If you have a business, your website is a gold mine of information that tells visitors if your brand if right for them and suits their needs.
If you want your site to increase your conversions, however, you need to keep tabs on its performance regularly. It’s also important to know how visitors interact with your website so you can continue making tweaks that suit their needs.
Your WordPress website is as good as stale without tracking its progress in Google Analytics.
Nearly 28 million websites rely on Google Analytics to keep their businesses afloat and give customers what they want. The key to running a successful business is knowing the customer so well you hand them opportunities before they realize they need them. With Google Analytics, you’ll have access to the data you need to know your customer.
Installing Google Analytics on your WordPress website is simple and doesn’t take much time at all. Here’s how to get started.
1. Know What Data You’re Looking For
There are several reasons to use Google Analytics, but the main one is that it keeps you in tune with your visitors so you can give them what they want. To get the most out of it, you need to know what you’re looking for. It doesn’t make much sense to scour data and statistics when you aren’t quite sure what your numbers should be or what to look at.
It’s essential to have a clear understanding of how your audience interacts with your site so you can continue creating content they’ll enjoy. Tracking your metrics is the best way to do this.
Keep an eye out for these particular metrics:
- Bounce rate
- Acquisition overview
- Unique visitors
- Returning visitors
- Pageviews
- Session duration or engagement
There’s an entire plethora of information you can gather from looking through your analytics. With Google Analytics WordPress, you can:
- See what blog posts perform the best and get the most shares so you can continue to create similar content you know will be useful.
- Track your bounce rate and see where visitors are leaving your site so you can figure out how to prevent that from continuing and instead focus on increasing page views.
- Visit your landing pages to see how well they are or aren’t capturing new leads.
You can also decide the best times to post content, how people find your website, what browsers they use, and more. All of this information can aid you in creating a high-converting web experience for your site visitors.
It’s always a good idea to A/B split test different components of your website if you aren’t reaching the conversion rates you predicted. You can create these tests right in Google Analytics to understand how you can achieve your goals faster.
2. Set Up a Google Analytics Account
First, you need to either create an account with Google or use an existing one. Then, sign in to your Google account.
Go through the following screens to continue to sign up for your Google Analytics account.
Next, enter your account information. Google will ask you whether you’d like to track a website or mobile app, so make sure it’s under the Website tab.
At the bottom, click on Get Tracking ID. This is a code Google uses to track your site information.
Then you’ll want to accept the Terms of Service as well as Additional Terms.
When you click Accept, you’re directed to your Analytics dashboard. Congratulations! Your Google Analytics account setup is now complete.
You’re going to end up copying and pasting your tracking ID code into your MonsterInsights plugin settings. This will allow MonsterInsights to read and receive Google Analytics’ data so you can see it from your WordPress dashboard.
3. Install MonsterInsights for WordPress
To set up Google Analytics straight to your WordPress dashboard, you need a plugin like MonsterInsights. The value of MonsterInsights is that it brings your Google Analytics data straight to you, in your WordPress dashboard. That means you no longer have to sign in to a separate website to view your site traffic and performance.
First, you need to download and install the MonsterInsights plugin.
From your WordPress dashboard, upload the plugin and select Install Now.
Click Activate Plugin so your MonsterInsights plugin is added to your website.
Now you need to authenticate your MonsterInsights account. Hover over the MonsterInsights button in your WordPress panel and click Settings.
Authenticate your Google account so that it’s integrated with your WordPress website.
Once you connect your MonsterInsights account, it will redirect you to sign in with your Google account.
Click Complete Connection.
From the MonsterInsights button in your WordPress dashboard, hover over it, and click Reports.
Now, your MonsterInsights analytics is connected to your WordPress website and ready to view reports!
The great thing about setting up MonsterInsights is it takes mere minutes to set up. Just a few clicks and filling out information and you’re able to see all your site’s data straight from WordPress. It’s convenient for you so that you can make quick, informed decisions about your website or business for the best results and highest conversions.
Get Started with MonsterInsights
Setting up Google Analytics on your WordPress website will be the best thing you do for your website. When you know how visitors are interacting and engaging with your site, you discover how you can serve them better so they can move further down the funnel and eventually become loyal customers.
There are endless benefits when tracking your site’s progress and Google Analytics paired with MonsterInsights is the best way to do so.
Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest free WordPress resource site. With over 10 years of experience, he’s the leading WordPress expert in the industry. You can learn more about Syed and his portfolio of companies by following him on his social media networks.