How to Set up and Use Google Analytics on Your WordPress

Hi and welcome to BuildMySiteForFree.com. In this tutorial  I’m going to show you how to use the popular plugin Google Analytics. Now when you after installing this plug in, and making an account with Google Analytics what will happen is it starts tracking how many people found your site, how people did find your site, what they did on it, and essentially having all this information will help you improve your website. So, the first thing you need to do is actually create an account with
Google Analytics for this to work. What I’m gonna do is show you where you can find the plugin because I feel  you should install the plugin first this way after you create the account you’re ready to start making your settings and use this plugin to its’ full advantage so what I did first was I came to “BuildMySiteforFree.com. ” I clicked this link where it says plugins. And in alphabetical order I found the Google Analytics plugin. So here it is on the eighth page and I downloaded as a zip file this plug in: Google Analytics for WordPress.  You can also find the plugin by searching the WordPress directory on your blog account as well.

Then what I did was I came back to the Dashboard and I added the plugin by uploading it. So now I have this plugin ready and active so once I create my account I’m able to now  start using it. So we have the plugin, what you wanna do next is come to “Google.com/Analytics” and create an account. If you already have an account you just sign it. If you don’t what you wanna do is sign up now and create an account. After creating an account it’s going to ask you to validate it so it will give you a code. So now, after you install the plugin and created your account, what you want to do is come back to the dashboard, you’re going to open up the settings link where you will now have a setting under it called Google Analytics, and this will bring you to the ‘Google Analytics for WordPress Configuration’ page. So here you could either one, manually enter
that code right here by checking the box, or you could click where it will say for you “Authenticate With Google. ” I’ve already did this so that ‘s why it says “Re-authenticate.” But what you will do is you will click “Authenticate with Google.” It will bring you to the Google Analytics Page where you sign into your account and it will then synchronize your blog or website with your Google Analytics account and then it’s going to automatically start tracking everything you have on your blog. So this is the first step after creating your account.

Now, there’s just a few setting that you want to change or keep. The great thing about a lot of these plugins is most of the settings are already done by  default, so you really don’t need to change them. Some people that might be more technologically advanced or want certain
things that others don’t can change some of the settings here. But most of them are already done by default so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. So first what I do is I keep this by default. It’s where the tracking code should be placed and I think it should always be placed in the header so I keep that as default but you do have another option where you can insert it manually.

The next box is also checked by default and you always want to make sure this is checked because what it’s doing is it’s tracking outbound clicks and downloads which is essentially what you want if you’re using Google Analytics. You can also show, by clicking this box, it will open up two boxes where you have some advance settings but you don’t need to change but you can. So first we have the ‘Custom Variables Settings’ so here you can actually track specific variables. These variables are as listed. You can track all the logged in users. You can track specific post types. You can even track different authors by the page views that are on the author’s posts. You can track what tags are clicked to get to
posts. For some posts that may be old but still get traffic you can actually track the publication year. And you can track single, or all categories, and if you do want any of these tracked by Google Analytics and you want them in your report you would just check each box. And then I will emphasize that after each setting you want to always make sure you click this blue button that says‘Update Google Analytic Settings” or else nothing you just changed will be saved. And if you noticed each box has one.

Now the other advanced settings option is right here where it has other options for you to change it you’d like. And of course at the end it will give you an ‘Update  Google Analytics Settings’  Other than the Advanced Settings it will also show you these two options: So we have first the
“Internal Links to Track.”   So if you have internal links you want tracked, you’re going to insert the link right here and click update. Here, if
you want to confirm that the tracking in your blog is actually working you are going to enable these options and then once again update. You even have the option if you made a mistake or you want to re-fix everything to re-set all settings by clicking this. But in order to save each option you change you need to make sure at the bottom of the box you click update. Now after this , you are all ready to have your Google Analytics working whenever you want to see your report and what’s being tracked you can go to your Google Analytics account and track it
from there.

And this video has been brought to you by ‘buildmysiteforfree.com.’ Thank you for watching.

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About the Author

Andy Johnson

Andy Johnson has been on the Internet since the its dawn(ie his first computer program was recorded on cassette tape) and his first hard drive cost about as much his current MacBook. His first byline was in 1993 for a local newspaper rag he eventually helmed, and his last “real job” was at a computer start up which ended when it ended. Throughout it all he’s freelanced and blogged. Now he is mesmerized by Search Engine Optimization forever trying to “rise to the top” for the right reasons. He’s been married to his wife Julia for as long as he can remember and has two lovely, wonderful children. He looks forward to sharing the latest in the technical best for all the online entrepreneurs.