May 26 2009
How To Install Google Analytics
One of the main keys to a successful website or blog is knowing how much and where your overall traffic is coming from. Having this information at your fingertips will allow you to experiment with different traffic techniques and see which one works the best and then capitalize on it. Without knowing your website statistics you will have no idea what traffic techniques are working and which are not, making it harder to improve your campaign!
Google Analytics, a free service offered by Google, keeps track of your website statistics for you, allowing you to keep track of where your visitors are coming from so that you can adjust your traffic techniques and marketing campaign accordingly.
How To Install Google Analytics
Installing Google Analytics is not all that difficult. It requires the understanding of some web code, but if you follow the steps below you should have no problem getting it installed on your website or blog.
Step 1: Go to the Google Analytics website http://www.google.com/analytics/
Step 2: Sign up for a Google analytics account.
- Click on the Sign Up Now link underneath New to Google Analytics
- If you have a Google account sign in. If you don’t click set up a Google account and follow the steps.
*If you have an account with google analytics sign in by clicking the Access Analytics button on the right side of the homepage.
Step 3: Create a New Account
- Once signed into Google there should be a screen that pops up asking you to enter your website address.
- Enter your Web address, A name for your account, your Country and time zone
- Click Continue
- Fill in your name, phone number(not required), other info
- Click Continue
- Agree to the terms and conditions and click Create New Account
Step 4: Add Google Analytics Code To Your Site
- Google will then give you code that needs to be pasted into your site so that they can track your statictics
- Copy all of the code in the box
- If you have a website paste the code in between the <body> tags, most people paste it towards the bottom, but the code is for Google’s purposes only it will not be seen on your site so as long as it is before the </body> tag you are good.
- If you have a Wordpress blog sign in to your dashboard –> Appearance –> Editor –> footer.php Next, paste the code anywhere inbetween the <body> tags, but it must be before </body> tag. Click save when done pasting and that is it.
Step 5: Sign In To Google Analytics Account
- You should see your new account set up, There will be a yellow caushion symbol under status this means Google did not reconize your site yet, this may take a couple hours or days then it should change to active after it reconizes your site. When it is active you will be able to see your site statistics!
- If for some reason after a couple days it still does not reconize your site I would suggest contacting Google anaylitic support.
Step 6: Install Google Analytics Complete! Congradulations!
Wordpress Google Analytics Plugin
If you have a Wordpress blog you can download the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin, which automatically tracks for blog statistics for you without having to paste code. This plugin is very easy to install just download the file and save it to your wp-content/plugins folder and you are all set!
Till Next Post,
Krista
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This was really good information. Helped me understand Analytics a little bit more. Will still take some time but a good start. Thanks.
Het Krista, I installed Google Analytics on my website a few months ago. It has lots of cool features. The only thing about it that I don’t like is the 24-hr lag time. It’s free though, so I’m not complaining. Overall a very useful utility. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Krista, I installed Google Analytics on my website a few months ago. It has lots of cool features. The only thing about it that I don’t like is the 24-hr lag time. It’s free though, so I’m not complaining. Overall a very useful utility. Thanks for sharing!
Hi, interest post. I’ll write you later about few questions!
Thanks for the information. Quick read, very helpful and right on time as I wanted to add GA this weekend.
Tutorial here looks pretty easy and appreciating.
Newbies can get it for pretty easy.
Very easy and nicely analyised tutorials..will definately help ful for noobs like me ..Thank you sir
This was a great tutorial. One thing that Google Analytics does not track out of the box are Downloads, External Links, and Mailtos. There is some code floating out on the interwebs that you can add to track these things.
Janesville SEO´s last blog ..What Google’s Suggest A Link Really Means
Lovely, however on some websites it’s easy to judge that many traffic would be coming from Google search engine but in blogs, it’s quite different. There are so many blog directories out there along with many other sites where you can list your blog and people may visit your blog from there on. I’ve got a newly installed wordpress blog and haven’t installed Google Analytics on it, I will do it soon. Thanks for the wonderful tip.