What are Entrances in Google Analytics?

The "Entrances" metric in Google Analytics tells you one simple but critical thing: how many times a particular page served as the first touchpoint in a user's session. Understanding which pages are your most common entry points is the key to improving user experience, optimizing your marketing funnels, and growing your traffic. This article will show you what the Entrances metric means, how it differs from similar-sounding metrics, where to find it in Google Analytics 4, and how to use it to make smarter decisions.

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What Exactly Are Entrances in GA4?

An Entrance is counted every time a session begins on a specific page. That’s it. If a user lands on your homepage from a Google search, that's one entrance credited to your homepage. If another user clicks a link from an email newsletter and lands directly on a product page, that's one entrance for that product page.

Think of your website as a building with multiple doors. You have the main front door (your homepage), side doors (blog posts), a back door (a specific landing page for an ad campaign), and even a fire escape (an obscure page someone found somehow). The "Entrances" metric is like a person with a clicker counting how many people enter through each specific door. It doesn't count people just walking from room to room inside the building, only those entering it for the first time on that visit.

This is crucial because while the total number of Entrances for your entire website will always equal your total number of Sessions, analyzing entrances on a page-by-page basis tells an incredibly rich story. It reveals which of your pages serve as the true gateways to your brand.

It's important to note that in Google Analytics 4, this concept has been tied more directly to the term "landing page." A landing page is simply the page a user "lands on" to start their session. In GA4's dedicated Landing Page report, the "Sessions" metric performs the exact same function as "Entrances" did in Universal Analytics - it shows you how many sessions began on that specific URL.

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Entrances vs. Pageviews vs. Sessions: Understanding the Key Differences

The terms "Entrances," "Pageviews," and "Sessions" are often confused, but they measure distinct user interactions. Understanding the difference is fundamental to accurate data analysis. Let’s break it down.

Entrances vs. Sessions

This is the most direct relationship. A session is the entire container of actions a single user takes on your website within a given time frame (typically 30 minutes of inactivity). An entrance marks the very beginning of that session.

• Every single session must start somewhere, meaning every session has exactly one entrance page.
• Because of this one-to-one relationship, the total number of Entrances for your entire site will always equal the total number of Sessions over the same period.
• The insight comes from segmentation. While total Entrances match total Sessions, drilling down shows that "Homepage" got 50,000 entrances, while "Blog Post A" got 20,000, and "Services Page" got 5,000. This tells you which pages are drawing people in.

Entrances vs. Pageviews

This is where the distinction becomes even more important. A pageview is triggered every single time a page is loaded or reloaded in a browser. A session can contain many pageviews but only one entrance.

• The first page a user views in a session logs both 1 entrance and 1 pageview for that page.
• Every subsequent page that user visits during that same session will log 1 pageview but 0 entrances.

Putting It All Together: A Simple Scenario

Let's walk through a typical user journey to see how these metrics are counted:

Scenario: Michael is looking for tips on container gardening and finds your blog post, "A Beginner's Guide to Container Gardening," via Google.

1. He clicks the link and lands on the blog post.
2. After reading, he clicks an internal link in the article that takes him to your "Best Soil for Pots" product category page.
3. He adds a bag of soil to his cart and then clicks back to the original blog post to double-check something.
4. He then leaves your site.

Let's tally the results from Michael's visit:

• Total Sessions: 1 Session
• Total Entrances on the site: 1 Entrance
• "Beginner's Guide" Page: 1 Entrance, 2 Pageviews
• "Best Soil for Pots" Page: 0 Entrances, 1 Pageview

As you can see, a page can have far more pageviews than entrances, which shows that visitors are navigating to it from other pages on your site, not just landing on it from external sources.

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Where to Find Your Top Landing Pages in GA4

In GA4, the "Entrances" data you’re looking for lives within the "Landing page" report. Finding it is straightforward.

Here’s how to get there:

1. Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property.
2. From the left-hand navigation menu, click on Reports.
3. Under the Life cycle collection, expand the Engagement section.
4. Click on Landing page.

You'll now see a table showing your top landing pages. Here's a quick rundown of the key metrics in this report:

• Landing page: The URL of a page where at least one session began.
• Sessions: This is the key metric - it counts the total sessions that started on each respective page. This is the GA4 equivalent to "Entrances."
• Users: The number of unique users who initiated a session on that page.
• Engagement rate: The percentage of sessions that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a conversion event, or had at least 2 pageviews. High is good!
• Average engagement time: The average duration your site was in the foreground of a user’s browser during the session.
• Conversions: The number of conversion events (like a form fill or purchase) that occurred in sessions that started on this specific page.

Why This Metric Matters: Analyzing Your Entrance Pages for Growth

Now for the fun part: turning this data into action. Analyzing your top entrance pages gives you a roadmap for what's working with your content, SEO, and marketing campaigns - and what isn't. Here are a few ways to use this report for meaningful growth.

Identify Your Most Popular "Front Doors"

Your top landing pages are the proven winners at attracting new traffic. These are magnets for users from search engines, social media, email campaigns, and referral sites. They're doing something right.

• Actionable Insight: Scrutinize your top 5-10 landing pages. What defines them? Are they in-depth guides, listicles, or product pages? What is the tone? What search intent do they satisfy? Use this knowledge as a template to create new content or to revamp underperforming pages. Critically, ensure these popular pages have clear, compelling calls-to-action (CTAs) that guide visitors to the next logical step, whether that's signing up for a newsletter, viewing a product, or contacting you.

Assess Your SEO and Content Marketing Performance

When a blog post or resource page shows a high number of entrances, it's a powerful indicator that your content marketing and SEO strategy is paying off for that topic. People aren't just finding your homepage, they are finding your specific value-driven content directly through search engines like Google.

• Actionable Insight: If a specific article is a top entry point, can you create more content around similar "cluster" topics? If you see pages that should be top entrance pages but have very few, it’s a sign that their SEO needs attention. Check their keyword targeting, on-page optimization, and internal linking structure. Likewise, look for pages with a high number of entrances but a poor conversion rate - they're pulling people in but not persuading them to act.

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Spot User Experience (UX) Issues

The marriage of the "Sessions" (Entrances) metric with the "Engagement rate" metric in the landing page report is pure gold for diagnosing problems. A page with tons of entrances but a very low engagement rate is a big red flag.

This combination signals a major disconnect. People arrive expecting one thing and are presented with another, causing them to leave immediately. Think of it as a "digital bounce."

• Actionable Insight: Sort your Landing page report by Sessions (high to low) and look for pages with an engagement rate significantly lower than your site average. Investigate these pages immediately. Is the page loading too slowly? Does the content not match the page title or meta description? Is there an intrusive pop-up blocking the view on mobile? Fixing these UX roadblocks can dramatically improve performance.

Improve Your Marketing Campaign Tracking

For any paid advertising, email marketing, or social media promotion, you are directing users to a specific landing page. The number of entrances to that page is a direct reflection of your campaign's ability to generate clicks and drive traffic.

• Actionable Insight: Use UTM parameters on every single campaign link. This allows you to filter the GA4 Landing Page report by "Session source / medium." By doing this, you can see not just how many entrances a landing page received in total, but precisely how many came from your "google / cpc" campaign versus your "summer-sale / email" campaign. This provides clear, unambiguous data to measure the effectiveness of your marketing spend.

Final Thoughts

The Entrances metric - or "Sessions" in GA4's Landing Page report - is more than just a number. It's the starting point of your customer's story. By understanding which pages serve as your most common digital doorways, you can gain powerful insights into your audience, refine your SEO and content strategy, and optimize the entire user journey from that very first click.

Analyzing reports in Google Analytics can sometimes feel like trying to piece together a puzzle scattered across different tables and filters. We experienced this frustration ourselves, which is why we built Graphed. Our platform connects directly to data sources like Google Analytics, so instead of manually hunting for reports, you can simply ask in plain English, "Show me my top landing pages by sessions and engagement rate for last month," and get an interactive dashboard in seconds. This lets you move from question to insight much faster, giving you more time to act on the data instead of just searching for it.