{"id":2438,"date":"2016-02-03T14:30:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T14:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/02\/03\/an-absolute-beginners-guide-to-setting-up-google-analytics-for-your-website\/"},"modified":"2020-02-26T05:51:07","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T05:51:07","slug":"an-absolute-beginners-guide-to-setting-up-google-analytics-for-your-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/02\/03\/an-absolute-beginners-guide-to-setting-up-google-analytics-for-your-website\/","title":{"rendered":"An absolute beginner\u2019s guide to setting up Google Analytics for your website"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published on our sister site ClickZ<\/a>, but it\u2019s so helpful we thought we\u2019d share it here too.<\/em><\/p>\n

Our\u00a0beginner\u2019s guide to Google Analytics teaches you\u00a0how to set up an account that is linked to your site and recommends a few basic metrics to look at.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Google Analytics<\/a> is a free service that tracks and reports\u00a0website traffic<\/a>. Providing insight into the\u00a0demographics of site visitors, the performance of a specific campaign, and how long people are staying on your site for, are just a few of the many things the program is capable of.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This data gives you an\u00a0all round better\u00a0view of how your site is doing and allows you to understand what improvements\u00a0can be made to make sure you’re optimizing different areas for maximum conversion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the below tutorial, we will walk you through some basics of Google Analytics<\/a> and what you need to do in order to get started.<\/p>\n

Set up an account<\/h3>\n

If you have a major Google<\/a> account such as Gmail<\/a> or YouTube<\/a>, you are eligible to create a Google Analytics<\/a> account by following the below instructions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"new<\/a><\/p>\n

This account should be only accessed by YOU. Of course, you can authorize other people to act on your behalf if necessary. However, you will not want them to take full control over your data. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, ClickZ<\/em> has granted me access to the company account, but I cannot change account and property settings. This is done to protect the publication and ensure that if I leave, other admins will still have access to the overall account.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"clickz<\/a><\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

In comparison, I can do whatever I want with my personal Google Analytics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Add tracking code to your website<\/h3>\n

Google Analytics<\/a> cannot work until it is linked to your webpages. When you finish setting up a new account, Google<\/a> will ask you to \u201cGet Tracking ID.\u201d Click on the button and you will see your code.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"tracking<\/a><\/p>\n

You can always go back to your tracking information under \u201cProperty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n

This code needs to be added to every page. How to install it depends on your content type. For instance, some Tumblr templates only require the Universal Analytics<\/a> (UA) code, as show below.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"tumblr<\/a><\/p>\n

While some blog platforms like WordPress may ask for full script, if you build a website with HTML files, you can edit HTML and paste the code before “<\/head>”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today many websites like ClickZ<\/em> are using Google Tag Manager<\/a> to implement tracking code.<\/span><\/p>\n

Manage your site search<\/h3>\n

Once you connect Google Analytics<\/a> with your website, you can set up site search to know what visitors are looking for on your website. <\/span><\/p>\n

In \u201cView Settings,\u201d turn on site search tracking and enter your website name and URL. The query parameter is usually \u201cs\u201d or \u201cq.\u201d You can determine yours by searching on your own site.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ClickZ<\/a><\/p>\n

For example, if you enter \u201cmobile\u201d into ClickZ<\/em>\u2019s search bar, you will see s= (ClickZ<\/em>\u2019s query parameters) followed by your query.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Site<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also contact your company\u2019s web development<\/a> department to identify the query parameter for your site.<\/span><\/p>\n

After you save all the settings, Google<\/a> Analytics will be able to track any searches made on your website.<\/span><\/p>\n

Goal set up<\/h3>\n

Aside from site search, you should also set up a goal so Google Analytics<\/a> can track important activities on your site. For example, an e-commerce platform may trigger\u00a0a confirmation page for every placed order, or a digital publisher may create a \u201cThank You\u201d page when a reader subscribes to its newsletter. <\/span><\/p>\n

To set up a goal, go to \u201cGoals,\u201d create \u201cNew Goal,\u201d and choose \u201cCustom\u201d under \u201cGoal setup.\u201d Then go to \u201cNext Step\u201d where you can name your goal (\u201cSubscribe Success\u201d for example) and select \u201cDestination\u201d if an activity ends on a \u201cThank You.\u201d If your conversion goal is one step further and you’d like your visitors to watch a video clip after they have reached the Thank You page, then you can add \u201cEvent\u201d tracking to your goal set up in order to measure this.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"goal<\/a><\/p>\n

Each goal type has its own requirements and can be customized to what your own KPIs are. In the example of \u201cSubscribe Success\u201d below,\u00a0I decided to forego “Destination” and\u00a0go straight to\u00a0\u201cEvent” in order to measure conversions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"goal<\/a><\/p>\n

Google Analytics will start measuring conversation when a described activity is triggered. You can create up to 20 goals on your website.<\/span><\/p>\n

Basic Google Analytics metrics<\/h3>\n

You can customize many Google Analytics reports based on your needs. But in \u201cAudience Overall,\u201d you can find some basic yet useful stats around your website.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take our sister publication <\/span>Search Engine Watch (SEW)<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>for instance – you can view positive changes in pageviews and sessions from last September to date. Hovering over the line will show you the number of pageviews and sessions for a particular day. (We’ve erased some of the data below as we don’t want to give away all our secrets!)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"search<\/a><\/p>\n

Under the graph, Google Analytics tells you more about the number of users<\/a>, bounce rate<\/a>, average session duration, as well as the ratio of new visitors to returning visitors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"SEW<\/a><\/p>\n

Beneath those main metrics, Google Analytics also shows demographics of <\/span>SEW<\/span><\/i>\u2019s readers, including their countries, languages, and devices where they consume content. <\/span><\/p>\n

Other more in-depth metrics include audience report, acquisition report, behavior report, and conversions report. For example, once you have linked social media and Google Analytics<\/a>, you will be able to track a particular social media campaign and get related stats under \u201cAcquisition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Acquisitin\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We hope you’ve enjoyed our first installment of Google Analytics for beginners. Stay tuned for the next in the series soon!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published on our sister site ClickZ, but it\u2019s so helpful we thought we\u2019d share it here too. Our\u00a0beginner\u2019s guide to Google Analytics teaches you\u00a0how to set up an account that is linked to your site and recommends a few basic metrics to look at. Google Analytics is a free service that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":223,"featured_media":2439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"content_type":[27095],"class_list":["post-2438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics","content_type-news"],"acf":{"tad_independentcommercial":false,"tad_content_format":false},"post_info":{"name":"Yuyu Chen","title":"","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ga-hp-120x90.png","category":"Analytics","timeago":"10y"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=2438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}