How to add Google Analytics stats and reports free for your WordPress website

This is mostly for less experienced WordPress folk. For WordPress site owners that are a bit new.

By installing the following WordPress plugin, it will send tracking information about your web site visitors to google analytics.

Then google analytics can give you back some nice graphs about your visitors. You can view these graphs on either the google analystics website, or simplified graphs within your admin area of your WordPress website.

You’ll be able to understand things like how many people are looking at your site, what they are searching for, how they are finding your site, how many are coming from social media.

What you’ll need:

• a Google Analytics account , sign up here for free (https://www.google.com.au/analytics/standard/)
• access to your WordPress admin area http://yourwebsite.com.au/wp-admin/ , and its username and password.
• a coffee,  some patience – it’s a bit fiddly, but I’ve put some hand holding and pictures below, and they have a cute friendly monster icon to keep you entertained.

Steps:

• login to your WordPress admin area /wp-admin/
• click on plugins -> Add New
• there is a search box in the upper right – it says ‘search plugins’, use that to search for ‘Google Analytics by MonsterInsights’

• it has a cute little monster icon, click the ‘install now’ button on the right hand side.

• once it installs, you’ll have a screen like this, click the ‘activate now’ option

• next, look for the menu on the left that says ‘Insights’ , it’s down the bottom – you might have to scroll

• next, we click ‘re-authenticate’

• next, we click it again … silly software

• You should get a pop-up screen, if it doesn’t work, either look to enable popups for this page
• Click ‘allow’ – so the plugin can get permission to use Google Analytics.
• Then you are prompted to copy a text key (left click in the text box, right click, select copy)
• Then you need to close the popup box, click the red X on the top right corner
• now there is a box to paste your code into, left click in the box, right click, then select paste
• then click ‘save authentication code’
• If you have a lot of google analytics accounts, you might have to pick from the drop down.
• make sure you click ‘save’ on the settings page to save all your work.

You are done, congrats.

By Scott Farrell on August 31st, 2016 , Follow @scott_WordPress Tweet to @scott_WordPress