over specific periods. Click the date range in the top-right corner of the report. You can select presets like "Last 7 days" or "Last 90 days," or set up a custom date range to measure the performance during a specific marketing campaign or sales event.

You can also use the "Compare" toggle to compare the current period's performance to a previous one (like this month vs. last month) to quickly spot trends, growth, or declines in content popularity.

Identifying Your Most Valuable Content

Sorting the Views column from highest to lowest instantly reveals your "greatest hits." These are the pages working hardest for you. Ask yourself:

• Why are these pages so popular? Is it because they rank well on search engines, get a lot of social media shares, or are linked from your homepage?
• What topics do these pages cover? This is a direct signal from your audience about what they're interested in. Create more content around these successful themes.
• Can you optimize these pages further? Could you add a call-to-action (CTA), like a newsletter signup form or a link to a related product, to capture more value from all this traffic?

Finding Underperforming Content

Just as valuable is finding what's not working. Sort the Views column from lowest to highest to see your least-visited pages. Don’t ignore this content graveyard! For pages that are important to your business but have low views, ask:

• Is this page discoverable? Do you have internal links pointing to it from your more popular posts or service pages?
• Could you improve its on-page SEO? Take a look at the page title, meta description, and keywords.
• Is the topic simply not resonating? It might be time to update the content with a new angle or combine it with another, more successful post.

Using Comparisons to Segment Your Audience

The "Add comparison" button at the top of the report is a powerful way to understand who is viewing your content. You can use it to compare different audience segments side-by-side.

• Mobile Traffic vs. Desktop Traffic: Are certain blog posts far more popular on mobile? Maybe you should format them for easier reading on small screens.
• Users from different countries: See if content about a specific service is more popular in the US versus Canada, which can help tailor your marketing budget.
• Traffic from Organic Search vs. Paid Search: This shows which pages are driving your SEO efforts and which ads are performing best.

Beyond Basic Page Views: An Introduction to Virtual Page Views

Sometimes, meaningful interactions happen on your website without the URL changing. This is common in modern Single Page Applications (SPAs) or on pages with tabbed content, multi-step forms, or photo galleries. In these cases, clicking a tab or next button doesn't trigger a new page load, so a standard GA4 implementation won't record a new page view.

This is where virtual page views come in. Using Google Tag Manager (GTM), you can send a custom event to GA4 that effectively tells it, "Hey, treat this click on the 'Specifications' tab as a view of a virtual page called '/product/widget-specs'."

This advanced method gives you a much more granular understanding of how users interact with dynamic page elements. While setting it up requires some technical knowledge of GTM, it’s a powerful technique for websites where a lot of the key user activity happens on a single URL.

Common Pitfalls and Questions About Page Views

Finally, let's address a few common sticking points that can cause confusion when you're analyzing page view data.

• Why are my page views always higher than sessions and users? This is normal! One user can have multiple sessions, and one session almost always includes multiple page views. It's unusual for these numbers to be close unless visitors are only viewing a single page and then leaving.
• Are more page views always better? Not necessarily. Context is critical. High page views on your blog or product pages are great. But extremely high page views on your "Contact Support" page might signal that your product is confusing or broken. Always analyze numbers in the context of the page's purpose.
• What if I want to track button clicks or video plays? Those are not page views - they are user interactions that should be tracked as Events. In GA4, things like button clicks, form submissions, and video plays are all configured as Events, not Views. This allows you to measure specific actions users take on a page, separate from just having loaded it.

Final Thoughts

Understanding which pages your audience visits is your first step toward building a more effective, data-driven website and marketing strategy. By regularly checking the Pages and screens report in GA4, you can learn what your audience loves, identify content that needs help, and make smarter decisions about where to focus your efforts.

While GA4 is great for website analysis, we know marketing data comes from everywhere - your ad platforms, email tool, CRM, and more. To solve this, we created Graphed to connect all your data sources in one place. You can use simple, natural language to ask questions and instantly build live dashboards, so you spend less time wrestling with reports and more time acting on insights.