BIZ OWNERS
arnold on Oct 28, 2018
***Updated 11/2/2020***
This tutorial is going to show how to install Google Analytics into your WordPress website.
With Analytics we are able to learn a plethora of information about our websites. On a basic level, analytics will tell you how many people are visiting your site, how they found your website, how long they stayed, which content they viewed, where they are from, what devices that are using, etc. There are thousands of different things that Google Analytics will tell you about your website.
Before we sign up for Google Analytics we are going to first install a plugin into our WordPress website. Plugins make it very easy for us to install different functionalities into our website without knowing how to code. Without the plugin we are installing today, we would have to insert code onto each page in our website. That wouldn’t be too hard on a single page website, but imagine if we were building a 10 or 20 page website. And what about an E-commerce website with thousands or products, each with their own page?
Sign Up For A Google Analytics Account
Sign up for a Google account if you do not have one. If you have Gmail then you have a Google account. If you need a Google account then go to this link: https://accounts.google.com/SignUp and get signed up.
Do not use your CSU email or email account. It will cause you a lot of problems later in the semester. Make sure you are using a @gmail.com account.
Now go to: https://analytics.google.com/
Click Set Up For Free (or it may say Start Measuring)
Get signed up like this example and then click NEXT:
Now fill out your website properties similar to the image below. Click CREATE when done.
You will then need to enter some business information. You can enter as much or as little as you want here. Then click CREATE.
You may need to accept their terms of use. Sometimes this does not show:
This will take you to a page that contains the following information:
You have now signed up for an Analytics Account. But we still need to link it to our websites so our websites can send data to our Analytics account. Luckily we have that plugin installed that will make this very easy. 🙂
How To Install Plugins in WordPress
The first thing we need to do is get logged into the dashboard of our websites.
So enter: www.yoururl.com/admin or www.yoururl.com/wp-login.php
That will take you to the dashboard of your website.
We then need to go to the plugins page which we access from the left side of the tool bar where we will click “Add New”:
Installing The MonsterInsights Plugin
The plugin we are installing is called “Google Analytics For WordPress By MonsterInsights.” We can find it easily by searching for the keyword “monster” on the top right. It should be the first plugin that comes up. Please click “install now” and then click “activate”
How To Install Google Analytics Using The MonsterInsights Plugin
Now that we have the plugin installed we will be able to easily install Google Analytics into our website.
After you click activate Launch the Monster Insights plugin by clicking INSIGHTS.
Then click LAUNCH SETUP WIZARD. (Sometimes the setup wizard does not launch. If you see CONNECT MONSTER INSIGHTS then just click that and continue below.)
You will be taken to the following screen. Click on “Business Website” and then “Save And Continue”
The click to “CONNECT MONSTERINSIGHTS”
Then you will be asked to select your analytics account. Make sure you select the correct account. In the screenshot below I select my gmail account.
You will then have to accept some permission to continue. Click on ALLOW to continue as shown in the screenshot.
You then need to select the correct analytics account. If you have multiple accounts you will need to pick the correct account to link. Once selected please click on “Complete Connection”
You will then have a few more steps to complete. On the next screen that pops up you can leave the options as is and select “Save and Continue”
You can also skip the Add-Ons on the next page:
And then skip installing the WP Forms plugin. (This may not show up).
Next click “Finish Setup & Exit Wizard”
You will know it worked correctly if you can see your UA code on the next screen as shown below.
It is always good to do a real time check to see if Analytics was installed correctly.
How To Check Real Time Analytics In Google Analytics
The next thing we need to do is to check to see if analytics was installed correctly.
Let’s go back to our analytics and look on the home page.
If you click Real-Time and then Overview you will be taken to the real time screen. Load your website from a mobile phone and you should see your traffic appear:
If you see this then you know your analytics was installed correctly!
