How to Create a Website Dashboard in Looker with AI
Trying to understand your website's performance by just clicking around in Google Analytics 4 can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. The data is there, but getting a clear, top-level view of what’s truly moving the needle requires jumping between different reports. This article will show you how to cut through that noise by creating a custom website performance dashboard using Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) and how new AI features are making the whole process easier than ever.
Why Build a Website Dashboard in Looker Studio?
While Google Analytics is fantastic for deep-dive analysis, a dashboard serves a different purpose: providing a quick, at-a-glance summary of your most important metrics. For marketing managers, founders, or anyone responsible for website growth, a Looker Studio dashboard offers a single source of truth without the overwhelm.
Think of it as the cockpit for your website. Instead of navigating dozens of menus in GA4 to figure out your traffic sources, user engagement, and conversion rates, you can see it all on one screen. Here’s why it’s so effective:
It saves time: Once you set it up, the dashboard updates automatically. This ends the weekly cycle of manually pulling data and putting it into spreadsheets - a process that often takes hours and leaves your reports outdated the moment you finish.
It simplifies complexity: You get to decide which numbers matter most. This focus helps you ignore vanity metrics and concentrate on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that truly reflect business growth.
It’s highly shareable: You can create tailored views for different people. The marketing team might want to see campaign performance, while the CEO might only need a high-level summary of traffic and conversions. A live dashboard link is far more efficient than emailing static, outdated screenshots or PDFs.
It's free: Looker Studio is an incredibly powerful and entirely free tool. For small businesses and teams without a dedicated analyst, there's no better way to get started with professional-grade reporting.
Choosing the Right Metrics for Your Dashboard
A great dashboard tells a clear story. Before you add a single chart, think about the narrative you want to convey. For most websites, this story follows the user journey: how people find you, what they do on your site, and whether they take the actions you care about.
Traffic Acquisition Metrics: Where are your users coming from?
This is the first chapter of your story. These metrics help you understand which marketing channels are effectively driving people to your website.
Users: The total number of unique individuals who visited your site. This gives you a sense of your overall audience size.
Sessions: The total number of visits to your site. A single user can have multiple sessions. This metric reflects overall activity levels.
Session Source / Medium: A breakdown of where your traffic originated. Examples include 'google / organic' (from Google searches), 'facebook / social' (from Facebook), or 'email / newsletter'. This is critical for knowing which marketing efforts are delivering results.
User Engagement Metrics: What do they do once they're here?
Once users land on your site, you want to know if they find your content valuable. Are they sticking around or leaving immediately? These metrics answer that question.
Average Engagement Time: The average time your website was the main focus in a user's browser. This is a much better indicator of interest than older metrics like 'Average time on page'.
Engaged Sessions: A session that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a conversion event, or had at least 2 pageviews. GA4's flexible 'Engagement Rate' (Engaged Sessions ÷ Total Sessions) has essentially replaced the outdated 'Bounce Rate'.
Views by Page title or Page path: Shows which pages on your site receive the most traffic. This tells you what content is resonating with your audience.
Conversion Metrics: Are they taking the desired action?
This is the finale of your story. Traffic and engagement are great, but conversions are what drive your business forward. A 'conversion' is any valuable action a user takes on your site.
Key Event completions (Conversions): The total number of times users completed a specific goal, like submitting a contact form, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase. You designate which "events" in GA4 should be counted as conversions.
User Conversion Rate: The percentage of users who completed a conversion action. This metric puts your total conversions into context and helps you measure efficiency.
Step-by-Step Guide: Building Your First Looker Studio Dashboard
With our key metrics decided, it's time to build. The process is surprisingly straightforward, especially since we're connecting directly to Google Analytics.
1. Create a New Report and Connect Your Data
Start by heading to Looker Studio and creating a blank report. The first thing it will ask you to do is connect a data source. Find the 'Google Analytics' connector in the list, authorize your account, and select the GA4 property and data stream for your website. Just like that, your Looker Studio report can now pull live data directly from your site's analytics.
2. Add Top-Level Scorecards
Scorecards are perfect for displaying your most important headline numbers. Go to Insert > Scorecard and place one on your canvas. By default, it might show a metric like 'Views'. Simply use the 'Metric' selector in the right-hand panel to change it to 'Total Users'.
Rinse and repeat this process to create scorecards for 'Sessions', 'Engagement Rate', and 'Conversions'. You now have your main KPIs visible at the top of your dashboard. Feel free to add 'vs. Previous Period' comparisons to instantly see trends.
3. Visualize Trends with a Time Series Chart
Scorecards show the current state, but time series charts show the journey. Add a time series chart (Insert > Time series chart) to visualize your key metrics over time. A great starting point is plotting 'Sessions' as your metric with the 'Date' as your dimension. This will immediately show you the daily ebb and flow of your website traffic.
You can create additional line charts for other key metrics, like visualizing 'Conversions' over the past 30 days to see if your efforts are resulting in consistent growth.
4. Break Down Your Traffic with Tables and Geo Charts
Now, let's understand the 'who' and 'where' behind the numbers. Add a table (Insert > Table) to your report. Set the dimension to 'Session source / medium' and the metrics to 'Sessions' and 'User Conversion Rate'. This instantly creates a powerful table showing which marketing channels are not only driving traffic but also converting highest.
For a more visual look at your audience, add a Geo Chart (Insert > Google Maps) and set the 'Location' dimension to 'Country' or 'City'. This plots your user data on an interactive map, giving you a quick visual summary of your global reach.
5. Make it Interactive with a Date Range Control
A static dashboard is useful, but an interactive one is empowering. Add a Date Range Control (Insert > Date range control). This simple filter allows anyone viewing the dashboard to select their desired date range - like 'Last 7 days' or 'This Quarter' - and all the charts will update instantly. This gives stakeholders the power to answer their own questions without asking you to pull a new report.
How Gemini in Looker Is Changing the Game
Historically, even user-friendly tools like Looker Studio had a learning curve. You had to know which chart to choose, how to configure dimensions and metrics, and how to write basic formulas for calculated fields.
Google's integration of its AI model, Gemini, directly into Looker Studio is rapidly changing that. Now, you don't always have to know how to build something, you can simply describe what you want to see. This is a massive shift, making data visualization accessible to anyone who can ask a clear question in plain English.
Prompt-Based Chart Creation
Instead of manually dragging and dropping dimensions and metrics, you can now generate charts with a written prompt. For example, if you wanted to see your top traffic sources, you could tell Looker to generate a chart using a prompt like this:
Show me top session sources by session in a bar chart
Looker Studio will then automatically create the appropriate bar chart, configured with the correct dimension ('Session source') and metric ('Sessions'). This single feature turns hours of "how-to" tutorials into a 10-second conversation, allowing you to move directly from a question in your head to a visualization on the screen.
Smarter Calculated Fields and Insights
Got a custom metric you need to calculate, like 'Cost per Conversion'? In the past, you'd need to know the proper formula syntax. With Gemini, you can simply describe the calculation, and it will help generate the formula. This small change removes a major technical barrier that often frustrated non-analyst users. Gemini also helps suggest ways to improve your charts, recommending alternative visualizations or pointing out areas for improvement.
Final Thoughts
Building a website performance dashboard in Looker Studio is one of the highest-leverage activities you can do to bring clarity and focus to your marketing efforts. It automates repetitive reporting tasks and empowers your entire team to make data-informed decisions without getting lost in the dense interface of Google Analytics. Tools like Gemini are making report building faster and more intuitive than ever before.
Here at Graphed , we live and breathe this stuff, focusing on how to make data even more accessible. While you can add AI elements to your Looker dashboards, we’ve created a more unified experience where you can connect all your marketing and sales tools — not just Google Analytics — and build entire dashboards instantly using natural language. You can simply chat to get answers, turning hours of analysis across a dozen tabs into a single, quick conversation.