Do you ever wonder if your WordPress site is actually reaching people? Without proper analytics, you’re basically running it blind. You won’t know which pages visitors enjoy most, how they found you, or what makes them leave without taking action.
That’s why every WordPress site needs Google Analytics (GA). It’s free and gives you the insights you need to understand your visitors and grow your site. Even today, it remains the best way to understand your audience and make smarter decisions.
At WPBeginner, we use MonsterInsights across all our websites because it simplifies complex Google Analytics data into easy-to-understand information. We’ve also looked at other solutions to see what works well for small businesses.
In this guide, we’ll show you three ways to easily set up Google Analytics on your WordPress site — even if you’ve never done anything technical before. 🧑💻
✏️ Quick Note: This is a comprehensive guide – here’s what we’ll cover to help you navigate:
- First, we will explain why Google Analytics is important, how it can help you grow your website, and how to sign up for a GA account if you haven’t already.
- Second, we will show you different methods to install it on your WordPress site. This article covers the MonsterInsights method, along with two alternative approaches.
- Finally, we will explain how to view your traffic reports in Google Analytics.
Why Is Google Analytics Important for Bloggers?
Once you start a blog, your #1 goal is to get more traffic and subscribers. Google Analytics helps you make data-driven decisions by showing you the stats that matter. You can see:
1. Who visits your website?
This part of analytics provides details on the geographical location of your audience, the browser used to visit your site, and other key information, including screen resolution, JavaScript support, Flash support, language, and more.
This data is extremely useful, and it can help in different ways. When creating a custom website design, you can use the user data to make sure that your site will be compatible with your audience.
For example, if you see that most of your visitors are using mobile devices, you can prioritize making your site’s mobile experience as smooth as possible.
2. What do people do when they are on your website?
You can track where the users are going on your website, how long they stay on your website, and the bounce rate (the percentage of users who exit your site on the first visit).
Using this information can decrease the bounce rate and increase your pageviews.
You can also find your most popular articles, articles that are not doing so well, and the kind of content your users are looking for.
3. When do people visit your website?
By looking at the hottest hours of the day for your site, you can pick the best time to publish your post.
If that time zone is not compatible with yours, then you can schedule your post for that hour.
4. How do people find your website?
This section of the analytics shows you where the users come from. For example, do they use search engines, enter direct links, or click on referral links from another site?
It also shows you what percentage of your visitors came from each of these sources. Google Analytics gives you a breakdown of each of these categories. If it is the search engine category, it shows which search engine generated the most traffic for you, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and so on.
The breakdown of referral sources shows you which sites you need to work with the most. If your top referral source is Facebook, you need exclusive Facebook content to make your audience feel special.
If your top referral source is an external website, then you might want to consider having a partnership with that website (guest post exchange or something else).
5. How do people interact with your content?
Google Analytics shows how your users interact with your site’s content. It shows you what percent of the users clicked on which link on your site and much more.
You can run A/B split tests by creating content experiments in Google Analytics to understand what works best to meet your goals.
By seeing user interactivity, you can work your content around your users. By seeing the answers to the questions above, you can focus on the strategies that work for your site and avoid methods that don’t work.
Simply put, eliminate the guesswork and focus on stats that matter so you can make data-driven decisions.
Don’t have a Google Analytics account? Just follow our quick step-by-step guide below:
How to Sign Up With Google Analytics
Google Analytics is available for free, and all you need is a Google or Gmail account to sign up. The signup process is quite simple. Just follow the step-by-step instructions below to create your Google Analytics account.
Step 1: Create a Google Analytics Account
First, you need to visit the Google Analytics website to sign up. When you are on the website, simply click the ‘Get started today’ button.
Next, you will be asked to log in with your Google account.
If you already have a Google or Gmail account, then you can use that to sign in. Otherwise, you can go ahead and create a Google account for yourself.
Step 2: Configure Your Google Analytics Account
Once you have signed in with your Gmail account, you will see a welcome screen like the one below.
This is where you will sign up for Google Analytics with your Gmail account. Go ahead and click the ‘Start measuring’ button.
After that, you will be asked to provide an account name.
This name will be used internally, so you can use anything, like your business name.
Google Analytics will also show multiple account data-sharing settings.
These settings give you control over sharing your Google Analytics data. You can keep the default settings and move on to the next step.
Step 3: Set Up a Google Analytics Property
On the next screen, you will need to create a Google Analytics property.
Google introduced a new version of Analytics called Google Analytics 4 or GA4. It’s the latest version that tracks your website and mobile apps in the same account. Plus, you get new features, metrics, and a different interface for your reports.
Go ahead and enter a property name and select your reporting time zone and currency. Then click the ‘Next’ button.
On the next screen, you’ll need to select an ‘Industry category’ from the dropdown menu for your website and choose a ‘Business size’ from the given options.
When you are done, just click the ‘Next’ button.
Next, you’ll need to choose business objectives and select how you intend to use Google Analytics with your business. This will help get personalized reports for your business.
For instance, there are options like generating leads, driving online sales, raising brand awareness, examining user behavior, and more.
You can select one or more options that meet your needs. We recommend selecting the ‘Get baseline reports’ option so that you get all the Google Analytics reports populated in your account.
When you are done, simply click the ‘Create’ button.
Step 4: Connect Google Analytics with Your WordPress Site
Now you will be presented with your Google Analytics Webstream options.
Since we are setting up Google Analytics for a WordPress site, go ahead and select ‘Web’ as the platform.
