Google Analytics and Search Console setup: GA4, key events and consent mode done properly

This is for business owners whose analytics was installed by someone years ago and nobody trusts it, new sites that are about to launch, WordPress or WooCommerce stores whose sales in GA4 never match the shop, and agencies that want tracking done carefully for client sites. If your current numbers do not match reality, or you cannot answer which page produced last month's enquiries, this is where to start.

It is not a fit for large multi-brand setups with GA4 360, data warehouses and in-house analysts. Those need a dedicated analytics consultant. For a typical business site, store or SaaS marketing site, a careful setup by one person is enough.

Installing the GA4 tag takes minutes. The reason many setups produce misleading data is everything around it. These are the problems I check for, because they are the ones I see most.

• Data retention left at the default two months, so year-on-year comparisons in explorations are impossible; I set it to 14 months
• Payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal or Razorpay showing up as the source of your sales because they are not listed as unwanted referrals
• Enhanced measurement form tracking counting every focus on a field, or double-counting a form that also has its own event
• Single-page apps where page views fire twice, or not at all, after client-side navigation
• Your own team's visits counted because no internal traffic filter was created and activated
• Ecommerce events with missing item data or transaction IDs, so purchases are duplicated when the thank-you page reloads
• The same tag installed twice, once by a plugin and once in the theme

In 2024 Google renamed conversions in GA4 to key events (Google Ads still uses the word conversions). A good GA4 key events setup starts with a short list: the actions that represent real business value, such as a submitted enquiry, a booked call, a trial sign-up or a purchase. I track each one where it truly happens, for example on the server's success response rather than the submit button click, and test it in DebugView before marking it as a key event. For events that happen on the server, such as a payment confirmed by webhook, I can send them with the Measurement Protocol.

I use Google Tag Manager for most sites because it lets you add or change tags later without a developer, but I keep containers small and named consistently so the next person can read them. On very simple sites, gtag.js directly in the template is cleaner.

Consent mode v2 tells Google tags whether a visitor has agreed to analytics and advertising storage. If you have visitors from the EEA or UK and use Google Ads, Google requires these consent signals for its ads personalization and measurement features. I connect your consent banner so that tags respect the choice and send the right signals, and explain the difference between basic mode (no tags until consent) and advanced mode (cookieless pings that allow modelling) so you can choose with your legal adviser.

For a proper Google Search Console setup for website owners, I verify a domain property through a DNS record, which covers http and https, www and non-www and every subdomain in one view. I add URL-prefix properties too when separate reporting for a section is useful, submit your XML sitemaps, and check the Page indexing report for problems worth fixing straight away. Owners and users are set up so you keep control and anyone you hire later gets only the access they need.

To link Search Console to GA4 you need Editor access in Analytics and verified ownership in Search Console. Each Search Console property can link to one web data stream. After linking, the Search Console reports in GA4 are unpublished by default, which is why many people link the two and then cannot find the data; I publish the collection so it appears in your reports menu. Search Console data arrives about 48 hours late and covers up to 16 months, so it is a trend tool rather than a live one.

If the setup turns up wider problems, such as pages Google refuses to index or a slow site, a technical SEO audit is the natural next step.

Tracking problems are usually code problems: an AJAX form with no success event, a checkout that reloads the thank-you page, a React site that never fires page views. As a developer I can fix the site, not just the tag. I build in Laravel, PHP and WordPress, so adding a data layer to a custom form or a WooCommerce store is part of the job rather than a note for someone else. You work directly with me, and I work remotely with clients in different time zones, agreeing update times at the start.

The cost of a Google Analytics and Search Console setup depends on the number of sites and domains, how many key events you need and how they are triggered, whether you run ecommerce or Google Ads, the consent requirements for your regions, and how messy the existing setup is. After a short call or written brief I send a fixed quote. If you are planning broader SEO work, this setup is often bundled with SEO for startups and SaaS or a site launch.