In our article, MonsterInsights: Must-Have Google Analytics for your WooCommerce site, we discussed the power and capabilities of the MonsterInsights plugin using Google Analytics.
In this article, we will continue to share why Google Analytics is important, and how you can easily install Google Analytics in your WordPress website (step by step).
Why is Google Analytics Important for Bloggers?
Once you start a blog, it will be extremely important to get more traffic and subscribers. Google Analytics can help you make data-driven decisions by showing you the stats that matter. You can see:
How many visit your website?
This part of analytics shows how many users visit your site over time. For example, Google Analytics can show you how many active users are currently visiting or display a graph of how many visited daily over the past 7 days or other period of interest.
Who visits your website?
This part of analytics provides the geographical locations of your audience such as country or city, which browser did the user use to visit your site and other important information such as screen resolution, JavaScript support, Flash support, language and more. You can also see what devices are used to visit your site.
This data is extremely useful, and it can help in numerous ways. For example, you will likely want to ensure you page design is responsive such that it displays correctly on all devices including desktop devices, mobile devices, and tablets.
What do people do when they are on your website?
You can track where the users are going on your website, how long do they stay on your website, and what is the bounce rate (the percent of users who exit your site from the first page visited, referred to as the landing page). With this information, you can decrease the bounce rate and increase your page views.
You can also find your most popular articles, articles that are not doing so well, and what kind of content your users are looking for.
How do people find your website?
This section of the analytics shows you how users accessed your site (for example: Search Engines, Direct Links, Referral links from another site).
It also shows you what percentage of your visitors came from each of these sources. Google analytics gives you the breakdown of each of these categories. If it is the search engine category, then it shows you which search engine got you the most traffic, Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.
This includes traffic directly from other web sites. Having external links to your site is very important for Search Engine Optimization and search engine ranking.
How to Signup with Google Analytics
What’s awesome about Google Analytics is that it is available for free and all you need is a Google or Gmail account to sign up. The sign-up process is simple – just follow the step by step instructions below to create your Google Analytics account.
Step 1: First, visit Google Analytics sign up.
You will be asked to login with your Google account. If you already have a Google or Gmail account, then you can use that to sign-in. Otherwise, create a Google account for yourself.
Step 2: Once you sign-in, you will be prompted to a screen like the one below. This is where you will sign up for Google analytics.
Step 3: On the next screen, you will be given the choice to choose between a website or mobile app. For this application, you will want to select website.
After that, you need to enter an account name (It will be the Google Analytics profile name for this website), Website name, website’s URL, country, and the time zone.
Once you have entered this information, click on the Get Tracking ID button. You will be presented with Google Analytics terms and service which you must agree to, so click on the ‘I Agree’ button.
Step 4: Now you will be presented with your Google Analytics tracking code. Copy this tracking code because you will need to enter it in your WordPress site depending on the method you use below.
We suggest leaving the analytics browser tab open as you may need to revisit it, once you have installed the code on your WordPress site.
Now that you have setup a Google Analytics account, let’s look at how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.
How to Install Google Analytics in WordPress
There are different methods to setup Google Analytics in WordPress. In this article, we will show you the simplest method which is using Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights.
Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights
In our article, MonsterInsights: Must-Have Google Analytics for your WooCommerce site, we discussed the power and capabilities of the MonsterInsights plugin using Google Analytics. MonsterInsights is the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. Over 1 million websites use it including the likes of Bloomberg, PlayStation, Zillow, and more.
It is the easiest and by far the best way to add Google Analytics to WordPress (for all users, beginners and experts alike).
MonsterInsights is available as both, a paid premium plugin, and a free version. In this article, we will be using the MonsterInsights free version. Be sure to check out the MonsterInsights Pro version if you want more advanced features like E-commerce tracking, Ads tracking, Author tracking, etc. The process of setting them up is the same.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled ‘Insights’ to your WordPress admin menu. Clicking on it will bring the MonsterInsights setup wizard.
Next, you will be asked to choose a category for your website (a business website, blog, or online store). Select one and then click on ‘Save and Continue’ button.
Then you need to click on the ‘Connect MonsterInsights’ button.
This will bring up a popup which will take you Google accounts where you will be asked to sign in or select a Google account if you are already signed in.
Next, you will be asked to allow MonsterInsights to access your Google Analytics account.
Click on the ‘Allow’ button to allow access to your account.
The final step is to select the profile you want to track. Select your website here and then click on the ‘Complete authentication’ button to continue.
MonsterInsights will now install Google Analytics on your website. After that you will be asked to select the recommended settings for your website.
The default settings will work for most websites. If you use an affiliate link plugin, then you need to add the path you use to cloak affiliate links. This will allow you to track your affiliate links in Google Analytics.
Click on the Save and Continue button to save your settings.
Next, MonsterInsights will show you paid add-ons that you can access if you upgrade to PRO. You can simply click on the ‘Save and Continue’ button to skip this step.
After that, you will be asked to install the WPForms plugin, which is the best WordPress contact form plugin. You can install it or simply click on ‘Skip this Step’
That’s it! You have successfully installed and setup Google Analytics on your WordPress site. Remember, it will take Google Analytics sometime before showing your stats.
The best part about MonsterInsights is that you can view your Google Analytics reports inside your WordPress dashboard. Simply visit Insights / Reports page to check out a quick overview of your analytics data.
Google Analytics works best with Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools). It allows you to see how your website is doing in search results. Please visit wpbeginner’s complete Google Search Console guide to learn how to use it to grow your website.
We hope this article helped you learn how to install Google Analytics in WordPress. If you did, then please sign up below to receive alerts when we post future articles. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
