How do you set up basic Google Analytics for your website?

Mark Aen
11 Jan 2024
-
5 min read

How do you set up basic Google Analytics for your website?

Google Analytics is an invaluable tool that helps you gain insights into how users interact with your website. It allows you to make data-driven decisions to improve your website and your business. Here's a simple guide to setting up Google Analytics on your website.

1. Create a Google Analytics account

Get started

If you don't already have a Google account, create one. Then go to Google Analytics and follow these steps:

  1. Sign in with your Google account.
  2. Click "Start for free".
  3. Enter your account name, property name and time zone.
  4. Select data sharing settings (optional).

2. Configure the property

What is a property?

A property is the website or application you want to track. Follow these steps to set up the property:

  1. Select "Web" as the data stream type.
  2. Enter the URL of your website.
  3. Click on "Create".

Google Analytics will generate a tracking code to embed on your website.

3. Install the tracking code

How do you integrate the code?

To start tracking data, you need to add the tracking code to your website's HTML. Here's how:

  • If you use a CMS platform like WordPress, you can use a plugin like Site Kit by Google.
  • If you have access to your website code, paste the code into <head>-sections.
  • Test the installation with the Google Tag Assistant tool.

4. Confirm data collection

Follow along in real-time

After installation, you can ensure that data is collected correctly:

  • Go to "Realtime" in the Google Analytics dashboard.
  • Visit your website from another device.
  • Confirm that your activity is detected.

5. Create basic reports

Start with the basics

Google Analytics offers a range of pre-set reports to help you get an overview of traffic and user behavior:

  • Audience: Gain insights into demographics, geography and devices.
  • Behavior: See which pages are visited the most.
  • Acquisition: Find out where your traffic comes from (organic, social, direct).

Conclusion

Setting up basic Google Analytics is a simple process that gives you valuable data to optimize your website. By getting an overview of your traffic and user behavior, you can start making better decisions.

Remember that advanced tracking methods can take your analytics to the next level - and you can learn more about that in our course.

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