How to Add WordPress Site to Google Analytics? Why It Is Important To Use It?

Probably you heard of Google Analytics before if you are reading this article. You always wanted to track your website data and traffic, but didn’t know how? Then this article is for you. In this post, we want to explain to you what Google Analytics is and why it is very important to use it? Also, we will give you step by step instructions on How to Add WordPress Site to Google Analytics.

What is Google Analytics For?

Google Analytics is created by Google to help you track your website data like traffic, conversions, time spent browsing your website, your audience location, gender, and age. Also, it tracks all your keywords searched and clicked on Google. That way you can analyze which keywords work best for you and from what countries you get most visitors.

How Does Google Analytics Collect Data?

Google Analytics uses a small piece of JavaScript tracking code to collect data about your website visitors and their interactions on your website.

After you create your Google Analytics account, you need to add the script on your website. MonsterInsights
is a great WordPress plugin which helps you properly and easily add Google Analytics to your WordPress site and makes sure that it’s sending all interactions to Google Analytics.

Once setup is done, Google Analytics will drop a cookie on the user’s browser for your website. It will help to track every interaction that the user performs on your site.

Why Do You Need To Add Your Website to Google Analytics?

There are many reasons why it is very useful to use Google Analytics, but the main one that it’s absolutely FREE! Why not use something, if it’s free and can give you many valuable benefits as well.

Analytics collects data for you automatically and will give you a report which you can customize. Easy integration with other tools and platforms. It has the ability to measure internal site search and shows what potential customers are looking on your website.

Bounce rate is one of the most important metrics which show you how many people are leaving your website after visiting only one page. High bounce rate might indicate that visitors coming to your website, but not finding what they were looking for. You have to reduce your bounce rate as much as possible.

Google Analytics provides a very detailed report of pages experiencing high bounce rate, which can help you to improve your website.

Also, it can give you a report about location, age, and gender of your visitors, which can help you to target the right audience.

And these are just a few benefits which Google Analytics can offer.

How to Add WordPress Site to Google Analytics?

Once you know what Google Analytics is for and why it’s highly recommended to use it lets have a look at how to add WordPress site to Google Analytics.

First of all, you have to go to Google Analytics.

You can log in using your Gmail account or if you don’t have one, you have to create a Gmail account first.

Once you have your account set up and logged in, press on Admin and Create new property to add a new site to Google Analytics.

In this window, you must add your Website Name, URL, Industry Category, Time Zone and press Get Tracking ID.

You will receive your Tracking ID and piece of code.

Once you have your tracking ID and tracking code there are few ways how to add WordPress site to Google Analytics and we try to cover the main ones.

Adding your site to Google Analytics using All in One SEO Plugin

There are two ways of adding your site to Google Analytics using All in One SEO plugin. The easiest way is to add your Tracking ID to your All in One SEO plugin.

To do that go to your WordPress Dashboard and press on All in One SEO and General Setting.

Scroll down until you see Google settings. Paste the Tracking ID you have copied from Google Analytics into Google Analytics ID field. Press Update Options at the bottom.

Another option is to place tracking code into your website header. The easiest way to do that is to download Insert Headers and Footers plugin.

Go to your WordPress Dashboard and press on Plugins and Add New.

Then in the search box type insert Headers and Footers and press Enter. Install and Activate Insert Headers and Footers plugin.

Then press on Settings and Insert Header and Footers in your WordPress Dashboard.

Paste the Tracking Code you have copied from Google Analytics into Scripts in Header box and press Save.

To check is your site successfully added to Google Analytics open your website and Google Analytics at the same time. Press on Home at Google Analytics and check if there is an active user at your site right now, if yes, that means your site is successfully added to Analytics.

Adding your site to Google Analytics using Yoast SEO plugin

First of all, you have to download MonsterInsights plugin. To do that go to your WordPress Dashboard and press on Plugins and Add New.

Then in the search box type insert Google Analytics by MonsterInsights and press Enter. Install and Activate MonsterInsights plugin.

To get started in your WordPress Dashboard click on Insights and Settings.

Now you can click Connect MonsterInsights with your Google account button to start the process.

Select Your Google Profile.

Next, click Allow button to give MonsterInsights access to your Google Analytics data.

Select the website profile you want to Authenticate with MonsterInsights, mark I’m not a robot option and click Complete Authentication.

You are all set. It can take up to 24 hours for the MonsterInsights dashboard to display your data.

Key Facts

• Google Analytics is created by Google to help you track your website data like traffic, conversions, time spent browsing your website, your audience location, gender, and age.
• Google Analytics uses a small piece of JavaScript tracking code to collect data about your website visitors and their interactions on your website.
• Reasons to add you site to Google Analytics are: it’s free, Analytics collects various data for you automatically, shows you bounce rates of your pages, gives you a report on your visitors’ location, age gender and much more.
• To set up Google Analytics you must have a Gmail account.
• There are three main methods for adding your site to Google Analytics. Using All in One SEO, Yoast SEO or MonsterSights plugins.

Conclusion

We hope that after reading our post you learned what Google Analytics is, what is used for and how to add WordPress site to Google Analytics. You can use the easiest and most suitable method for you to add your site to Analytics.

If you ever need a hand or have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate and feel free to leave them below and we will be more than happy to help you out and answer your questions as soon as possible.

All the best,

Marius & Ndidi

Founders of howtoquit9to5job.com

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