How to Install Google Analytics on WordPress

[caption id="attachment_495" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Google Analytics Installation on Wordpress[/caption]

Have you heard about all the powerful insights Google Analytics can churn out for your business? If you haven’t heard about Google Analytics, it’s an amazing, free tool you can use to track everything related to your website visitor data – from how many, to where they’re coming from, to what they’re doing on your website (and what’s making them leave!).

If you’re a WordPress user, I have a secret for you: installing Google Analytics on your WordPress site involves very little code. We can install Google Analytics easily. Sound good? Let’s get to it.

1. Sign Up for a Google Analytics Account

Step 1

If you don’t already have one, head on over to Google Analytics and grab yourself an account. It’s totally free! Already have a Gmail, YouTube, Google Apps for Business or other Google-related email address for your business? You can use that to sign up.

Step 2

Once you’ve created a new Google account or signed in with your existing Google account, Google Analytics will ask you to sign up.

Step 3

On the next screen, make sure you keep the Web Site button pressed, as installing the tracking code for an App is a bit of a different animal.

Step 4

Next up, we’re choosing a tracking method. Go ahead and keep the Classic Analyticsselected. (Universal Analytics is currently in beta and isn’t quite fully functional just yet.)

Step 5

Now here’s the part where we start to tell Google Analytics a little more about the website we’re trying to track:



What’s this about a property versus an account? Google does explain what they are in the screenshot above, but the diagram below gives more insight into the structure of property versus account:



IMAGE SOURCE: EQUATORLIVE

The account you have is tied to the email address you signed up with. Under the account, we’re setting up your website as property. You can have multiple properties associated with one account. Under that, you use profiles to filter your data in different ways for one web property/website.

You can give multiple users access to your account or to your profiles (if say, you wanted to outsource the data tracking piece of your business or get some help configuring conversion tracking and other more advanced Google Analytics capabilities).

So back to the setup:

• Website Name: this is simply that – your website name. A lot of people just type in the URL of the website here for naming purposes.


• Website URL: enter the URL of the site you’re going to track.


• Industry Category: this helps Google learn more about how different industries are using Google Analytics and potentially serve up more relevant information for you. Select the industry that best matches this website.


• Reporting Time Zone: Pay attention to this one! You cannot change this later. This will determine where your ‘day’ starts and ends in Google Analytics for counting visitors & everything else.


• Account Name: If you have just one business and only ever plan on having one business, this can be the same name as your main website name. Think business name = account name, whereas website names = property names. If your needs are simple enough, these are often the same.


• Data Sharing: this is your option – do you want to share your traffic data with Google? These are selected by default.

Hit the blue Get Tracking ID button and Google will give you a pop-up to accept those terms and conditions. Pay attention to these – among the terms includes disclosing to visitors that you’re using tracking cookies on your website.

Now you’re finally ready to install the Google Analytics tracking code on your WordPress site.

2. Installing the Google Analytics Tracking Code on Your WordPress Website

Step 1

Once you hit the blue Get Tracking ID button and agree to the Terms and Conditions of Service, you’ll see your Tracking ID displayed on this complicated page:



Note that your Tracking ID will be a different number than displayed in this screenshot, but since you’re a WordPress user – you don’t have to worry about anything other than that UA- number at the top!

Step 2

Let me introduce you to my favorite WordPress plugin ever, the Joost Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.



There are a lot of Google Analytics plugins out there, but this one is my favorite because not only does it install Google Analytics in the recommended section of your site (in the header) but it also comes with easy to configure options for a more advanced setup (if and when you need it).

Step 3

Let’s walk through how to install the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin. Once signed in to your WordPress dashboard, head to Plugins > Add New.

Step 4

Search for “Google Analytics for WordPress”. Hit the details link under the plugin description to verify that it’s the one developed by Joost de Valk (look for his name as the author in the blue box on the right).

Step 5

Hit the red Install Now button above the blue box. Once installed, hit Activate.

Note that in the screenshot above it says Latest Version Installed where your Install Now button will be because I already have this setup on my site.

Step 6

Now we just have to link up your Google Analytics account with this plugin to start tracking your website visitor data. Head to Settings > Google Analytics in your Dashboard. Enter that UA- tracking ID in the plugin’s settings:



Then hit the blue Save Google Analytics Settings button and you’re all set!

3. Block Your Internal Traffic from Showing Up in Google Analytics

Follow this optional section if you need to block internal traffic from showing up in Google Analytics..

Ever worry about work on your website, whether it’s content updates, new pages, or a redesign could be messing with your traffic data? You can actually apply a filter in Google Analytics to block that traffic out – but Joost’s plugin eliminates the need for creating anything custom and makes it easy to block your internal traffic.

Step 1

Simply make sure Show Advanced Settings is checked in the first gray box then scroll down to Advanced Settings:

Step 2

Select Administrator from the drop down menu for which type of users to ignore. Once you hit save, this will keep any internal traffic from messing with your Google Analytics data.

4. Ensuring Data Accuracy: What to Watch Out For

The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin makes installing Google Analytics on WordPress a super-simple process. However, there are a few things about your WordPress site that might make your data a little wonky if left unchecked.

There is one scenario that will mess this up: you already have Google Analytics setup on your site, just not with this plugin. What to do about it?

Step 1

Check that you don’t already have another Google Analytics plugin installed. Head toPlugins > Installed Plugins and check for any that are already doing this for you. Make sure to uninstall those before or right after you install Joost’s plugin.

Check to make sure your UA- code isn’t already added somewhere in your theme’s settings. Check your Theme Options under Appearance or other setting areas where your theme lets you add code to your header.

Why can’t you just use the default Google Analytics settings offered by your theme? Because often they don’t install it correctly (in your website’s header) but almost more importantly, your theme doesn’t even come close to making it as easy as the Joost plugin does to make extra configurations to your Google Analytics tracking without having to actually edit the code. (like blocking your internal traffic, tracking outbound clicks, cross-domain tracking and more).

5. Analytics Visitor Data Check

The final step of installing Google Analytics on your WordPress site is to make sure Google Analytics is actually receiving your website visitor data.

Step 1

Log into your Google Analytics account and head to your reporting screen. See any traffic data? (keep in mind Google Analytics can take up to 24 hours to start counting visits).

Another place to check: Head to Admin and select the web property (website) you’re trying to setup tracking for. You’ll see a status similar to this one if the tracking code isn’t setup properly:



Of course, remember to make sure to wait 24 hours before getting concerned that your code might not be setup right.

When it’s working, you’ll see a green checkmark to indicate Google Analytics is receiving data. Once you have that green checkmark, you’re all setup! Fairly simple, right?

Over to You

Do you have Google Analytics installed on your site? Do you have a WordPress site? Have you used the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin in the past? Did you find it easy to use? Did you find this Google Analytics installation guide for WordPress helpful? Let me know in the comments!

5 Smart Ways to Use Google Analytics

If you’re looking to track the effectiveness of your pay per click campaign, Google Analytics has you covered, no question. However, there’s much more to Google Analytics than just checking PPC management or your website visits. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how you can effectively use Google Analytics’ goal setting tool.

Ask yourself these five key questions and let Google Analytics guide you to an evergreen path.

1. Do My Visitors Actually Read Stuff On My Site? – Track Visitor Engagement

“Are my users engaged with my site?” This is probably the single most important question you can ask. Google Analytics will not magically tell you that “Your visitors love your site because they are very engaged in it.” No. To determine whether your visitors are engaged, you can track how long they stay on your site. Longer stay = engaged users.

To set this goal, click on your ‘Admin’ section and hover over the ‘Goals’ tab. Type in the name of your goal, something like “Visitor Engagement”. The type of goal is ‘Visit Duration’ then on ‘Goal Details’, set the condition to greater than three minutes. Google Analytics will then do its thing and you can visit your results in the Goals Overview page. Whatever the result may be, you can and must continue to improve on it.

 

1. What Are Visitors Looking For In My Site? – Enable Site Search Tracking

Site search is very important in tracking keywords because these keywords tell you what visitors are looking for on your site. Remember, Google Analytics helps you in your never-ending saga of learning about your target market’s needs and wants, which is why we must take in all that we can. To enable site search tracking, go to your website settings. On the ‘Main Website Profile Information’ box, click ‘edit’. On the site search option, select ‘Do Track Site Search”. To view your data results, go to ‘View Reports’, click on ‘Content’ and lastly ‘Site Search’. Found it? Great!

1. Where Are You Going? – Track Outbound Links

After visitors land on your site, where do they go? Sniffing out your visitors’ tracks is important because it gives you an idea of their thinking. To track your outbound links, copy the outbound links tracking code below your Google Analytics tracking code. Clicked outbound links are then converted to an onclick function and you can then view your results in the events page.

1. How Long Does My Site Take To Load? – Check Site Speed

Site speed is often an overlooked element in SEO. If you’re unconvinced that site speed is important, you should know that Google considers your site speed in your page rank. More importantly, site speed is crucial for user experience. If your site is loading slowly, you can expect visitors to just bounce out. To track site speed with Google Analytics, go to ‘View Reports’ then ‘Content’ and click on ‘Site Speed’. If there is a high bounce rate in pages that take a longer time to load, then there is a need to optimize these pages. Site speed gives very useful data because you can measure how load speed affects conversion rates. You can also find out data like on which browser your site loads the fastest.

1. Did I Reach My Goals? – Track Your Goals

Goals aren’t there to just look at. Check your reports regularly to see if you are anywhere near your goals. If you aren’t, use the data you have collected in Google Analytics to make improvements. A very useful feature here is adding annotations in results to indicate which actions you have taken that greatly improved your results. You can do this by clicking on the down arrow under the visual graph, then click ‘Create New Annotation’.

There is so much data you can harvest from Google Analytics, but let’s keep it simple. Bear in mind that Google Analytics is there for two prime reasons. First, to help you learn about your target market, and second, to help you learn more about your site – what works, what doesn’t.

The job of Google Analytics stops there. The data you gather is naturally very important, but not as important as what you then do with it. Invest as much time as you can afford in learning how to decode the raw data in Google Analytics to maximize how you can give your site an enormous boost.

There’s lots more to consider in using Google Analytics effectively, but asking these five questions–and answering them by configuring Analytics to suit your needs–is a great way to get started.