Connect your GA4 property to a new report at lookerstudio.google.com, then add four scorecards (Views, Total users, Average session duration, and Key events) and a table that uses the Page path and screen class dimension. The full build takes about an hour.
By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have a content performance dashboard in Looker Studio that shows which pages and posts drive traffic, keep readers engaged, and generate conversions. You’ll stop guessing about what to publish next and start doubling down on what works.
The build takes about an hour. Every step tells you exactly what to click and what you should see when it worked.
Why you need a content performance dashboard
If you’re publishing content, you need to know what’s working and what’s not. GA4 has this data, but it’s spread across several reports, and comparing pages means a lot of clicking.
A Looker Studio dashboard puts everything on one screen, in a format where patterns jump out: which topics get traffic, which posts convert, and which ones people leave immediately.
The dashboard answers the three questions every content marketer asks. What’s getting traffic? What’s keeping people engaged? What’s driving business results?
If you’d rather stay inside GA4, you can build a lighter version there instead. Our guide to building a dashboard in GA4 covers that option. Looker Studio wins when you want more layout control or need to share reports with people who don’t have GA4 access.
Before you start
You’ll need four things, two required and two recommended:
- A Looker Studio account (free). If this is your first report, read the Looker Studio tutorial first. It covers the interface basics this guide builds on.
- GA4 installed and collecting data for at least 2 to 4 weeks. New to GA4? Start with the GA4 beginner’s guide.
- UTM parameters on your campaigns (recommended). UTM parameters are tags you add to your links so GA4 knows where a click came from. They make the traffic source chart in Step 4 far more useful. Here’s how to set up UTM parameters.
- Key events set up in GA4 (recommended). A key event is an event you’ve flagged as important to your business, like a form submission. It’s what GA4 used to call a conversion. Without them, the conversion parts of this dashboard stay empty. Follow the GA4 conversions setup guide if you haven’t done this.
What this dashboard will include
Six sections, each answering a specific question:
| Dashboard section | What it shows | Chart type |
|---|---|---|
| Top scorecards | Total views, users, session duration, conversions | Scorecards |
| Content performance table | Every page with engagement and conversion metrics | Table |
| Traffic sources | How readers find your content | Pie or bar chart |
| Top entry pages | First pages people land on | Table |
| Pageview trends | Traffic over time | Time series |
| Conversions by page | Which content drives results | Bar chart |
Now let’s build it, one section at a time.
Create the report and connect GA4
Go to lookerstudio.google.com and click Create, then Report.
lookerstudio.google.com Create ReportLooker Studio opens a blank report and asks you to add data. In the connector list, click Google Analytics, then pick your account and your GA4 property. Click Add, and confirm with Add to report if a dialog appears.
Two housekeeping items before you build. Click Untitled Report at the top left and name it something like “Acme Content Performance Dashboard” (use your brand name). Then go to File and then Report settings and set the default date range to Last 28 days.
a blank canvas, with your GA4 property’s dimensions and metrics listed in the data panel on the right.
Build the top-level scorecards
A scorecard is a chart that shows one big number, like total views. You’ll add four across the top of the report.
Click Add a chart in the toolbar and choose Scorecard. Click anywhere on the canvas to place it. In the Setup panel on the right, set the metric to Views.
Now give it context. Still in Setup, find Comparison date range and set it to Previous period. The scorecard now shows a small percentage telling you whether views went up or down versus the prior 28 days.
Repeat three more times, placing each new scorecard to the right of the last:
- Views (you already made this one)
- Total users
- Average session duration
- Key events
Average session duration measures how long a typical visit to your site lasts. Key events counts your conversions.
The GA4 connector doesn’t offer Average engagement time per session as a ready-made metric, so you won’t find it in the metric picker. To match GA4’s number, create a calculated field with the formula User engagement / Sessions and set the data type to Duration. Then use that field as your scorecard metric.
In the Style panel, bump up the number size and check that each label reads clearly. Your future self will thank you.
four large numbers across the top of your report, each with a small green or red comparison percentage underneath.
Build the content performance table
This table is the core of the dashboard: every page on your site, ranked by traffic, with engagement and conversion data beside it.
Click Add a chart and choose Table. Place it below the scorecards, wide enough to fill the page.
In the Setup panel, set the dimension to Page path and screen class. A dimension is the thing you’re grouping data by; here, it’s the part of the URL after your domain, like /blog/email-tips/. Prefer readable names over URLs? Use Page title instead.
Then add these metrics, in order: Views, Total users, Average session duration, Engagement rate, and Key events. Engagement rate is the percentage of sessions where someone stayed at least 10 seconds, viewed a second page, or triggered a key event. Under Sort, choose Views, descending.
Two refinements make this table much more useful:
Exclude junk pages. Scroll to the Filter section of Setup and click Add a filter. Set the condition to Exclude, Page path and screen class, Contains, and a path fragment like /wp-admin or /thank-you. Add a clause for each page type you don’t want cluttering the list.
Highlight the winners. In the Style panel, find Conditional formatting and click Add. Create a rule that colors the row green when Key events is greater than a threshold that fits your site (start with 5). Converting pages now stand out at a glance.
a table listing every page on your site with views, engagement, and conversion data, biggest pages first.
Add a traffic sources chart
This chart shows how readers find your content: organic search, social, email, referrals.
Click Add a chart and pick a Pie chart (or a horizontal Bar chart if you have more than five or six meaningful sources; pie slices get hard to read past that). Set the dimension to Session source / medium and the metric to Sessions. A session is one visit to your site, and source / medium tells you where it came from, like google / organic or newsletter / email.
If your campaign links carry UTM parameters, this chart is where that work pays off: each campaign shows up as its own labeled slice instead of hiding inside “direct.”
Want this chart to cover your articles only? Add the same style of filter you built in Step 3, but set it to Include pages containing /blog/.
a pie chart showing your top traffic sources by session share.
Add a top entry pages table
A landing page is the first page someone sees in a session: the front door to your site. Your best content should be high on this list, because it means that content is pulling in new visits on its own.
Add another Table. Set the dimension to Landing page + query string and the metrics to Sessions, Engagement rate, and Key events. Sort by Sessions, descending. In the Style panel, set Rows per page to 10 so it stays a clean top-10 list.
Watch for a specific pattern here: a landing page with high sessions but low engagement rate is attracting the wrong audience, or promising something the page doesn’t deliver.
a top-10 table of landing pages ranked by sessions, with engagement rate and key events beside each one.
Add a pageviews trend chart
Tables show what’s winning. A trend chart shows where things are headed.
Click Add a chart and choose Time series chart. Set the metric to Views. The date dimension defaults to daily, which is what you want with a 28-day range.
In Setup, set Comparison date range to Previous period. Looker Studio draws a second, lighter line showing the prior 28 days, so growth or decline is visible without any math.
a line chart of daily pageviews with a lighter comparison line behind it. Weekly rhythms (weekday peaks, weekend dips) are usually visible right away.
Add a conversions-by-page chart
This chart answers the big question: which content actually drives business results?
Add a horizontal Bar chart. Set the dimension to Page path and screen class and the metric to Key events. Sort by Key events, descending.
Most pages on your site will have zero conversions, and they’d drown the chart. Add a filter: Include, Key events, Greater than, 0. Now only converting pages appear.
On most sites, a handful of pages produce most conversions. Five bars on this chart is normal, not a problem. Those five pages are where your promotion budget and internal links should point.
a short bar chart listing only the pages that recorded at least one key event, biggest converter first.
Add date range controls and filters
Right now, every viewer sees the last 28 days. Controls let them change that without touching the charts.
Click Add a control in the toolbar and choose Date range control. Place it in the top-right corner of the report. Anyone viewing the dashboard can now switch to last week, last quarter, or a custom range, and every chart updates.
Add two more controls, both from Add a control and then Drop-down list:
- One with the control field set to Page path and screen class, so viewers can zero in on one page or section.
- One set to Session source / medium, so viewers can see content performance from a single traffic source, like organic search only.
every chart on the page redraw when you change the date range or pick a value in a drop-down.
Style and finalize
The last step is making the dashboard readable for someone who didn’t build it. Your boss shouldn’t need a tutorial to read it.
- Add a header. Use the Text tool to add the dashboard title at the top, next to the date range control.
- Label each section. Add a short text label above each chart: “Top content by views,” “How readers find us,” “Content that converts.” Plain language beats metric names.
- Keep colors and fonts consistent. Go to Theme and layout in the toolbar and pick one theme. Resist the urge to style each chart differently.
- Add one-line annotations. A small text note like “Engagement rate = % of visits where someone actually engaged” saves you from explaining the dashboard in every meeting.
Click View in the top-right corner to see the dashboard the way your team will.
How to use this dashboard
A dashboard nobody checks is decoration. Put these three reviews on your calendar:
Weekly (5 minutes). Check the trend chart and the top of the content table. Is anything spiking or dropping? A sudden spike means something got picked up (search, social, a newsletter mention). Feed that momentum with internal links or a follow-up post.
Monthly (30 minutes). Open the conversions-by-page chart and the full content table. Which topics drove key events this month? Plan next month’s content around what’s converting, not around what’s merely getting views.
Quarterly (1 hour). Set the date range control to the last 90 days. Which content categories are growing and which are flat? This is where you make the bigger calls: retire a topic, refresh aging winners, or commit to a category that’s clearly working.
Here’s what each metric is telling you while you review:
| Metric to include | What it tells you | Action to take |
|---|---|---|
| Views | Total traffic to each page | Promote high-view pages, investigate low-view ones |
| Engagement rate | % of sessions that were engaged | Low engagement means a content or audience mismatch |
| Avg. session duration | How long people spend per visit | Short times on long articles mean people aren’t reading |
| Key events | Business outcomes from content | Double down on content that converts |
Sharing the dashboard with your team
Three ways to get this in front of people:
- Share a link. Click Share, add email addresses or turn on link sharing, and set access to Viewer. Recipients see live data without being able to break your charts.
- Schedule an email. Click the arrow next to Share and choose Schedule delivery. Pick recipients, a day, and a time, and Looker Studio emails a PDF snapshot automatically. Monday morning works well for a weekly content report.
- Present it live. Click View for a clean, edit-free version you can screen-share in meetings, with the date controls still working.
recipients open the shared link and see the live dashboard, with the date range control working, and no edit toolbar.
Troubleshooting common problems
The dashboard shows zero conversions. Key events must exist in GA4 before Looker Studio can report them. If you haven’t marked any events as key events, every conversion column stays blank. Set up conversions in GA4 first, then give it a day or two of data and check the dashboard again.
Page paths are messy or duplicated. GA4 sometimes records the same page twice: with and without a trailing slash (/blog/post vs. /blog/post/), or with query strings attached. Add a filter to exclude the noisy variants, or create a calculated field in Looker Studio that strips everything after the ?. This part trips people up; it’s a GA4 quirk, not something you broke.
Engagement time seems too low. GA4 measures active engagement time, not the old time-on-page. If someone opens your article and switches to another tab, that time doesn’t count. So low engagement time on a long article often means people open it and don’t read it, which is a real finding, not a bug.
Too much data, not enough insight. A dashboard with 15 charts is useless. Stick to the six sections you built here. The 10-second test: if someone looks at your dashboard and can’t answer “which content is working?” within 10 seconds, remove charts until they can.
What to do next
You’ve got a dashboard that shows what your content is doing. Keep it honest: revisit your exclusion filters when you launch new page types, and revisit your key events when your business goals change.
To go deeper on the tool itself, including blending data sources and calculated fields, head back to the Looker Studio tutorial. And if your conversion data still feels thin, tightening up your GA4 key events will do more for this dashboard than any styling change.