How to Install Google Analytics in WordPress for Beginners

Knowing your website traffic and audience data is crucial for making data-driven decisions to grow your online business or blog.

Google Analytics gives you access to a wealth of information about your visitors for free. It shows you how people find your site, what they do on your site, and much more.

In this step-by-step guide, we will show you how to easily install Google Analytics on your WordPress site.

Here‘s what we‘ll cover:

• Why Google Analytics is Vital for Your Website Success
• How to Create a Google Analytics Account
• 3 Ways to Add Google Analytics to WordPress
  • Using a Plugin (Easiest Method)
  • Manually with Code
  • Using Your Theme Files (Advanced)
• Viewing Key Google Analytics Reports
• Optimizing Your Implementation for Maximum Value

Let‘s get started!

Why Google Analytics is Vital for Your Website Success

Google Analytics provides incredibly valuable insights that can help you grow your business or blog.

With Google Analytics, you can understand:

• Who is visiting your site – location, age, gender, interests, and more. This allows you to better understand your target audience.

• How people find your site – whether it‘s organic search, social media, email, or other channels. This shows you which marketing channels work best.

• What visitors do on your site – which pages they visit, how long they stay, any goals completed (like purchases or signups), and more. This reveals user behavior patterns and helps optimize your site.

• When people visit your site – gain insights into how traffic varies by day, date, season, and time of day. Use this info to time content publishing and promotions.

• Device and technology used by visitors – Analytics shows the percentage of mobile vs desktop users, browsers, operating systems and more. Ensure your site works across platforms.

In short, Google Analytics eliminates guessing and provides data to inform your decisions. It‘s an invaluable free tool that all websites should be using.

Next, let‘s go through how to create your Google Analytics account.

How to Create a Google Analytics Account

Signing up for Google Analytics is quick and easy. Just follow these steps:

1. Go to analytics.google.com and click ‘Get Started‘

2. Sign in with your Google account or create one if you don‘t have an account already

3. Enter an account name and your website URL

4. Accept the data sharing settings

5. Select your industry category and business size

6. Choose your key business goals for using Google Analytics

7. Click ‘Create Account‘ and you‘re done!

Once your account is created, you will be provided with a tracking code that needs to be installed on your WordPress site.

Keep this browser tab open as we‘ll need to copy and paste the code next.

Now let‘s go over how to connect Google Analytics to WordPress.

3 Ways to Add Google Analytics to WordPress

There are a few different methods you can use to install the Google Analytics tracking code on your WordPress site.

Using a Plugin (Easiest Method)

The easiest way to add Google Analytics to WordPress is by using a plugin.

We recommend using MonsterInsights, the most popular Google Analytics plugin with over 3 million active installs.

Benefits of using MonsterInsights include:

• Super simple 5 minute setup

• No need to manually copy/paste any code

• Options for enhanced eCommerce tracking, affiliate links tracking, author tracking and more

• See key Google Analytics reports right inside your WordPress dashboard

• Automatically insert popular posts by traffic to increase engagement

• Available as a free version with all the basics

Here‘s how to install Google Analytics using MonsterInsights:

1. Install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin.

2. In your WordPress admin, go to Insights > Launch Setup Wizard.

3. Click Connect MonsterInsights and choose your Google account.

4. Select your website view in Google Analytics.

5. Choose your website type and recommended settings.

6. Skip upgrade options for now unless you want premium features.

7. You‘re all set! Google Analytics is now tracking your WordPress site.

The plugin will automatically handle installing the tracking code across your site. Easy!

Plus you‘ll get a new Insights menu in your WordPress dashboard with Google Analytics reports.

Manually with Code

If you don‘t want to use a plugin, you can manually add the Google Analytics tracking code to your WordPress site.

Here are the steps:

1. Copy the Global Site Tag tracking code from your Google Analytics account.

2. Install a header and footer code plugin like Insert Headers and Footers.

3. Paste the tracking code into the header section and save changes.

This will insert the code sitewide. However, the downside is you won‘t get the enhanced functionality, dashboards, and features you get with MonsterInsights.

Using Your Theme Files (Advanced)

Experienced users can also add the code directly to their theme files.

Note: This method is not recommended because the code can get lost when switching themes. Use a plugin instead unless you have a custom theme.

To add in theme files, open your theme‘s header.php file and paste the Google Analytics tracking code right before the closing </head> tag.

Or you can use functions.php and use the wp_head hook like so:

add_action(‘wp_head‘, ‘insert_tracking_code‘);

function insert_tracking_code() {

  // Paste your tracking code here

}

That covers the basics of getting Google Analytics installed on WordPress!

Viewing Key Google Analytics Reports

Once connected, log into your Google Analytics account to start exploring your reports.

Focus on these key reports to gain valuable insights:

• Audience – Learn who your visitors are so you can better target your content and marketing. Look at location, age, gender, topics of interest and more.

• Acquisition – See how people are finding your site whether it‘s through organic search, social media, referral sites, email, paid ads, etc. Identify the best channels to focus your efforts.

• Behavior – Analyze what visitors do on your site. Look at page views, time on site/page, bounce rates, and conversion funnels to optimize user experience.

• Conversions – See your key conversion metrics like signups, downloads, purchases, etc. Set up goals to track KPIs. Review top converting landing/exit pages.

• Real-Time – Check active visitors on your site right now to see live traffic in action. Look at current traffic sources, location, pages visited and more.

Don‘t get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data Google Analytics provides. Focus on the key reports and metrics that matter most for your business goals.

Optimizing Your Implementation for Maximum Value

Here are some tips to set up Google Analytics for optimal tracking:

• Properly structure your website using H1 tags, title tags, meta descriptions etc. This improves how your content is categorized in Analytics.

• Configure goals and conversions tracking like signups, downloads, purchases, etc so you can measure performance.

• Use event tracking for enhanced tracking of button clicks, file downloads, video plays, outbound links, comments, newsletter signups and more.

• Enable affiliate link tracking to see your top performing affiliate relationships and content.

• Implement custom dimensions and metrics to track and segment data that‘s important for your business.

• Take advantage of Google Analytics dashboards and custom reports to visualize the data that matters most.

• Integrate Google Analytics with other tools like Google Search Console, Google Data Studio, and Google Optimize for expanded capabilities.

The time you invest in properly setting up Google Analytics will pay off exponentially in actionable data and insights that fuel your business growth.

Wrapping Up

Implementing Google Analytics provides incredibly valuable data to boost your business or blog.

We recommend using MonsterInsights plugin for the easiest setup with WordPress.

Focus on the key reports and optimize your tracking for maximum value. Let data, not guesses, drive your website strategy.

We hope this beginner‘s guide helped you get Google Analytics properly installed on your WordPress site. Now dive in and start analyzing your traffic!