Install Google Analytics In 4 Easy Steps
by Naomi Niles of ShiftFWD.comIn the first post of this series, Heather mentioned why it’s important to set up one specific measurable goal.In this post, I’ll tell you how to install Google Analytics on your Wordpress site in less than 5 minutes so you can start measuring. If you don’t have a Wordpress site, your programmer should easily be able to add Google Analytics to your site for you.First, sign up for Google Analytics if you don't already have an accountVisit http://www.google.com/analytics/ to sign up for your free account. You can use your Gmail username and password if you already have one.When you first sign up for a new account, you should be directed through a setup wizard that asks you to fill in the information about your business and your site until you get to the final page that shows you the code you need to add to your site.Then, install Google Analytics in Wordpress1. First, you need to get your account number. If you went through the wizard I mentioned above, it will take you to a page to paste the code on your site. In that code, you should see a number that starts like “UA-XXXXX-X” as shown in the image above. The X´s will be numbers. You need to copy and paste that whole number between the single quotes into a text file.If you didn’t go through the wizard and already have Google Analytics set up, you’ll need to get the number by going to your profile in Google Analytics, clicking on the link to the right named “edit” and then on the little link named “status”. There you can find the same code.2. After you’ve got your number, you’ll need to install the Wordpress plugin called Google Analytics for Wordpress. You can install it as you would any other plugin by uploading it to your plugins folder or searching for it from your Wordpress dashboard area.3. Under the settings for your new plugin, you will then need to paste in the Google Analytics account number I told you to copy and paste into a text file before. Once you’ve done that, you shouldn’t need to mess with any of the other settings to have it start tracking your statistics although you can if you like.4. You're all done! Now you’ll just need to wait about 24 hours or so before you start seeing your new stats.
In the next post, I’ll tell you how to start tracking that goal you made. If you have questions, fire away in the comments.
Naomi Niles is the founder of ShiftFWD, a full service conversion optimization consultancy specializing in helping small and medium-sized businesses get more sales and leads from their websites.