How to Create a Website Dashboard in Google Sheets

A website dashboard is your mission control, giving you a clear, at-a-glance view of your most important metrics. Instead of paying for expensive software, you can build a powerful, custom dashboard right inside Google Sheets. This article will walk you through, step-by-step, how to connect your data, organize your key metrics, and create visualizations to track your website’s performance.

Why Build a Dashboard in Google Sheets?

While dedicated BI tools are powerful, Google Sheets offers a surprisingly robust solution that's perfect for many businesses, especially if you're just starting to formalize your reporting. The benefits are clear and compelling.

It's free. The most obvious advantage. You don't need another software subscription to get started. Just a Google account.
It's highly customizable. You have complete control over what metrics you show, how you visualize them, and the overall layout. You’re not limited by a software's predefined templates.
It centralizes your data. Your dashboard can become a single source of truth by pulling in data from multiple places - not just your website traffic, but also ad spend, SEO rankings, and CRM data.
Collision built-in. Sharing your dashboard with your team or clients is as simple as sharing any other Google Sheet, allowing for real-time collaboration and comments.

Building your first dashboard in Sheets is a great way to understand exactly what information you need before deciding if you should invest in more complex, paid tools down the line.

Step 1: Planning Your Dashboard - Essential Website Metrics

A common mistake is trying to track everything. An effective dashboard is focused and tells a clear story. Before you pull any data, decide which key performance indicators (KPIs) truly matter for your business goals. Start with a handful of core metrics and group them logically.

Traffic and Acquisition Metrics

These metrics tell you how many people are coming to your site and where they're coming from.

Sessions: The total number of visits to your site. A great high-level indicator of traffic volume.
Users: The number of unique individuals who have visited your site.
Traffic by Channel: A breakdown of where your visitors originate (e.g., Organic Search, Paid search, Social, Direct, Referral). This is crucial for understanding which of your marketing efforts are working.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. (Note: This metric is more prominent in Universal Analytics, in Google Analytics 4, 'Engagement Rate' is the preferred inverse metric).

Engagement Metrics

Once users are on your site, how do they behave? These metrics help you understand user engagement.

Average Session Duration: The typical length of a visit. Higher duration can signal more engaging content.
Pages per Session: The average number of pages a visitor views during a session.
Top Pages: A list of your most-viewed pages. Helps you identify your most popular content.

Conversion Metrics

These are the most important metrics, as they measure how well your website is achieving its primary goals, whether that's making sales or generating leads.

Goal Completions / Conversions: The total number of times users completed a desired action (e.g., filled out a contact form, signed up for a newsletter, downloaded a PDF).
Conversion Rate: The percentage of sessions that result in a conversion. This is a critical measure of website effectiveness.
E-commerce Revenue: If you run an online store, directly tracking sales revenue is a must.

Step 2: Getting Your Website Data into Google Sheets

Now that you know what to track, it's time to pull the data. While you could download and upload CSV files manually, that's not efficient. The best way to get live website data into Google Sheets is by using an add-on.

Using the Official Google Analytics Spreadsheet Add-on

The easiest and most reliable method is using Google’s own add-on for Google Analytics. It automates the entire data pipeline.

Install the Add-on: In your Google Sheet, go to Extensions > Add-ons > Get add-ons. Search for "Google Analytics" and install the official one by Google. You'll need to grant it permission to access your Google Analytics data.
Create a New Report: Once installed, go to Extensions > Google Analytics > Create new report. A sidebar will appear on the right.
Configure Your Report: This is where you tell the add-on what data to pull.
- Give your report a name: Something descriptive like "Traffic by Source - Last 30 Days."
- Select your account: Choose the Google Analytics account, property, and view (for UA) or the GA4 Property you want to pull data from.
- Choose Metrics & Dimensions: This is the most important part.
  - Metrics are the numbers you want to measure (e.g., sessions, users, conversions).
  - Dimensions are what you want to measure against (e.g., date, source/medium, country, landing page).
  - For example, to track daily sessions for the last 30 days, select "Date" as your Dimension and "Sessions" as your Metric.
Run the Report: Click "Create Report." This will create a new sheet called "Report Configuration" with your query details. To execute it, go back to Extensions > Google Analytics > Run reports. A new sheet will appear with your raw data.

You can create multiple reports for different metrics, giving each a unique name in the configuration.

Scheduling Automatic Refreshes

Manually running reports daily is tedious. The add-on can automate this. Navigate to Extensions > Google Analytics > Schedule reports. Set your reports to refresh automatically at intervals like hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. This keeps your dashboard data current without manual effort.

Step 3: Organizing Your Data for Analysis

It’s best to keep your raw GA data separate from your dashboard views. The sheets created by the add-on are your data sources. Never edit them directly. Instead, use formulas to extract and summarize this data into a clean sheet for your dashboard.

Create a new sheet named "Analysis" or "Data Processing." Use the QUERY function to build summary tables that will feed your charts. For example, if your raw GA data is in 'GA Daily Sessions' with Date in A and Sessions in B, you can write:

=QUERY('GA Daily Sessions'!A15:B, "SELECT A, B")

This pulls just the data you need, ignoring headers and extraneous info. You can also filter for specific segments, like organic traffic:

=QUERY('GA Traffic Sources'!A15:C, "SELECT B, C where A = 'google'", 0)

Using functions like QUERY, SUMIF, and VLOOKUP, you create a stable, organized layer that updates automatically as raw data refreshes, ensuring your dashboard reflects the latest insights.

Step 4: Building Your Visual Dashboard

This is the final step — assembling your dashboard sheet.

Create a sheet called "Dashboard." Keep it tidy and visually appealing. Reference your processed data from the analysis sheet using simple formulas like =Analysis!A2.

Creating Scorecards for Key Metrics

Display your top KPIs as big, bold numbers at the top—these are scorecards.

In "Analysis," calculate totals, e.g., =SUM(B2:B) for total sessions.
In "Dashboard," select an empty cell, type =, then click the summary cell.
Increase font size, make it bold, change color for emphasis. Add descriptive labels below, e.g., "Total Sessions (Last 30 Days)."
Repeat for other KPIs like conversions, revenue, and conversion rate.

Visualizing Trends with Charts

Charts make patterns easy to see.

Line Chart: Use to show trends over time, e.g., daily sessions. Select data in "Analysis" (Date and Sessions), then Insert > Chart. Choose line chart, customize title, colors.
Pie Chart: For source breakdowns, select traffic source and session numbers, Insert > Chart > Pie chart.
Bar Chart: To compare pages or campaigns, select relevant data and choose horizontal bar chart.

A powerful but often overlooked feature is SPARKLINE. It creates mini charts inside cells, great for compact trend indicators:

=SPARKLINE(range, {"charttype","line", "color", "blue"})

Best Practices for an Effective Dashboard

A well-designed dashboard should be quick to interpret.

Keep it simple: Focus on critical KPIs. If a chart doesn’t inform decisions, omit it.
Use white space: Avoid clutter. Space makes the layout easier on the eyes.
Organize logically: Place high-level summaries at the top, trend charts below, detailed breakdowns at the bottom. Prioritize key info "above the fold."
Consistent colors: Use a color scheme: blue for acquisition, orange for engagement, green for conversions, or match your branding.
Clear labels: Name every chart and table descriptively.

Final Thoughts

Congratulations! You've transformed a simple spreadsheet into a dynamic, automated website dashboard. Google Sheets is a free, versatile tool that enables you to centralize data and tailor reports to your needs.

As your reporting demands grow, manually managing formulas can become cumbersome. That’s why many turn to specialized tools like Graphed — which makes connecting data sources and building real-time dashboards easy, without spreadsheet wrangling. It’s a natural next step to streamline your reporting and focus on insights that matter.