Understanding the audience behavior is very important as it can help any business improve its current standing, know whether it has the support of the audience or not and remodel actions accordingly. Similarly, in the case of an online WordPress website, it’s pertinent to dig deep and observe what actions people perform on your website.
Almost all of the key business decisions that you take are inextricably linked with the audience data. The data of website visitors is quite diverse and it’s essential to realize the true potential of analytics in making your online venture successful.
Although there are myriad online tools and softwares available that present us with useful data and statistics, Google Analytics stands above all. It’s easy to use and comes with many features that allow website owner to segment the audience and assess their behavior and actions.
Google Analytics offers a detailed report that enables us to comprehend the geographical location of the audience, their interests and likes/dislikes for certain website pages. You can also know how much time users spend on a particular page as well as the number of clicks.
As far as the audience is concerned, Google Analytics gives comprehensive insights about the audience such as their age, gender and various interests. This allows you to improvise with the content and images on WordPress website and tailor it according to interest of the audience.
The platform also tells about user’s operating system and exact source from which your WordPress website is receiving all online traffic. The marketing strategy becomes more streamlined when you have such detailed information in front of you. In-depth analysis of the data helps you make informed decisions, take steps to improve the online traffic on WordPress website and reduce measures that result in high bounce rate.
Integration of Google Analytics with WordPress Website:
In this article, we’ll guide you through all of the steps important for integration of Google Analytics into the WordPress website. There are multiple ways through which you can add this handy analytics tool to your site. This can be done by using certain plugins as well as manual integration by applying the tracking code.
Let’s start things off with Google Analytics and what you need to do at the start (getting yourself registered/entering the email address).
Sign in to Google Analytics Platform
The good thing about Google Analytics is that it’s absolutely free and anybody can access it. All you need to do is to have a Google or Gmail account.
In case you don’t have a Google account, you can sign up and create a new one. Existing Google account makes things easier and you can proceed to main landing page of Google Analytics.
Click on the Start Measuring button. This will take you to the form page where you’ll be asked to write the Account Name.
After filling all the details in the form, Google Analytics will ask whether you want to track the website or app. Make sure that the option of Web is selected if you are looking to monitor the WordPress website.
The step that follows it is another form where you need to enter the URL of the website, its name and industry category. Finally after the selection of time zone, click on the Create button.
Afterwards you need to click on the checkbox and agree with the Google Analytics Terms of Services. Pressing the I Accept button here means you are up and ready and have signed up for Google Analytics.
The user will be redirected to a new page where the website tracking code and ID is displayed. The tracking code also includes the website tracking ID which can then be added into the plugin. So here it’s important to keep the Google Analytics website tab open because you may have to come back to this dashboard for copying the tracking code and ID.
How to Add Google Analytics to WordPress Website
As mentioned earlier, there are different ways through which we can integrate Google Analytics into the WordPress website. We have mentioned some of the common practices that the content creators use to link Google Analytics with their WordPress website.
Starting things off, you can learn how we can add the famous analytics tool into your WP site through plugins.
- Integrate Google Analytics Through A Plugin:
There are many plugins available that can help you add Google Analytics in the WordPress website. One of the most common ways of doing it is by using the official plugin of Google known as Google Site Kit.
By using this plugin, you can not only integrate Google Analytics but also the other Google services (AdSense, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights) into the WordPress website. It’s also easy to use and offers complete guidance to the user.
To start using any plugin, you need to install and activate it first. The Google Site Kit is available in the WordPress repository and you can easily find it by typing it in the search bar.
After the activation of this plugin, you’ll see the Start Setup button. Upon clicking it, you’ll be redirected to the main landing page of Google Site Kit.
Repeat the same process here by entering the Google account credentials. After the verification, permit access to Google account data.
After this, you can go back to the WordPress dashboard and see that the Site Kit plugin menu is now showing in the left bar. Here you can open the plugin and also manage it by clicking on the settings option below.
Click on the settings and you’ll find other Google Services. Press the Set up Analytics option. Next, you’ll be asked to choose the Google account and grant access permission.
Add the WordPress account, property and view that you want to connect and then click on the Configure Analytics and that’s it the analytics tool is now connected to your WP website.
Under the Site Kit option in the WordPress admin panel, click on the Dashboard and see all the statistics collected by Google Analytics about your website including the number of users, sessions and much more.
Other plugins:
Besides the Google Site Kit, you can also use some other popular plugins for the integration of Google Analytics such as:
- MonsterInsights
- ExactMetrics
- Analytify
- Enhanced Ecommerce Google Analytics Plugin
- 10WebAnalytics
- GA Google Analytics
- WP Statistics
- WP Google Analytics Events
Among all of these plugins, MonsterInsights is the most common because of its wide usage. It’s used in nearly 3 million websites and some big companies such as Bloomberg and PlayStation utilize it for Google Analytics integration.
Source: https://www.monsterinsights.com
The procedure for using these plugins is more or less the same. You need to link the plugin with Google Account, add website data and there you go, the configuration is ready.
- Manual Integration of Google Analytics:
Statistics about the WordPress website can also be collected if you add the Google Analytics tracking code in the website header. This will ensure that the tracking covers every page whenever a user visits it.
Luckily, most of the WordPress themes come with a header.php file. This is the main file responsible for showing us the website header.
Important note: Whenever you make changes in the header, make sure that you do it on a child theme. By not doing so, you’ll risk overwriting the Google Analytics code every single time when you update the theme. Therefore, using the child theme will greatly minimize the risk of any loss of website data.
To start adding the code manually into the header.php file, you’ll have to get the Global Site Tag code from the Google Analytics dashboard. Simply go to the admin dashboard and find Tracking Info from the available options.
A new page will open by clicking on it and you’ll find your Tracking ID and Tracking Code below it. Copy the tracking code and go back to the admin panel of WordPress platform.
Now we need to make changes in the theme of the website. So, find the Appearance > Theme Editor.
A new sidebar will appear on the right where you need to find the Theme Header (header.php) file. Don’t forget to choose this file from your child theme. In case this file is not visible here, then you can copy it from the parent theme folder to the child theme folder.
When your child theme is functional, all you need to do is paste the Google Analytics Tracking Code just before the closing </head> tag present in the header.php file. After pasting the code, click on the Update File button at the bottom.
Google Analytics tracking code will then be added to your WordPress website. Another way of pasting the tracking code is by using the Insert Headers and Footers plugin. Copying and pasting of code in the Scripts in Header section will save a lot of your precious time.
- Integrate Google Analytics through Google Tag Manager
If you are looking to track the websites that contain scripts that serve a variety of purposes apart from analytics, then the Google Tag Manager can also be a viable option.
Google Tag Manager is a complete system of tag management and you can add Google Analytics to your WordPress website through it. The tag manager allows you to effortlessly update website codes and tags to improve the functionalities.
You can save yourself from the hassle of updating the site code in WordPress backend. The simplest way of using it is by installing the Google Tag Manager WordPress Plugin.
Log into your Google Tag Manager account and create the first container (adding the website URL). After that, a container ID starting with GTM will be visible in the Admin section. Copy it and then go back to the WordPress admin panel.
Then go back to the WordPress admin panel, locate the plugin’s setting page and paste the ID. You can open it by following this route: Settings > Google Tag Manager.
The tag set up in the Google Tag Manager (especially for the Google Analytics) will now start working on your WordPress website with the support of plugin.
Conclusion:
In a nutshell, Google Analytics offers extensive information in the form of accurate numbers that can help you and your business a great deal in prioritizing the tasks and keeping the target audience on board.
The detailed analytics report gives you an opportunity to boost the website traffic and bring more conversions. Decisions made on the basis of facts and figures have more value as compared to any action taken on the basis of conjecture.
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