Understanding Website Analytics: A Guide to Installing Analytics on WordPress Site

As a website owner or blogger, understanding how your visitors interact with your site is crucial to make informed decisions that can lead to growth and success. Installing analytics on your WordPress site is one of the best ways to track your site’s traffic and make evidence-based decisions. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of adding analytics code to your WordPress site and start tracking your website’s performance.

What are Website Analytics?

Website analytics are data that tells you what’s happening on your website, such as the number of visitors, pages they visit, behavior on your site, and how long they stay. The data helps you understand visitors’ interaction, which pages are most popular, and where the traffic comes from. By analyzing the data, you can fine-tune your website to better meet visitors’ needs.

Why Installing Analytics is Important for Your WordPress Site

Installing analytics on your website is fundamental to understand your site’s performance effectively. Below is a breakdown of why installing website analytics can be crucial:

• Track your website’s performance: with website analytics, you can track how visitors interact with your site, which pages they visit, and other metrics that indicate how well your website is performing.
• Helps you make informed decisions: Analytics helps you make critical decisions about your site. Based on the data, you can determine which pages need improvement, which content resonates most with your audience, and where you should focus your efforts on.
• Know where your visitors come from: With analytics, you can see where your visitors come from, including demographics, geolocation, the devices they use, and the sources of your traffic. In addition, you’ll be able to see which pages are attracting the most attention from different sources of traffic.
• Measure conversion rate: You can track the progress of your conversion goal and see which page is driving the most conversion. You can use this data to improve your website conversion rate or change your marketing strategies.

How to Add Analytics Code to WordPress Site

WordPress is one of the most popular CMS in the world, and for a good reason. It’s user-friendly, versatile, and has a robust community surrounding it. Adding analytics code to WordPress is an easy process that requires no coding skills. That said, let’s take a closer look at how to install analytics on WordPress site.

Step 1: Choose an Analytics Provider

The first step in adding analytics to your WordPress site is to choose an analytics provider. There are many providers available, each with its advantages and disadvantages. Once you have researched and selected one, create an account with them.

There are several analytics providers available such as Google Analytics, Matomo, Clicky, and more. For the purpose of this guide, we’ll be using Google Analytics due to its popularity.

Step 2: Create a Google Analytics Account

Setting up a Google Analytics account is relatively easy. Navigate to the Google Analytics page using any browser, and click on ‘Sign Up.’ Then, follow the on-screen instructions to set up your account. You’ll be prompted to enter relevant information about your website, such as its URL and name.

After setting up your account, Google Analytics will give you a unique tracking code that you’ll later install on your website.

Step 3: Install Google Analytics Code

Once you have your Google Analytics account set up, it’s time to install the tracking code on your website. Here are various methods of adding Google analytics code to a WordPress site:

Method 1: Using A Plugin

There are several plugins in the WordPress repository that help you add the tracking code to your site with ease. One popular plugin for installing Google Analytics is MonsterInsights. It offers convenient access to different Google Analytics reports and features.

To install it, log in to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to plugins, and click on ‘Add New.’ Type in ‘MonsterInsights’ on the search bar, and click on ‘Install Now’ on the result that shows up. After installation, activate the plugin.

To set it up, navigate to Insights > Settings > ‘Tracking.’ You’ll be required to connect your Google Analytics account by authorizing the plugin to access it. Follow the instructions to connect the plugin to your account. Once authorized, select your tracking code and choose the type of settings you want to apply. Finally, save your changes, and you’re good to go.

Method 2: Add Code Manually to the WordPress Theme

The second method of adding tracking code to a WordPress site is by adding it manually to the WordPress theme. This method is a bit technical, and it requires FTP access to your site, but it’s straightforward to complete.

To add the tracking code to your theme manually, navigate to the HTML head section of your theme by visiting Appearance > Editor > Header.php. Locate the tag, paste your Google Analytics tracking code before it, and then click on ‘Update File.’

Once you’ve completed this final step, you should notice that Google Analytics starts tracking your website’s traffic in real-time. It’s a good idea to give it some time before checking your reporting since it takes some time to collect data from your site fully.

Conclusion

Adding analytics to your WordPress site doesn’t have to be challenging. This guide has provided you with two simple ways to add Google Analytics tracking code to your WordPress site. As you can see, the process is user-friendly and requires no coding skills. Properly setting up analytics on your website will keep you informed about your website’s performance and help you make strategic decisions to improve and attract more traffic.