Marketing Essential - Google Analytics » Social Media and Web 2.0 Marketing

Marketing Essential - Google Analytics

01.14.2009 - admin

It’s absolutly essential that you can easily track what’s happening on your site - how many visitors you’re getting, where they’re coming from, how long they spend on your site. Without that information you’re driving blind, unsure of where you’re going or even if you’ve got there.

Fortunately those nice people at Google have come to the rescue with Google Analytics. Simply by adding a small piece of Javascript to your pages they can track lots of stats about your site and it will provide you with the information you need. You need to sign up for an Analytics account at Google but that takes only a couple of minutes and is free.

As well as your Analytics account you need to add a Plugin to your WordPress site. Go to your WordPress Admin page & at the bottom of the left hand menus you’ll see ‘Plugins’ - click that link. Then again on the left hand side under Pluggins you’ll see an ‘Add New’ link appear - click that. In the Search Term box that now appears on the main page type analytics and hit Search. You’ll now be presented with a list of 20 or so Plugins that can add that importand Google code. I added Google Analyticator.

To add the plugin click on ‘Install’ on the right hand side of the page. You’ll then get a description of the plugin. Read the Description, Installation & Faq tabs to make sure it does what you want and if all is ok click on the red Install button. You’ll then land up on a page where you need to enter the ftp or sftp details to get into your site. Enter the correct information and then Proceed. In a few seconds the plugin will be uploaded to your WordPress, click on Activate the plugin.

Now on your ‘Installed Plugins’ page make sure the plugin is listed under the ‘Current Active Plugins’. If it was Google Analyticator you added you’ll need to click on the link to the options page in the description. Very easy to set up here - set logging to Enabled, enter your Google Analytics UID (see below if you haven’t got that yet) and then set the Advanced Options as required. I don’t track admin logins, have footer tracking enabled and outbound link tracking enabled. Click on ‘Save Changes’ when you’ve completed your setup.

If you didn’t setup a Google Analytics website profile when you opened your Google Analytics account now is the time to do that. Setting that up will give you the UID code you need to put in your Analyticator plugin. Go to Google Analytics, log in and then click on ‘Add Website Profile’. Select ‘Add a Profile for a new domain’ and in the box below that type in your website url. Select your Time Zone & click on Finish. A tracking Status Information page will come up, in there you will be able to see your Web Property ID - that’s the tracking code you need for your Analyticator plugin, cut and paste it into the options page.

That’s it about done… Go to your Google Analytics settings page & check the website profile you set up is there. If you’ve installed the WordPress plugin correctly you should see a green tick in the Status column to show that the code is being picked up correctly from your website. It takes about 24 hrs to start seeing report data from your site.

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