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Since my last Income Report for my first month, I’ve had questions about how to add Google Analytics to a website because in my report I had suggested to add Google Analytics to your website as soon as possible so you can track your website’s stats right from the beginning of its journey.
Today, I will show you just how to do that and it’s not going to be hard at all, just a few simple steps! You’ll be glad to add it to your website in the beginning because you’ll get to see its growth from the get-go and you’ll have a good history to compare your current stats to.
FIRST STEP:
Your website must already have WordPress installed in it, if you have not, get your FREE website at Wealthy Affiliate here:
It only takes 4 easy steps to create your free website once you’ve signed up with Wealthy Affiliate (which is free also):
Here’s also a video you can watch that will show you how to build your website in only 30 seconds:
If you don’t want a website from Wealthy Affiliate, you can always follow the instructions on my How To Build A Blog post to build one using your own HostGator hosting and GoDaddy for your domain purchase. Instructions on how to install WordPress is in that post as well, but you must purchase your domain name and hosting package first.
SECOND STEP:
Now that you have your WordPress site, you’ll need a Google Account. If you don’t already have a Google Account, you need to sign up for one first and you can do that HERE.
On that screen, you can sign up with a new gmail account or use your own email (there’s a link right under the gmail email field if you want to use your own email address) if you already have one.
You can now search “Google Analytics” in the Google search page:
Click on the first Google Analytics link and you have never used this tool before, you will get this screen:
Click on that “Sign up” button and you’ll see this form below:
If you have used Google Analytics before, you can ADD a new website by going into your Google Analytics dashboard, click on the Admin menu.
You will then see three columns of a website you already have there (Account, Property, View columns), click on the name of the current website under the first column which is the Account column to the left.
The drop down menu will list other websites you may have and at the bottom of this menu, you’ll see “Create New Account” – you’ll be able to track 100 websites with one Google Account.
Fill out all the website information in the fields provided in the form and near the bottom you’ll find the “Get Tracking ID” blue button, press this and you’ll find your Tracking ID:
Your Tracking ID is always in this format: UA-XXXXXXXX-X <= where the X’s are numbers. You will either use this Tracking ID by itself or the Script shown in the picture above to install into your website.
THIRD STEP:
You’re almost done! Now you just have to copy and paste the Tracking ID or the script to your website, I will show you two ways:
1) WordPress Theme – A lot of themes have a spot in your theme settings to put tracking codes in. You just need to look at your theme and see where the spot is to put in a tracking code for Google Analytics. For example, my theme is Canvas, and if I go into Canvas > Settings > General Settings, I have a section called “Tracking Code” and this is where I paste the script code in the box:
2) All in One SEO Plugin – You should be using this plugin for your WordPress site to help with your search engine optimization (SEO), if you don’t have it already, just go to Plugins > Add New and search for the name in the search box on the right. Once you find it, install it and activate it.
Once it’s activated, you’ll see it on the left menu of your WordPress dashboard. Click on All in One SEO from your left menu and scroll down to a section called “Google Settings“. On the bottom of this section, you’ll see a field called “Google Analytics ID:“, it’s in this field where you can copy and paste just your Tracking ID (no script, just the UA-########-#) in:
Don’t forget to go all the way down to the botton and press the “Update Options” button so your Tracking ID gets saved in the box. That’s it!
Congratulations, you have installed your Google Analytics Tracking ID to your website! I hope this was simple for you and if you have any questions or feel I’ve missed something, please comment below and let me know! I would love to hear from you about this topic or anything else you can think of.
Let’s make money online!
Not many people understand the importance of analytics. I found your step by step instructions very easy to follow. I never knew how to add analytics to my site so I was in the dark about my website. Thanks for an informative post!
Thanks so much Linda for your kind words! I’m so glad it has helped you add your Google Analytics to your website! Having analytics on your website is certainly important and so easy to do, it’s a no-brainer to add it. 🙂
Thanks for visiting!
Grace
Thank You Grace! Your post was very clear and easy to follow. Sometimes it’s easy to skip steps when we feel less than tech savvy. I so appreciate you taking the time to help us out. Much Appreciated.
Cary
Hi Cary,
Thanks so much! Appreciate your kind words. Yes, sometimes a simple guide like this is helpful so you can make sure you install the Google Analytics properly. I hope this has helped you too!
Thanks for stopping by,
Grace
Great writing but I want to know if we have been using a different SEO program what should I do?
Hi Furkan,
You can easily switch SEO programs but your current one should also have a slot for the Google Analytics tracking code. If you can’t find it in your current one, all you have to do is install the “All in One SEO”plugin, activate it, and deactivate the other one. You don’t have to delete the old SEO program in case you don’t like the new one, this way you can always activate it again.
I hope this helps!
Grace
Alright I have not found the slot for google analytics. I will install ALL in one SEO plugin. I think it will be easier. Thank you Grace
Thanks Furkan, yes it will be easier this way. Glad I could be of help!
Grace
I can follow every step by step instruction with ease. I will definitely use your guideline when I get my website fully up and running. Google analytics will be extremely informative. Great to know thank you!
Hi David,
I’m glad you find my instructions easy to follow. I would suggest that you add Google Analytics even now at this early stage of your blog or else you might forget it if you want and then you’ll lose that statistic of your early months.
Thanks for visiting and best of luck!
Grace
The easy to follow steps really helped me navigate within Google Analytics. There is so much information in there and I see that once you are in your account you can also view your site speed and many other metrics. I need to add both of my websites to track their performance. Thank you!
Thank you Carmen for your message. So glad my steps were easy to follow. Google Analytics have a lot of info to see about your site, it’s definitely a must have whether you install it in the beginning or not but I definitely recommend earlier the better.
Best to you!
Grace
Hi Grace, what a very informative and clear to follow post! I have just installed google analytics and anyone who hasn’t, will find your post very easy to follow. Great job!
That’s great Sharon! I’m glad you installed Google Analytics already, it’s a great thing to have for your website and keeps your site in good healthy check.
I wish you all the best on your website!
Grace
Thank you for this! I wasn’t too sure about how to add google Anaytics to my website, now I know. This has been very helpful!
Glad I could be of help Linda, thanks for stopping by!
Grace
Hello, love your website I can see that a lot of work went into this, your site is well detailed and has alot of good information. Thanks for sharing about google analytics because I believe that a lot of persons have a hared time trying to understand and how to install this special feature. Thanks a gain for sharing all the best to you.
Hi Norman, thanks so much for all your kind words about my website! Really appreciate you stopping by and checking it out again. I hope everyone has Google Analytics on their site as it will give your site so much data on its health. I hope it can help you too.
Best wishes to you,
Grace
Hi Grace,
Thanks for your info regarding Google Analytics.
It’s by far the most important feature for a website’s success as far as I’m concerned as long as you’re writing quality content. Registering with the Search Engines this way sure improves website rankings.
Thanks for answering my question rolling around in my head regarding adding another website too as this is one of my up and coming jobs.
Thank you,
Simon.
Hi Simon, thanks so much for visiting again! So appreciate this. I’m so glad you agree having Google Analytics on your site is very important. If you don’t know where your traffic is coming from or not coming from, you’ll have no opportunities to improve your website. So happy to hear you’ve learned how to add another website to your Google Analytics as well from my post! That’s awesome.
To much success to you,
Grace
Hi Grace.
Thank you for this awesome article.
I need to connect Analytics with my Homepage , so I wil follow your tutorial 🙂
Regards.
Damien
Hi Damien,
Yes you sure do, I hope you will do add Google Analytics to your website soon. The earlier the better.
I’m glad you find this tutorial helpful!
Best of luck,
Grace
Hi Grace,
This is a very detailed instruction on how to add Google Analytics to a website.
Many website owners, particularly beginners, ignore the importance of having this tool to monitor visitors’ stats.
In order to market successfully, you got to know your audience demograhics, how long they spend at your site, which post appeal to them most.
Anyone who wants to know how to monitor their website using Google Analytics should visit your post as reference!
Thanks Zailinah for stopping by and offering your kind words. Blog owners need to know this is an important aspect to the success of their blogs. Knowing your audience and how they behave is definitely crucial to your online business. With this data, you can improve your website to cater to your audience.
I wish you much success!
Grace
Just added google analytics to my website thanks to your easy to follow instructions! Thank you so much, this will be so helpful. I just really hope I don’t get addicted to looking at it!
Hi Katie,
Haha, you just might get addicted looking at it at first, but you’ll soon relax and check it less often.
I’m so glad my instructions were easy to follow! I’m happy I can be of help to you and anyone who can use it. 🙂
Best to you!
Grace
Great Grace! This was very helpful!
Now when I have it installed what I should do? Is it going to show me the previous sessions too or just from today?
I was trying to figure out, but it looks like it didn’t record everything.
Can you please assist me with this?
Thanks,
Sunny
Hi Sunny,
The data will only be from the day you install it and going forward. This is why I suggest to put it on your website as early as possible, if anyone else is reading this. It takes a day or two to collect data and then everyday you’ll get data for your website.
I hope this helps, if not, just let me know and I will see if I can help more.
Grace
Grace, you are so awesome for this post. It is so easy to follow. I started a new website and following your instructions, I set up Google Analytics and Search Console. I followed what you said step by step. You are awesome!!! If you don’t mind me asking, what did you use to create such easy to follow graphics? These made all the difference for me. Thanks for a great post!
Hi Horace,
I’m happy to hear my post has been such a great help to you! Glad you were able to set it up all easily. I just do screenshots as I went through the motions of setting up a new account so I can show others. Visual aids are always best to follow with.
Thanks for visiting!
Grace