If your website receives a lot of organic traffic but struggles to retain visitors, you’re not alone. A common challenge for content marketers and SEO professionals is high bounce rates — especially on pages that bring in significant traffic from Google. This signals a mismatch between user expectations and page content.
In this guide, We explain how to use the Explore tab in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) with the Free Form technique to create a custom content performance report. This report will help identify pages that get traffic from Google organic search but have low engagement or high bounce rate.
Why This Report Matters
This report allows teams to:
- Track which pages are ranking well on Google.
- Measure visitor engagement via bounce rate and average session duration.
- Prioritize content updates or UX fixes to improve performance.
- Focus only on SEO traffic, eliminating noise from paid or direct channels.
Step-by-Step: Creating the GA4 Content Performance Report
1. Open GA4 and Navigate to “Explore”
- From your GA4 dashboard, go to the Explore tab.
- Select Blank to create a new report.
- Name your exploration as “Content Performance Report” (or as you prefer).
2. Set the Basic Parameters
- Date Range: Choose your desired period (last 30 days, last quarter, etc.).
- Segments: You can leave this section blank for now.
3. Define Your Dimensions and Metrics
- Dimensions:
- Page location (this will display the full URLs of your pages)
- Page location (this will display the full URLs of your pages)
- Metrics:
- Views
- Average session duration
- Bounce rate
- Views
4. Choose the Technique and Visualization
- Technique: Select Free form.
- Visualization: Choose Table.
- Rows: Add Page location.
- Values: Add all selected metrics – Views, Average session duration, Bounce rate.
You’ll now see a complete data table showing how each page is performing.
5. Apply Filters to Make the Data More Actionable
Filter Pages with High Traffic
- In the Filters section:
- Add Views
- Set condition: > 1000
(This will show only those pages with a minimum of 1,000 views.)
- Add Views
Filter Traffic from Google Organic Only
- Add another dimension: Session source/medium
- Then add a filter:
- Session source/medium
- Match type: Exact match
- Value: google / organic
- Session source/medium
This will narrow your report down to only organic traffic from Google, excluding paid or referral traffic.
6. Filter by Specific URLs or Categories
Want to analyze traffic for a particular category or keyword in the URL?
- Add a filter for Page location
- Match type: Contains
- Value: (e.g., /blog/seo/ or a keyword like cosmetics)
This helps if you’re tracking performance for content clusters, product lines, or campaign-specific URLs.
7. Download and Share the Report
After analyzing your table:
- Click on the Download icon (top right).
- Select from available formats: CSV, PDF, Excel, Google Sheets.
- Avoid sharing via link to prevent confusion; instead, export and email or share directly with your team.
What to Do if the Bounce Rate is High?
Identifying high bounce rate pages is only the first step. To resolve the issue, investigate:
- Irrelevant or misleading titles/meta descriptions
- Poor mobile experience or page load speed
- Lack of engaging or helpful content
- No clear call-to-action (CTA)
- UX issues (too many pop-ups, poor formatting, etc.)
Use Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity, or Google Optimize for deeper user behavior insights.
Conclusion
Creating a content performance report in GA4 using the Free Form technique gives deep insights into what’s working and what’s not — especially from an SEO standpoint. With this custom dashboard, you can optimize underperforming pages, reduce bounce rate, and deliver a better user experience.
Bonus Tip: Bookmark this blog and create a reusable template in GA4 so you don’t have to repeat the setup every time!
