How to set up your Google Analytics
Do you have a website but have no idea how many visitors come to your website?
Do you want to know which pages have the most views?
Google Analytics can provide you with answers to these questions, and many more.
And guess what? – It’s free!
What is Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a tool that anonymously tracks your website visitors and their actions on your website.
It allows you to track the pages your website user’s view, how long they were on your website for, what source referred them to your website and much more.
All of this information is categorised, and presented either in a graph, or as a table.
Creating your Google Analytics account
If you don’t have a Google account, you will need to create one. You can do this by going to Google Accounts and clicking the ‘create an account for free’ link.
Once your account is set up:
- Go to the Google Analytics website
- Click ‘Create an account’ in the top right
- Sign into your Google account
- Click ‘Sign up‘
You should now be taken to a form where you can enter your website URL.
If you aren’t taken to that page, click ‘Admin’ at the top right, then ‘+ New Account’.
Enter information into the following fields:
- Account name – This is normally the company name
- Website’s URL – This is the domain of your website (most start with the http:// prefix)
- Time zone – This is the time zone your website should be using
- Industry Category – This is your companies industry. It is used for generating tailored reports and tips.
- User Agreement – Make sure you select the correct country and tick the terms and conditions box.
Finally, click the button ‘Create Account’.
Adding the tracking code to your website
Once you have created your Google Analytics account, you will be taken to the page with the tracking code.
If you need to find this page at a later date, go to the accounts list then:
- Select your account
- Click ‘Admin’ at the top right
- Click ‘Tracking Code’
From this page, you state whether you are tracking one domain, or multiple domains.
By selecting a different option, the code further down the page will update automatically. For now, just stick to ‘A single domain’.
If you aren’t technically minded, don’t worry, just copy this generated code and ask your web development team to add it into the head of your website – They will know what this means, and it shouldn’t take very long.
If you are technical, then this code needs to be copied into the head of your website, just before the closing </head> tag.
Once you either sent the code to your web team, or inserted the code to your websites head, click ‘Save’.
If your page doesn’t re-direct, but you have seen the green ‘Success’ message, then scroll to the top and click ‘Standard Reporting’.
Congratulations! You should now have Google Analytics working on your website.
Please note: You may need to leave Google Analytics for a couple of hours before it starts collecting the data.
What now?
You should now have Google Analytics running for your website.
Make sure you head back often to see the progress of your website and identify the areas that could be improved.
Do you use Google Analytics? Which pages do you use most? Let me know in the comments below!
