Using a website analytics service or software package can be a great help in improving the quality and effectiveness of your website. Google’s Analytics is a leading analytics service, and it’s available at no cost. The data provided by Google Analytics will give you insight into how each visitor came to your WordPress website (whether through a link or a search engine), how long they stayed and what pages they viewed on your website, as well as a number of other goals that you can set. Learn which social sites bring you the most traffic and which social network converts the best.
Here are the basics for setting up Google Analytics on your WordPress website.
Step One – Sign Up For a Google Analytics Account
You’ll need a Google Analytics account before you can start using the service. If you already have some other type of Google account (such as a Gmail or YouTube account), you can set up your Analytics account using this information. If you’d prefer to set up an entirely new account, then go to www.google.com/analytics in order to begin the process.
Step Two – Add a Website
Once you’ve logged in to your Analytics account you need to set up a new website tracking account. This might seem confusing, but Google analytics allows you to set up multiple sub-accounts, and track multiple websites within each of these sub-accounts.
Next click the “Admin†button in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.
Click the “+New Account†button if you’re setting up your first account, or click the name of one of the accounts then click the “+New Property†button if you’d like to add your WordPress site to an existing sub-account.
After submitting all the requested information, you’ll be provided with a short snippet of HTML code. Now it’s time to add this code to your WordPress site so that Google Analytics can begin tracking your visitor behavior.
Step Three – Add the Google Analytics Code to Your WordPress Site
There are two basic ways to add the Google Analytics tracking code. The first is to locate the header file of your current theme, then manually edit it to add to the Google Analytics code after all other scripts within the “†block of code. This method can be confusing, it’s easy to do it incorrectly, and it’s something you’ll have to do again if you decide to switch to a different WordPress theme.
Some WordPress Themes allow you to add your Google Analytics code on the theme’s options page. BUT I don’t recommend you add the code there because if you change themes it is too easy to forget to re-add the code.
A better approach is to use a Google Analytics plug-in. Once you install this plug-in and configure it with your Google Analytics tracking number, it will automatically add the appropriate code to every page of your WordPress website. You can search the WordPress plug-in directory to review your various options.Below are two plugins I recommend.
Google Analytics Plug-ins For WordPress
- Google Analytics for WordPress by Yoast
- Google Analyticator by Ronald Heft
Congratulations, you’ve set up Google Analytics on your website! Now you’ll be able to learn exactly what your website visitors do, where they are from, if they are on a mobile device, and much more. Viewing your analytics data can also help you discover what content your visitors like and ways to make your website better.
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This article originally appeared on Pintop Productions and has been republished with permission.
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Article source: http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/how-to-setup-google-analytics-for-your-wordpress-site-0220456