Google Analytics is an essential tool for any website owner, as it allows you to gain insight into your website traffic and audience. 

When you start a website, blog, or store, your primary objective is to get more subscribers and traffic. Google Analytics helps you make smart decisions by showing you critical statistics. 

Here are some examples:

When

Seeing the traffic statistics for your website allows you to see the best hours to post specific content. If you see a traffic increase between 4 PM and 7 PM, you should aim your posts for that timeframe to gain maximum reach.

If that timeframe is outside of your timezone, make sure to schedule your posts.

How

It’s important to know where your visitors come from (Referral Links, Advertisements, Direct Links, Search Engines). Google Analytics shows you this information, along with the percentage breakdown, so that you can find out your best traffic sources.

In addition to that, you can find detailed information for each source for maximum potential. 

For example, if it’s a Search Engine, you can see which search engine brings you the most traffic (Google, Bing, Yahoo). If your top referral is an external website via Direct Link, you can look into partnering with that website using guest posts.

If it’s Instagram (via Referral Links), you should consider making exclusive content for Instagram or running paid ads to boost conversions and sales. 

This information is handy and can help you tremendously in monetizing your website.

Who

You can find out your audience’s geographical location, the browser they use to visit your site, JavaScript support, language, screen resolution, etc.

This data is helpful, as it can assist you during your website’s design process to tailor it to your audience. For example, you can translate your website to a specific language if you see most of the traffic coming from a particular country, etc.

What do they do

Additionally, Google Analytics helps you track how long users stay on your website, which content they’re reading the most, and the bounce rate (how many users leave your website after the first visit).

This detailed information can assist you in increasing your page views and decrease the bounce rate. It also shows the articles that are doing well, not doing well and what content your users try to find on your website.

Interaction

The best part of Google Analytics is that it helps you make data-driven decisions. It provides insight into how your visitors interact with the content on your website, so you can do split A/B testing and see what works best.

You no longer need to guess which content you need to make, as you can see detailed statistics on the percentage of each link user clicked on your website, etc.

This allows you to focus on a plan that works best for your website and remove speculation from the equation.

Sign up for Google Analytics

To use Google Analytics software, you’ll need a Google account. Head to https://analytics.google.com/ and create a new Google account or sign in to an existing account:

Once logged in, click Set up for free to start the process:

Put in your account name, select the data you want to share with Google, and click Next:

Fill in the property name, choose the time zone and currency.

Toggle the Create a Universal Analytics property switch, fill in your website URL, and select the Create a Universal analytics property only option.

Google recently released a brand new version of Google Analytics software, but we want to use the old version to make sure everything is compatible with up to date WordPress plugins.

Click Next when ready.

Lastly, select your business industry, business size, and what you’re using Google Analytics for exactly:

Click Create to finish creating your account by accepting Google’s terms of service:

Your browser will take you to the Google Analytics property set up, the tracking code section:

Keep this tab open in your browser, as we’ll need it later.

WordPress plugin set up

Now it’s time to install the Google Analytics plugin, which will link Google Analytics with our WordPress dashboard.

Log in to your WordPress dashboard, head to Plugins > Add New, fill in Google Analytics for WordPress in the top-right search field, and click Install Now:

Once installed, click Activate to activate the plugin:

Once the plugin is successfully activated, click the Google Analytics menu option in the left sidebar.

Go back to the previously opened tab and copy the tracking ID code:

Go back to your WordPress Dashboard tab, and paste the tracking ID code in the Tracking Code field:

Click the Save Changes button to save changes.

That’s it! The plugin will automatically insert the tracking code, and you can start checking your traffic statistics in the Google Analytics software directly from your WordPress Dashboard.