Strategy Station

How to Set Up Google Analytics on Your Website

Did you hear about the entrepreneur who didn’t believe in Google Analytics? He thought it was just a mythical creature like a unicorn. Well…needless to say his website’s performance was a little unremarkable without any data-driven insights. Let’s not make the same mistake! Here’s a step by step guide to get you started:

Step 1: Create a Google Analytics Account

Start with creating a Google Analytics account. If you already have a Google account you can simply sign in to Google Analytics using your existing credentials. Go to the Google Analytics website, click on “Start for free“ and follow the displayed steps to set up your account.

Step 2: Set Up Your Property

Once you’re logged into your Google Analytics account you’ll need to set up your website as a “property”. Click on the “Admin” tab in the bottom left corner and then click on “Create Property.” Follow the steps to enter your website’s URL, name, and other relevant information.

Step 3: Get Your Tracking Code

After you’ve set up your property you’ll be given a tracking code. You’ll need to add this code to your website so you can start collecting data. Click on “Tracking Info” and then “Tracking Code” to get your code.

Step 4: Add Your Tracking Code to Your Website

Now it’s time to add the tracking code to your website! Depending on the platform your website is built on, this process will differ from case to case.

For websites built on WordPress, you can add the tracking code to a plugin like Google Analytics Dashboard for WP or MonsterInsights. These plugins allow you to easily add the tracking code to your website without having to mess around with any code. Connect your Google Analytics account to the plugin. You’ll need to provide your Google Analytics credentials to authorize the plugin to access your data. Once connected, the plugin should start tracking basic analytics data on your site.

For Shopify users, the process of adding tracking code is even easier: log in to your Shopify admin panel and go to “Online Store” -> “Preferences” ; scroll down to the “Google Analytics” section and enter your tracking ID and click “Save”. You can also use a plugin which will come in handy if you want to set up specific event tracking (info on this in Step 6).

If you’re not sure how to do this, no worries! You can always reach out to your website developer or hosting provider for information and help.

Step 5: Verify That Your Tracking Code Is Working

Once you’ve added the tracking code to your website, you’ll want to make sure that it’s working properly. To do this, go back to your Google Analytics account and click on the “Real-Time” tab. Then open a new tab in your browser and visit your website. If everything is working correctly, you should see your website visit appear in the real-time report in Google Analytics.

Step 6: Set Up Your Goals

Now that you have Google Analytics set up and working it’s time to set up your goals. Goals or otherwise know as event tracking, are specific actions that you want your website visitors to take, like clicks on product links, add to cart events, making a purchase and more. By setting up goals, you can track how many people are taking those actions and optimize your website to encourage more conversions.

Start out by creating goals in Google Analytics: go to the “Admin” tab and then click on “Goals.” Follow the prompts to set up your goals and start tracking your conversions.

You’ll also need to set up the specific event tracking on your website, this process will differ depending on the platform your website is built on:

For WordPress websites, if you’ve connected one of the plugins mentioned in Step 4 (Google Analytics Dashboard for WP or MonsterInsights) you can can set up event tracking in the plugin settings. The location of the event tracking setting may vary depending on the plugin you’re using, you’ll need to look for an option called “Tracking” or “Events”. In the event tracking settings, you’ll be able to define what events you want to track, such as clicks on specific buttons, form submissions, or video plays. You’ll also be able to set up custom labels to track different categories of events. Make sure to save your settings once you’re done.

For Shopify websites, you could also use a plugin called Shopify Google Analytics Integration. Once you’ve installed the plugin, got to settings, connect your Google Analytics account by entering your tracking ID and enabling the Universal Analytics option. Then enable event tracking: In the plugin settings, navigate to the “Event Tracking” tab and enable the “Track events” option. Choose the event categories that you want to track. The plugin provides several pre-defined categories such as Add to Cart, Remove from Cart, and Purchase, but you can also create custom categories. For each event category, set up the event actions that you want to track. For example, for the Add to Cart category, you might want to track the actions “Clicked Add to Cart button” and “Added to Cart”. Save your changes!

As always, check if your tracking works! Go to Step 5 again and perform actions on your site that you’ve set up to track (clicks, add to carts, etc.).

Final Thoughts

You’re all done! Hopefully this guide was useful and entertaining. Don’t forget, you can always reach out for help if any of this feels overwhelming.

Now go on and collect some data!