How to Connect Google Analytics To Your Professional Website

by Aaa Cas Auditors & Business Consultant in Dubai

Google provides a set of fundamental tools to collect important website usage data. Here's how to connect it to your online space using its various features.

Google Analytics is one of the marketing tools that should be part of your everyday tools. Whether you manage a company website, a personal blog or an e-commerce, Google 's sophisticated web analytics system allows you to accurately monitor the essential data to understand if your digital project is working: information such as how many users reach yours. pages, where the visits come from, how much your content converts or which browser is most used by your potential customers will no longer be a secret.

However, configuring Google Analytics correctly can seem like a complex process: although learning to master the platform's reports requires constant time and effort, the initial steps required for setting up your account and connecting a site to Google Analytics are actually quite simple.

In fact, by following the few steps you find below you can complete the process in a few minutes and immediately start collecting the salient data of the website you want to monitor.

Connecting your site to Google Analytics: the key steps

Step 1. Create a Google account

Step 2. Create Analytics Account

Step 3. Obtain and Apply the Tracking ID

Phase 4. Code check and final checks

Phase 5. Study of Google Analytics

Connecting your site to Google Analytics: the key steps

To start using Google Analytics and make it fully part of your marketing strategy, you will simply have to follow a few fundamental points: creating a Google account and a Google Analytics profile, setting the tracking code and checking the correct functioning of your new business ally.

Step 1. Create a Google account

Before even proceeding with the connection of Google Analytics to a website and with the tracking of the statistics of your interest, you will need to make sure you have a valid Google account and a correctly configured Google Analytics account.

If you have created in the past or use a Gmail account on a daily basis, you can use that data to access the tools made available by Big G , such as Google Analytics. If you don't have a Google account, you will need to create a new one in order to proceed with the remaining crucial steps.

Simply visit the main Google page and choose to Create an Account: after entering your basic personal data and choosing your username and password, you will have a Google profile and you can conveniently use it to use the services, apps and the platforms that the company offers to its members, be it GMail email, Drive storage or tools like Calendar, Maps or Google Play.

Step 2. Create Analytics Account

With your Google login data in your hands, you can then dedicate yourself to the creation and complete configuration of Google Analytics. In fact, by going to the main page of Google Analytics , you will be asked for an ID and password to access Google: instead, if you are already connected to your personal Google profile, just navigate to Analytics to find yourself on the landing page of its guided configuration .

By clicking on Configure For Free, you will be asked the name you want to give your Google Analytics account and you will also be asked for confirmations and checks about the account sharing settings : you can leave the standard settings flagged and you can choose the account name you prefer and which the more it represents your business or digital project.

The next screen will allow you to select what you want to monitor in particular , that is a website or an app: if your intention is to link your site to Google Analytics, you will obviously select the first option. At this point you will be asked to enter all the relevant data relating to the "Property", which is nothing more than the way in which the platform will refer to your website and its data.

Then enter your username, the name of the website and its complete URL , accompanied by the correct HTTP or HTTPS prefix , as well as the sector or commercial category that the web space deals with and the time zone that will define the time zone in which your reports will be shown.

The last step will be to accept the Google Analytics Term Of Services (or Terms of Service) and the clauses relating to data processing. Once you complete these steps, you can finally get your hands on your Tracking ID.

Step 3. Obtain and Apply the Tracking ID

One of the moments that generally seems most hostile in the configuration and setting procedure of Google Analytics is precisely the obtaining and practical use of the tracking code provided by the platform: it is not actually anything impossible, when you know how to move. with knowledge.

What exactly is the Tracking ID? It is a unique tracking code consisting of the initial letters UA followed by a series of numbers. This numeric string is strictly personal and is the one that Google Analytics will use to accurately identify your Property.

Together with the tracking ID you will also receive a script , which begins with the indication : this code must be applied to your website and will allow Analytics to collect and send to the platform all the most detailed reports relating to your visits and your audience. of users.

The inclusion of the Google Analytics script on your online portal provides direct access to the source code of the same and some particularly delicate steps: if you do not feel very familiar with the subject and you do not know how to orient yourself in the universe of programming, you can ask for help. to a web developer or who generally takes care of your site and its maintenance.

Keep in mind, however, that there are two methods to enter the tracking ID on your web space: the first involves manual entry, and is slightly more complex, while the second asks for help from the numerous plugins for WordPress or other CMS, ideal for proceeding with safer installation.

Tracking code entry via header.php file

To perform this small operation you need to access the HTML code of your website, in particular the header file of the same. If you work in a WordPress environment , in the Dashboard area you can click on Appearance and then on Editor, to have the list of files of your site available and select the one called Header.php.

To connect Analytics successfully, you will have to copy the script provided by the Google web analytics system and paste it before the closing tag: clicking on Update file you will confirm the changes and your code will start working.

Inserting the tracking code via plugin

Once again, the procedure is not difficult at all, especially if you use the WordPress CMS : there are in fact on the market numerous plugins made specifically for the insertion of the monitoring ID in a streamlined and inexperienced way .

Just go to the Plugins section of WP to download one of the many insertion tools available : once you have installed the plugin you simply need to provide him with your monitoring ID and he will take care of everything else.

Phase 4. Code check and final checks

In order for Google Analytics to record complete and constantly updated information and statistics of every movement that occurs on its website, it is essential that its tracking code is installed on every single page that you are interested in tracking. To make sure this goes smoothly, there are numerous sites to turn to, such as GA Checker, which scan every single page of your website in seconds and return you a complete report of the situation.

Once you have connected Google Analytics to your site correctly, you will begin to see the first statistical data appear in your dashboard within a maximum of 24/48 hours . You can still verify that the Analytics ID entry was successful simply by doing a little test.

Open your website on one page of your browser and the Google Analytics platform on another: you should be able to see a connected user on the Homepage in the “ Active users at this moment ” section, that is yourself. Should there be any problems, it is advisable to check the steps taken up to here one by one to verify that you have completed them in the most correct and compliant manner.

Phase 5. Study of Google Analytics

The configuration of the Google platform is not enough to be able to say that you have made Analytics the efficient partner it could be for your business: to exploit all its enormous potential you will need to spend time and energy to learn all the secrets and practice in the field studying its sections and features one by one.

Google itself offers free courses to learn how to move more confidently on Analytics: its Google Analytics Academy is open to both beginners and more experienced users. An alternative is to develop a complete marketing strategy in collaboration with a reliable digital agency and work alongside an expert in the sector who can suggest all the most profitable ways to use the data obtained from Google Analytics, from usability to advertising online .

To get the most out of what Analytics is able to offer you will need to be able to answer a series of questions and know, for example, which data exactly can be extrapolated from the platform, as well as how they can be processed and reported in understandable tables and graphs.

But you will also need to know the most effective way to read them to transform them into performing marketing strategies that guide your digital project towards constant growth and increasingly promising results.

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Created on Feb 1st 2021 08:11. Viewed 238 times.

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