Google Analytics 4 is free, maintained by Google, and gives you the traffic and user behaviour data your accounting firm needs to make informed decisions about its website. If you are not using it, you are making SEO and marketing decisions without the evidence that would make them reliable.

Universal Analytics, the previous version of Google Analytics, was permanently shut down in July 2024. If your firm had GA set up before that date and nobody has updated the installation, your analytics are no longer recording. This guide walks through setting up GA4 from scratch, configuring the data you need, and using the reports that matter most for an accounting firm.

Why every accounting firm website needs GA4

Without analytics, you do not know how many people visit your website, which pages they read, where they come from, or whether they do anything meaningful when they arrive. You cannot tell whether an investment in SEO is producing results, which service pages attract the most interest, or whether visitors from Google behave differently to those coming from a referral.

GA4 answers these questions. It tracks every visit to your site, records which pages were viewed and for how long, identifies the source of the traffic (organic search, direct, referral, paid), and can record specific actions taken, such as submitting a contact form or clicking a phone number.

The switch from Universal Analytics to GA4 also changes the tracking model. GA4 uses event-based tracking: every action a user takes on your site is recorded as an event (page view, scroll, click, form submission). This shift means some metrics are calculated differently in GA4 and some reports require additional setup that was automatic in the old system.

Step 1: Create a GA4 property

Go to analytics.google.com. If your firm does not already have a Google account linked to your website, create one. Inside Google Analytics, click "Admin" in the bottom left, then "Create Property."

Give the property a clear name (for example, "YourFirm.co.uk — Main Site"), select United Kingdom as the reporting time zone, and choose British pounds as the currency. Select "Web" as the platform when prompted.

You will be asked to describe your business: choose "Professional services" or the closest available option, and indicate you are looking at traffic analysis and lead generation. This affects which default reports Google shows you, but does not limit what you can access.

Step 2: Add the Google tag to your website

GA4 measures your site via the Google tag (also called the gtag). After creating the property, Google provides a Measurement ID in the format G-XXXXXXXXXX and a block of JavaScript code to add to your site.

If you use Google Tag Manager (recommended): Go to tagmanager.google.com, add a new tag of type "Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration," paste your Measurement ID, and set the trigger to "All Pages." Publish the container. This is the cleanest approach because all future tracking changes can be made in Tag Manager without touching your website's code.

If you manage your site directly: Paste the Google tag code into the <head> section of every page on your website, before the closing </head> tag. On platforms like WordPress, there are plugins that handle this. On custom-built sites, this is typically added to a global header template.

Verify the installation: After adding the tag, open the GA4 Realtime report. Visit your own website in another browser tab. Within a minute or two, you should see at least one active user in the Realtime report. If you see nothing after five minutes, the tag is not firing correctly.

Connecting GA4 to Google Search Console brings your keyword data into the same interface. This means you can see which search queries drove a visit and then see what that visitor did after arriving.

In GA4, go to Admin, then "Property Settings," then "Product Links." Select "Search Console Links," click "Link," and choose the verified Search Console property for your domain. Complete the steps and save. Once linked, Search Console data appears in GA4 under Reports > Acquisition > Search Console. Note that this data typically has a two-to-three day delay.

Step 4: Set up conversion events

Out of the box, GA4 records page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, site searches, and video interactions automatically through Enhanced Measurement. However, the actions that matter most to an accounting firm, primarily contact form submissions and phone number clicks, usually require additional setup.

At a minimum, you need to identify what counts as a "conversion" for your firm and mark the corresponding event as a "key event" in GA4. Until you do this, your conversion data will be blank. A separate guide covers goal tracking in GA4 in full detail.

GA4 uses cookie-based tracking. Under UK GDPR and ICO guidance, analytics cookies are not essential cookies and require user consent before they can be set. Your website's cookie consent mechanism must cover GA4 tracking and only activate it once a user has accepted analytics cookies.

If your site uses a cookie banner that shows "Accept All" and "Reject," ensure GA4 is not loading before consent is given. If you use Google Tag Manager, this is handled by configuring consent mode: the tag fires in a limited, cookieless state by default and only activates full tracking after consent is accepted. Review your cookie banner implementation and verify it handles analytics correctly.

The 5 most useful GA4 reports for accounting firms

GA4 has a large number of reports, many of which are not particularly relevant to a professional services website. These five are the ones worth checking regularly.

1. Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition

This report shows where your visitors are coming from. The key channels for an accounting firm are Organic Search (visitors arriving via Google), Direct (visitors who typed your URL directly), Referral (visitors arriving from links on other websites), and Organic Social (visitors from social media platforms). If your SEO work is producing results, you should see organic search growing over time.

2. Reports > Engagement > Pages and Screens

This report shows which pages on your site receive the most views. For an accounting firm, you want your service pages to be well-visited, because those visitors are most likely to be prospective clients. Check the "Average Engagement Time" column alongside views. A page with many views but very short engagement time is being visited and abandoned quickly.

3. Reports > Acquisition > Search Console (requires link)

Once you have linked Search Console, this report shows the search queries that brought visitors to your site and which landing pages received the traffic. This is the closest thing to a keyword performance report inside GA4. Use it to identify which search queries are generating visits and whether those queries align with your target service terms.

4. Reports > Engagement > Events (with key events configured)

Once you have set up conversion tracking, this report shows how many of your key events (form submissions, phone clicks, and so on) have occurred and which pages and traffic sources generated them. This is the commercial dashboard: it tells you whether your website is generating enquiries and where those enquiries come from.

5. Reports > Acquisition > User Acquisition

This report shows how new users (first-time visitors) are arriving, split by the channel that first brought them to your site. For most accounting firms, you want to see new users arriving primarily from organic search as your content and SEO mature. High dependence on direct for new users means referrals and word of mouth are driving discovery, not search.

What is different about GA4 compared to Universal Analytics

If your firm had Universal Analytics installed before July 2024, the most important differences to understand in GA4 are:

  • Bounce rate is replaced by engagement rate. GA4 tracks "engaged sessions" (sessions lasting longer than 10 seconds, having a conversion event, or viewing two or more pages). Do not compare GA4 engagement metrics directly to UA bounce rates.
  • Sessions are calculated differently. GA4 sessions do not expire at midnight or restart when traffic source changes mid-session, as they did in UA. Session counts will differ from UA historical data.
  • Conversion tracking requires setup. UA had "Goals" that included basic destination tracking. GA4 requires you to identify "key events" manually. This is more powerful but requires deliberate configuration.
  • Data retention defaults to two months. Change this to 14 months in Admin > Data Settings > Data Retention immediately after setup.

Key takeaways

  • GA4 is free and essential: Universal Analytics no longer works, so if your GA is not updated, you have no current traffic data.
  • Add the Google tag via Google Tag Manager where possible: it gives you flexibility to add future tracking without touching your site's code.
  • Link GA4 to Google Search Console to see which keywords bring visitors to specific pages.
  • Analytics cookies require user consent under UK GDPR: ensure your cookie banner handles this correctly before activating GA4.
  • Change data retention to 14 months immediately after setup; the default two-month window loses historical data you will want later.
  • The five reports worth checking regularly are: Traffic Acquisition, Pages and Screens, Search Console, Events (key events), and User Acquisition.

Frequently asked questions

Is GA4 actually free?

Yes. GA4 is completely free to use with no page view or session limits that affect typical accounting firm websites. Google also offers GA4 360, a paid enterprise version with higher data processing limits and advanced features, but standard GA4 is sufficient for any accounting firm.

How long does it take for data to appear after setting up GA4?

Data appears in the Realtime report within a few minutes of the tag firing correctly. Standard reports are populated with data from the point of installation onwards and typically appear within 24 to 48 hours. Search Console data, once linked, has a two-to-three day delay.

Can GA4 track phone calls?

GA4 can track clicks on phone number links (tel: links) on your website through Enhanced Measurement. It cannot track calls that originate from offline sources or from callers who dialled from memory. For more sophisticated call tracking, dedicated tools like CallRail integrate with GA4 and pass call data in as events.

Does GA4 track visitors who reject cookies?

When consent mode is configured correctly, GA4 operates in a cookieless, limited mode for users who reject analytics cookies. It can model some behaviour using aggregated, anonymised data, but individual sessions for those users are not recorded. This means your GA4 data will undercount visitors to some degree, particularly as more users decline consent.

How do I share GA4 access with my web developer or SEO agency?

In GA4, go to Admin > Account Access Management or Property Access Management. Click the "+" button and enter the email address of the person you want to add. Select the appropriate role: "Analyst" for read-only access, "Editor" for full configuration access. Never share your own Google account credentials.

Read the full SEO guide for accounting firms for guidance on using GA4 alongside your broader SEO strategy, including how to measure content performance, track keyword rankings, and report on lead generation from organic search.