Even though I’ve written quite a lot of posts about Traffic Generation and Growing a blog from Scratch, I am now working on a series of post on Turning your blog profitable.
And I have to mention Google Analytics most of the time because it is the best tool for measuring your traffic. But sadly not a lot of people (especially the ones who just started blogging) do not know about it.
So, if you are one of them, here is a post for you to know about Google Analytics and how to install it on your blog.
What is Google Analytics?
Google offers a lot of great tools for free and Google Analytics is one such tool. It’s the best web traffic analysis tool available in the market which is both free and easy to use.
Note: Google Analytics is not only for blogs but any type of website that gets traffic from the web. It is used for Mobile Apps as well.
And, if you already have a Google account, you already have Google Analytics, just log in, create an account for your website, get the codes and paste it into your Website.
Once the codes are installed on your blog, Google Analytics will start tracking the visitors who land on your blog. It will collect data like,
★ Where the visitor is coming from (Search Engines, Social Media or Direct)
★ Which page on the blog the visitor lands on
★ How long does a visitor stay on the blog.
★ How many pages does a visitor visits.
★ Where does the visitor is coming from (Geographical Location).
There is much more data Google Analytics provides, but this much is enough for the people who are just getting started.
How to Create an Account for your Website
If you already have got a Google Account, you can log into Google Analytics using that.
Now, Google offers a very clever way to keep things organized. As Google Analytics is being used by millions of people. There are people who own more than one website, some even own dozens of them.
Google Analytics makes it easy to keep them organized by letting users add their websites under Web Properties that falls under Accounts.
So, You can keep your websites (Web Properties) in separate accounts on the basis of the Niche, if you’ve got multiple websites. But for most of the people, it should be just one Account and then one Web Property for each of the websites.
If you’ve got just one website, Create an Account with that name and then Create a Web Property with the same name under that account. And then Add your website in Add Web Property.
TIP: If, in future, you plan to create an app for your blog or a sales page for a product/service then it can be added as another Web Property under the same account.
Or if you want to create few websites for Flipping, you can add them to a separate account because it’s easier to transfer the ownership of these accounts to another Google account. This keeps things organized in the long run.
After adding the Web Property, you will be getting the Tracking codes to install on your blog. You can copy the codes and paste them in the footer.php file of your theme, which can be found by going to Edit Themes under Appearance.
The codes should be pasted before the ending tag which looks something like this: </body/>
Else, you can use a plugin if you hate to mess around with your theme files.
I am comfortable putting these codes inside the theme files, but I prefer to use Super Simple Google Analytics to install Google Analytics codes in the blog. This is easier because you do not have to put the codes everytime you change your theme. I’ve even put Super Simple Google Analytics in my post about Essential WordPress Plugins.
Add Google Analytics using Super Simple Google Analytics
To add Google Analytics codes in your blog, install the Super Simple Google Analytics plugin, go to Add New Plugins, search for Super Simple Google Analytics and then install it.
Now go to Google Analytics under the Settings and put your Google Analytics Tracking ID in it, it looks something like UA-XXXXXXXX-1
and then Save Changes.
Optional: If you are using any Cache Plugin such as WP Total Cache or WP Super Cache, then you should clear the cache as well
This is it, the Google Analytics is now installed on your blog and it will start tracking users. Give it some time, (at least a week) to gather some data, though I would recommend one month if your blog doesn’t get much traffic.
What to do after 30 days of installing Google Analytics
As we mentioned above, Google Analytics is a great tool to learn about your visitors, 30 days worth of data will be enough to give you the information you will need to take your blog to the next level.
It will help you put your focus on the channels where your traffic is coming from, plan your content accordingly and make decisions that will help you grow your blog faster.
put your focus on the channels where your traffic is coming from, plan your content accordingly and make decisions that will help you grow your blog faster.
plan your content accordingly, and
make decisions that will help you grow your blog faster.
Keep doing monthly and bi-monthly audit of your traffic to take your blog to the next level.