What is a Landing Page in Google Analytics?

In Google Analytics, a "landing page" is simply the very first page a person sees when they visit your website. This article breaks down how to find and analyze the Landing Page report in Google Analytics 4 so you can understand which content works best at grabbing visitors' attention and driving results.

What Exactly is a "Landing Page" in Google Analytics?

The term "landing page" can be a bit confusing because it means one thing in marketing and a slightly different, broader thing in Google Analytics. In marketing, a landing page is usually a specific page created for a campaign, like a sign-up page for a webinar or a sales page for a new product. Its sole purpose is to convert visitors.

In Google Analytics, however, any page on your website can be a landing page. It's defined as the first page a user loads in a new session. It's the "front door" through which they entered your site for that particular visit.

Here are a few common examples:

• If someone searches on Google and clicks on one of your blog posts, that blog post is the landing page for their session.
• If you share a link to a product page on social media and a user clicks it, that product page is their landing page.
• If a user types your homepage URL (www.yourwebsite.com) directly into their browser, your homepage is the landing page.

Understanding this distinction is the first step. You're not just looking at your campaign-specific pages, you're looking at every possible entry point to your site. This data is incredibly valuable for figuring out what content is successfully drawing people in from search engines, social media, email newsletters, and other sources.

How to Find the Landing Page Report in Google Analytics 4

If you're used to the old Universal Analytics, you might remember the landing page report was easy to find. In Google Analytics 4, it’s still there, but the navigation is different. The default report gives you what you need to get started.

Here’s how to find it step-by-step:

1. Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property.
2. On the left-hand navigation menu, click on Reports (it looks like a small chart icon).
3. In the menu that appears, look for the "Life cycle" section and expand the Engagement topic.
4. Click on Landing page.

That’s it! You've arrived at the default landing page report. You’ll see a large chart at the top and a detailed table at the bottom, listing your website's pages and their corresponding performance metrics. By default, the table lists your pages based on the total number of sessions they initiated.

Understanding the Metrics in the GA4 Landing Page Report

The data table at the bottom of the report is where you’ll spend most of your time. Here's a breakdown of the default columns you'll see and what they actually mean for your business.

Landing page

This is the primary dimension of the report. It shows the page path (the part of the URL that comes after your domain) and, if it exists, the query string for the page. For example, your homepage will appear as a "/", while a blog post might look like "/blog/how-to-do-something".

Sessions

This is a fundamental metric. It tells you the total number of sessions that started on that specific page. A high number here means that page is a popular entry point for your website. It's your most common "front door."

Users

This shows the count of unique users who started at least one session on that page. The "Users" count will usually be slightly lower than the "Sessions" count because one user can start multiple sessions over the selected time period (for instance, by visiting your blog post on Monday and again on Friday).

New Users

This metric counts the visitors for whom this session was their very first time visiting your website. A landing page with a high number of "New Users" is doing a great job at attracting a new audience. This is often the case for high-ranking blog posts or pages tied to widespread advertising campaigns.

Engaged sessions

This is one of the most important metrics in GA4. An "engaged session" is Google's way of measuring if someone actually interacted with your page in a meaningful way. A session is counted as engaged if the visitor did one of the following:

• Stayed on your site for longer than 10 seconds (this duration is customizable).
• Completed a conversion event (like filling out a form or making a purchase).
• Viewed at least two pages.

This filters out the people who clicked, saw the page, and immediately left without interacting.

Engagement rate

This metric has replaced the "Bounce Rate" from Universal Analytics. It's simply the percentage of sessions that were engaged. A higher engagement rate is better, as it indicates that the people landing on that page are finding what they're looking for and are interacting with your content. A very low engagement rate on a high-traffic landing page is a major red flag.

Average engagement time

This shows the average amount of time your web page was the main thing open and active in the user's browser. It’s a more accurate measure of attention than previous metrics like "Average Session Duration" because it stops counting if a user switches to another tab. Longer engagement times generally signal that the content is interesting and valuable to the visitor.

Conversions

This column shows the total number of conversion events (like generate_lead, purchase, or sign_up) that were completed during sessions that started on that specific landing page. This is the ultimate metric for measuring a page's effectiveness at driving business goals.

How to Use the Landing Page Report for Marketing Insights

Finding the report is just the first step. The real value comes from using this data to make smarter marketing decisions. Here are four practical ways to analyze your landing page data.

1. Identify Your Top-Performing Content

The simplest starting place is to see what's already working. By default, the report is sorted by Sessions. These are your most popular entry points. Are your top 5 landing pages what you expect them to be?

Now, click on the "Engagement rate" header to re-sort the list. This might reveal some hidden gems — pages that don't get the most traffic but are highly engaging to the audience they do attract. These are prime candidates for promotion. You could link to them from your homepage, include them in your email newsletters, or make them the focus of a new ad campaign.

2. Analyze and Improve Campaign Performance

Let's say you're running a Google Ads campaign that's sending traffic to a specific sales page: /products/new-widget-sale. You can use the search bar at the top of the data table and type in that page path to isolate its performance.

How does its engagement rate and conversion count look? If you're spending money to send people there but the engagement rate is below your site average, something is wrong. There could be a disconnect between your ad copy and the page's actual content. Maybe the page is loading too slowly, or the call-to-action is buried at the bottom. The landing page report gives you a direct line of sight into the performance of every dollar you spend.

3. Spot Underperforming Pages and "Leaky Buckets"

Sort your report by "Sessions" from high to low, then look for pages with a surprisingly low "Engagement rate." A high-traffic landing page with a 15% engagement rate is a huge "leaky bucket" — you're successfully attracting visitors, but they're leaving almost immediately. This could be for a number of reasons:

• Title and Meta Mismatch: The page's title and description on Google search results might be promising something the content doesn't deliver.
• Poor User Experience: The page could be slow, have annoying pop-ups, or look confusing and broken on mobile devices.
• Thin Content: The page might not have enough information to satisfy the user's query, so they hit the 'back' button to find a better result.

Pinpointing these pages allows you to prioritize your optimization efforts on the areas that will make the biggest impact.

4. Discover Conversion Opportunities

Sort the report by "Engagement rate" from high to low. Now look at the "Conversions" column for these highly engaging pages. Do you see any pages with great engagement but zero or very few conversions?

This is a major opportunity. Visitors land there, they love the content, and they stick around — but they’re not taking the next desired step. Why? It's likely because you haven't given them a clear next step to take. Adding a relevant call-to-action (CTA) to these pages — like "Download our free guide," "Sign up for our webinar," or "Shop related products" — can turn a popular piece of content into a powerful conversion driver.

Customize Your Report for Deeper Analysis

GA4's power lies in its flexibility. You can add more context to the landing page report by adding a secondary dimension.

Click the small blue "+" icon next to the "Landing page" header in the data table. A menu will appear where you can add a second layer of data to your report.

Some of the most useful secondary dimensions include:

• Session source / medium: This will show you exactly where the traffic to each landing page came from (e.g., google / organic, facebook.com / referral, (direct) / (none)). This helps you see which channels are driving traffic to which entry points.
• Device category: This will break down your report into desktop, mobile, and tablet. You might discover that a particular landing page has a great engagement rate on desktop but a terrible one on mobile, indicating a critical design or layout problem on smaller screens.
• Country: If you have an international audience, this helps you see which content is resonating in which regions.

By combining metrics and dimensions, you transform a simple list of pages into a dynamic tool for understanding user behavior.

Final Thoughts

Your landing page data in Google Analytics 4 is a goldmine of information about what first catches your audience's eye. It tells you which content serves as your most effective "front door," how engaging that first impression is, and whether it ultimately leads to valuable actions. Using this report helps you find your content superstars, fix underperforming pages, and make your marketing efforts more effective.

While navigating GA4 for these insights is powerful, it can often feel like a series of endless clicks just to build the right report. With Graphed, we help you skip the manual work. Instead of piecing together reports, you can simply ask questions in plain English, like "what are my top 10 landing pages from organic search by conversions last month?" and get an instant visualization. We created it to help you get answers and act on insights in seconds, not hours, so you can focus on strategy instead of report-building.