Track SEO Sessions by City with GA4 & Looker Studio

How to Measure SEO Sessions by City with GA4 and Looker Studio

SEO success isn’t just about rankings—it’s about knowing where your audience is coming from and how they interact with your site. If you’re only looking at global traffic, you’re missing critical local insights that could drive better decisions.

But here’s the challenge:

• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tells you who actually visits your website from organic search, with a city breakdown report in Looker Studio.
• Google Search Console shows how many people see your site in search results, but only at the country level.

To fully understand your local SEO performance, you need to combine both tools into a Looker Studio SEO report.

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GA4: Tracking Who Actually Visits Your Site from SEO

Why GA4 Is the Best Tool for City-Level SEO Tracking

GA4 goes beyond impressions—it tracks real organic search sessions, showing you who arrives on your site and what they do next.

How to Track SEO Sessions by City in GA4

1. Open your GA4 dashboard.

2. Go to Audience Insights > Location.

   

3. Filter by Organic Search in the "Channel" dropdown.

   

4. Analyze which cities generate the most SEO traffic using a Looker Studio dashboard.

This provides a clear city breakdown of SEO performance, which can be further visualized using a GA4 Looker Studio template.

Key Insights from GA4’s City Breakdown Report

✔ Top Performing City → GA4 automatically highlights the city generating the most organic search traffic. You can filter by state or country for deeper insights.

✔ SEO Sessions vs. Key Events → Below, GA4 provides two essential pie charts:

📌 Left Chart: SEO Sessions by City → Identifies where organic visitors are coming from.
📌 Right Chart: Key Events by City → Shows how many conversions (purchases, form submissions, etc.) happen per location.

By comparing both, you can determine:

• Which cities drive the most organic traffic
• Which locations actually convert
• Where SEO efforts need improvement

Example: If New York has high traffic but low conversions, visitors may not be finding what they need. If Los Angeles has lower traffic but a higher conversion rate, that’s a city worth focusing on.

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Google Search Console: Tracking Who Sees Your Site but Doesn’t Click

Why Search Console Complements GA4

While GA4 tracks who actually visits your website, Google Search Console helps you understand your site’s visibility—even when users don’t click.

How to Analyze SEO Performance in Search Console

1. Open Google Search Console.

2. Go to Performance > Location.

   

3. Analyze:

   • Impressions → How many times your site appeared in search results.
   • Clicks → How many users actually clicked.
   • CTR (Click-Through Rate) → How well your titles & meta descriptions attract users.
   • Average Position → Your ranking in search results.

What Search Console Tells You That GA4 Doesn’t

✔ How many people see your site but don’t click → If impressions are high but clicks are low, you might need to optimize meta titles & descriptions.

✔ Which countries drive the most search visibility → Since Search Console only provides country-level data, it helps you understand your broader SEO reach.

✔ Your average ranking position → A critical metric for tracking SEO progress over time.

Because Search Console lacks city-level breakdowns, GA4 remains the better tool for tracking local SEO performance.

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Why You Need Both GA4 and Search Console

Each tool provides only part of the picture—but when combined in a Looker Studio SEO template, they create a complete local SEO analysis.

Metric	GA4	Search Console
City-level SEO tracking	✅ Yes	❌ No (only country-level)
Organic search sessions	✅ Yes	❌ No
Impressions & Clicks	❌ No	✅ Yes
User Engagement & Conversions	✅ Yes	❌ No
CTR & Average Position	❌ No	✅ Yes

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Looker Studio: The Ultimate Local SEO Dashboard

To get a full local SEO analysis, you need to merge GA4 and Search Console into a Looker Studio SEO report.

Why Use a Looker Studio Local SEO Report?

✔ Unifies GA4 and Search Console into one report.
✔ Provides a city breakdown of SEO sessions from GA4 and country-level trends from Search Console.
✔ Tracks both organic traffic & visibility in a single dashboard.
✔ Automates SEO reporting with real-time updates using a Looker Studio template.

Key Metrics in the Looker Studio Organic Sessions by City SEO Report

📍 Top Performing Cities → Track which cities bring the most SEO traffic.
📍 SEO Sessions vs. Key Events → Measure which locations drive conversions.
📍 Impressions vs. Clicks → Compare visibility vs. engagement to optimize CTR.
📍 Organic Traffic Trends → See which locations improve over time.

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Stop Guessing. Start Measuring.

If you’re serious about understanding SEO performance at a local level, you need more than just impressions—you need to track who’s actually visiting and converting.