One of the most powerful tools you can add to your WordPress arsenal is Google Analytics. This is by far the best free tracking tool you will find online today. It’s very easy to install on your WordPress blog, as well.
Why Should Bloggers Use Google Analytics?
Tracking is one of the most important things for any website or blog. If you don’t know where your traffic is coming from and how people are finding you, it’s hard to target your marketing better. Here are a few of the things you will be able to do with Google Analytics.
Understand Where Your Visitors Come From
With Google Analytics you will know where your audience is coming from, which browser they are using and the screen resolution they are using. You will also know what language they are browsing in, wither they use Flash or JavaScript and many other important things.
This information makes it easy to adjust your website to fit the majority of your visitors. You can cater to one browser or another, if you see a large portion of your visitors using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. This information is priceless and will allow you to better target your audience.
Know When People are Visiting
Understanding the day of the week and the time of day that your visitors show up at your website can help you make adjustments, as well. This can help with scheduling your posts to go live during the busiest times and it can help with advertising, as well.
Where they Go and Where they Came From
When you know where a visitor found your site and where they went once they entered your site, you can better understand what they are doing. This can help you create better content more suited to your audience and make other important adjustments.
Signing Up for Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool and you can easily sign up by going to the Google Analytics Signup Page. If you already have a Google account, the page will look like this:
Just enter your password and follow the instructions. Once you complete the process, you will be able to integrate the Google Analytics tools with WordPress.
How to Add Google Analytics to Your WordPress Blog
The easiest way to install Google Analytics is with the plugin. This is the best way for beginners to use this tool with WordPress. However, advanced users can either use the functions.php method or the direct paste method.
If you’re a beginner, you shouldn’t try to use the direct paste or functions.php method. The plugin method will take care of everything you need and it’s far easier, if you don’t understand how to write code.
The Plugin Method
The best plugin for the job is called Google Analytics for WordPress. You can either search for the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard or download it and upload it in the Plugins >> Add New >> Upload section.
Once you install and activate the plugin, you will see a box pop up asking you to “Help improve Google Analytics for WordPress” and you want to click the “Allow Tracking” button.
Next, you will need to access the settings from the Settings >> Google Analytics section in your dashboard.
In this section, you will see a blue button that will allow you to automatically authenticate your Google Analytics account. Just click this button and click the “Allow Access” button on the next page.
If you need to enter your UA code manually, you can check the box.
After you have authorized Google Analytics, you can select the profile from your account for your WordPress blog.
Once you’ve adjusted any of the other settings you need to change, just click the “Update Google Analytics Settings” button.
That’s all it takes to connect Google Analytics with your WordPress blog. It will take between 24 and 48 hours for data to start showing up inside the dashboard of your Google Analytics account.
