Marketers must utilize Google Analytics to better understand their users’ behavior and the performance of their websites in this era of digital marketing and website management.
The WordPress site you maintain is similar to a digital storefront online, as this is where your ideas and experiences come to life. Imagine seeing all the activities on your WordPress website, observing visitors’ clicks and the pages they visit most frequently. Google Analytics comes into play at this point.
Google Analytics can measure numerous metrics on a WordPress website. The best part is that anyone can turn WordPress into any website of their choice using Google Analytics. Nevertheless, the question of how Google differs in its use by different users depends on the type of website.
Many people also find integrating Google tools like Analytics with their websites difficult, but this should not be a herculean task. This tutorial aims to help you understand the importance of Google Analytics and how to install it on your WordPress website. You can achieve this as a beginner in numerous ways, but here are the two easiest methods.
A Quick Introduction to Google Analytics
Understanding what Google Analytics is and how it works before adding it to your WordPress site is critical. In short, Google Analytics monitors and analyzes your site’s activities and gives you the necessary data to improve it. In addition, it gathers information using a code snippet inserted into the header. This information is divided into the following categories.
- Real-time: The tool displays the activities taking place on your site when you are viewing the report.
- Audience: The audience includes information about your site visitors’ age, gender, and location.
- Acquisition: You get to understand how your site acquires traffic
- Conversions: Google Analytics displays a report that tracks activities like e-commerce sales, revenue, and email list subscriptions.
- Behavior: Displays information regarding what visitors do on your site. Which pages get the most click-through, and which ones have a higher bounce rate?
How to Add Google Analytics to a WordPress Site
Below are two ways to add Google Analytics to your WordPress site, but you must first log in or sign up for a Google Analytics account if you don’t already have one. If you don’t have a Google Analytics account, sign up by visiting the Google Analytics website, and then follow the prompts to set up your account.
Assuming you already have a Google Analytics account, here are the next steps.
Utilize The WordPress Plugins For Google Analytics
This is the simplest way to integrate WordPress and Google Analytics, as you don’t have to edit your website’s code. We recommend two plugins to do this.
Site Kit by Google
This plugin lets you connect your WordPress site and Google Analytics with just a few clicks. In addition, you can build an attractive dashboard as your data source, thanks to the Site Kit by Google plugin that pulls data from Google AdSense and Google Search Console.
This is how you can begin.
Step 1. Click the Start Setup button after installing and activating the plugin, after which you will be required to integrate your site with your analytics account.
Step 2. You will need to verify your domain and authorize Google to access its data so that it can configure the services meant for integration with WordPress.
Upon successfully integrating your Google account, you can now see a visual representation of your Google Analytics data alongside other activated services on your dashboard. Here is how it looks.
GA Google Analytics
If you don’t find the Site Kit by Google plugin beneficial or easy to install, you can use the GA Google Analytics plugin. This plugin has a five-star rating with more than 600,000 installs.
Here is how to do it:
Step 1: Install and activate the GA Google Analytics plugin, after which you will input your tracking ID from your Analytics account by clicking Admin in the sidebar.
Step 2: Select tracking info under property and click tracking code as shown below:
Step 3: You will see your tracking ID as shown below:
Step 4: Navigate to settings in your WordPress dashboard and add your tracking code to plugin settings, as shown below:
The best part about free GA Google Analytics is that it places the tracking code in the header or footer. No matter what you decide, don’t forget to save your changes. Once you are through with saving, Google Analytics becomes active on your WordPress site.
Use Google Tag Manager to Integrate Google Analytics with WordPress
This is the most suitable method for sites that use scripts. As you might be aware, Google Tag Manager helps you track conversions and behavioral data like purchases made and application downloads, respectively. You don’t need to edit the site code in WordPress, but you can incorporate scripts directly into your WordPress site from the tag manager user interface, thanks to the Google Tag Manager WordPress Plugin.
In addition, you can quickly update code snippets and tags intended for marketing optimization and traffic analysis.
Here’s how to do it
Step 1: Get the Google Tag Manager plugin from the WordPress repository or search for it under Plugins.
Step 2: Within your WordPress dashboard, add New and then register for a Google Tag Manager account
Step 3: Once you have accomplished the tasks mentioned above, navigate to the Google Tag Manager dashboard to get your container ID in the admin tab. Look for characters that start with GTM.
Step 4: Next, return to your WordPress site and insert your Google Tag Manager ID into the appropriate field on the plugin’s settings page. You can access this page using Settings > Google Tag Manager in your WordPress admin area.
All the tags, including the Google Analytics tag you configure, will be operational on your WordPress site via the Google Tag Manager WordPress plugin as soon as you follow the instructions above.
Bottom line
Undoubtedly, adding Google Analytics to your WordPress site will open the door to insight into what people enjoy and how your site is performing.
Therefore, it only makes sense to think of Google Analytics as your helper, as it is hands down the best Google tool for showing you what works and what doesn’t. With this in mind, also find a reputable WordPress host to enhance your website’s performance and reliability.
