This article will show you how to add Google Analytics to WordPress. One of the things you want to have is a good stats program that tracks everything. There are some really good and expensive ones and of course if you signed up with Host Gator, then you will have some pretty good free tools to view your stats and if you never plan to use Adsense, then of course the free stat reports by Host Gator are more than enough. Now if you signed up with some other hosting provider you might not be given any stat software and Google Analytics would be essential.
So, you have decided you need Analytics and you have WordPress. This is where platforms like WordPress really shine. If I built a standard web page I would have to put the code on every page to insure it was read properly, however with WordPress, it is as simple as choosing the right plugin. However let’s back up and start from the beginning.
You signed up for Google Analytics and the first thing you need to do is make a Website Profile. So you go to your Analytics Settings and select Add Website Profile
Next type in your URL where is says Please provide the URL of the site you would like to track and then select your time zone and click Finish
Now the next page will have your Tracking Status Information and your code. The only thing you will need is your Web Property ID a number that looks like UA-XXXXXXX-X something like that. Now you can leave this open and open a new window.
Next log into your WordPress admin from a new window and select Plugins, then Add New.
Now you can search for Google Analytics plugins, but I actually had to try a couple of them before one actually worked. I used Google Analyticator and the rest of this tutorial will assume you chose this one too.
Okay, so you activated the plugin Google Analyticator, next while still in WordPress, select Settings and then click on Google Analytics.
The main things on this page is of course Enable Google Analytics logging. At this point you can try authenticate with google, however, I directly entered the Web Property ID as you should still have that other window up, so just copy and paste that ID here.
The rest you can almost do nothing, except when you get down to Google Analytics Profile ID: here it is asking for the Profile Name. The interesting thing with this is, if you enter your profile ID, then the plugin will still work at the Google Analytics page, but not in your dashboard on your wp-admin page. I left this blank. That is also the fix if you added this plugin and notice it works for Analytics, but your dashboard shows 0.
Now you can click Save Changes at the bottom of the Plugin page.
Next go back to the other window, the actual Google Analytic’s window and refresh. It should no longer say Tracking Not Installed but Waiting for Data. The has taken as long as 15 minutes to show up.
At this point you have added Google Analytics to your site and I will also add, it could take up to 24hrs for you to actually start seeing traffic results, but less than an hour for you to have a green check mark which means you are no longer waiting for data, but actually receiving data.
I hoped this helped.
Have a wonderful day,
JD
