Signing up for Google Analytics
You’re ready to sign up for Google Analytics with a Google Account. If you have just signed up, you will notice that steps one to three are almost identical to steps one to three above.
1. Type “google.com/analytics” into your browser to go to the Analytics homepage.
2. Under the header menu in the upper right corner of the page, there is a large blue button that you should click on “Analyze Access.”
3. You will be taken to the login page. Use your email address and password to log in. If you use a Google ID (such as your Gmail address), you can only enter the part before the ‘@’ symbol. You must enter your full email address if you’re not using your Gmail ID. Click the “Connect” button.
4. The home screen briefly summarizes your Google Analytics subscription and what you can do. Click the “Register” button on the right side of the screen. This takes you to a screen where you can create your analysis account.
5. You need to enter information about the website whose traffic you want to monitor. Specifically, it would be best if you had the following:
- A. Account Name – This should not match the website’s name, although it will make your life easier otherwise.
- B. The URL of your site for tracking. The URL is what people type in their browsers to go directly to your page. Select the appropriate prefix from the drop-down box (99% of the time, HTTP: // is valid) and type the rest in the box. For example, you can select “HTTP: //” and then type “your domain” if your site is your domain.
- C. Determine the time zone of your location.
- D. Data sharing is up to you. You don’t have to do this; if it makes you nervous, don’t do it. If you choose to participate, you have two options.
- E. Share with Google – Google can see what your site is doing. If you want to receive AdSense ads, they can use them to improve engagement. Secondly, share with anyone anonymously. This allows you to compare sites without anyone knowing to whom your specific data belongs.
- F. Choose your country.
- G. Read the terms and conditions and click the checkbox when you have them.
- H. Click the “Create an Account” button.
6. You are now taken to a subsection in the administration area of your site. You are on this specific page because you need to add a specific code to your website to allow Analytics to track traffic.
- A. In the middle of the screen, you will see “1. What are you after?” In general, the answer is one area, which is the first radio button available.
- B. A block of code under the heading “2. Paste this code into your site.”
- C. You don’t have to understand this code to work!
Secondly, directly between the title and the code block are the instructions, “Copy the following code, then paste it on each page you want to see just before the closing tag </head>” This is precisely what you will do, as shown below.
Third. The </head> tag is part of the HTML code that creates a web page. Specifically, place header end labels. For example, to add Google Analytics to your WordPress site:
- A. These steps will allow you to track the entire WordPress site. You have to make this change.
- B. Go to the WordPress dashboard and select Theme -> Editor.
- C. Select the Header option (header.php) on the right side of the screen. Some of the Editor’s code will appear in the middle of the screen.
- D. Look for the </head> tag in the code block. It should be rigid on the left side of the Editor and not indented at all. It is difficult to locate inside the code because it depends on the Theme you have installed.
- D. Copy the code block from the Google page and paste it into the WordPress header before the </head> tag.
- E. Click the blue “Update File” button at the bottom of the Editor.
- F. After you’ve edited and saved your page (remember you saved it after adding the code, right?), click the “Save” button on the Google Analytics page. A small green tab will be at the top of the screen marked “Success,” indicating that you have done what you want at the end of Google.
However, you should be able to track your site visitors. Beware of two things. First, you do not have to assume that the data reaches the second correctly. Second, your visits are also recorded. Therefore, the traffic you see at the beginning likely is all you have.