How To Set Up Google Analytics On Your Website

Harness the power of Google Analytics without spending a dime. Once installed, Google Analytics enables you to monitor and assess your company’s traffic targets. It provide a clear demonstration of the return on investment for your social media and website presence.

Setting up Google Analytics can be a bit daunting. Thankfully, we provide a step-by-step tutorial that simplifies the process for digital marketers of all experience levels.

Why your website needs Google Analytics?

Just a handful of the information available through Google Analytics are as follows:

The websites that sent you traffic
Total traffic that your website receives
Visitor demographics, such as where they reside
Quantity of leads that were converted
Traffic on a single page
Whether desktop or mobile traffic is generating for you
The websites from which your leads were obtained

How to set up Google Analytics

Step 1: Install Google Tag Manager

Google offers a free tag management tool called Google Tag Manager.

It’s quite easy to use: Google Tag Manager gathers all of the data from your website and transmits it to other services, like Facebook and Google Analytics.

In addition, it saves you time and a ton of hassles by making it simple to add and edit tags to your Google Analytics code without requiring you to create code by hand on the back end.

Suppose you would like to monitor the number of individuals that clicked on a PDF download link. To accomplish this, you would need to manually edit each download link if you didn’t have access to Google Tag Manager.

To track the downloads, you can, however, simply add a new tag to your Tag Manager if you use Google Tag Manager.

Follow this:

Initially, you will need to register on the Google Tag Manager dashboard.
Click “Continue” after entering the account name.
The next step is to set up a container, which Google describes as a bucket that holds all of the “macros, rules, and tags” for your website.
Choose the sort of content your container will be connected with (Web, iOS, Android, or AMP) and give it a meaningful name.
After it is finished, click “Create,” read the Terms of Service, and select “I agree.” The installation code snippet for the container will then be sent to you.

To manage your tags on your website, you will be pasting this code into the back end. Copy and paste the two code snippets onto each page of your website to accomplish that. You must insert the first one in the header and the second one after the body opening, as instructed.

Pasting the two bits of code into your WordPress theme is an easy way to accomplish this if you use WordPress.

Step 2: Configure Google Analytics

You should register on the GA page to create a Google Analytics account, just like you would with Google Tag Manager. Later, follow this:

Input the website’s name, URL, and account information.
Make sure you choose the time zone in which you want the reports to appear as well as the industry category for your website.
After completing all of that, click Accept Terms and Services to obtain your tracking ID.
A series of digits known as the tracking ID instructs Google Analytics to deliver you analytics information. The number appears to be UA-000000-1.
Your personal account number is the first set of numbers (000000), and the property number linked to your account is the second set of numbers (1).

Because this is specific to your website and your personal information, don’t publicly disclose the tracking ID to anybody.

Step 3: Set up analytics tag with Google Tag manager

You will now be able to configure Google Analytics tracking tags specifically for your website:

Click the Add a new tag button after navigating to your Google Tag Manager dashboard.
A screen where you can create your website tag will be displayed to you.
You can personalize two sections of your tag with it:
Configuration: where the tag’s acquired data will end up.
Triggering: the kind of information you wish to gather.
To select the kind of tag you wish to create, click the Tag Configuration option.
To create a tag for Google Analytics, you need to select the “Universal Analytics” option.
You can select the kind of data you wish to track when you click on that. After doing that, select “New Variable…” from the drop-down option under “Google Analytics Setting.”
After that, a new window will open and allow you to enter your Google Analytics tracking ID. This will transfer the data from your website directly into Google Analytics, where you can view it at a later time.
After doing this, choose the data you wish to send to Google Analytics by going to the “Triggering” section.
To access the “Select a trigger” page, select the Triggering button, just like you would with the “Configuration” section. To send data from every page on your website, choose All pages from this menu.

Now just select Save, and you are done. A new Google Tag is monitoring and delivering information about your website to your Google Analytics page.

Step 4: Establish Google Analytics goals

Google Analytics does not know the important performance metrics for your website or business, but you most likely do.

For this reason, you must define success for your website for Google:

You must first define goals on your Google Analytics dashboard to achieve them.
To begin, select the Admin button located in the lower left corner.
When you do, the “Goals” button will be available to you in a separate window.
When you click that button, the “Goals” dashboard will open, allowing you to set new objectives.

From this point on, you can peruse through various goal templates to determine which one best fits your desired objective. You must also decide on the kind of aim you wish to pursue. Among them are:

Screens/Pages for each session. For example if you wanted users to visit a particular number of pages.
Duration. For example if you wanted visitors to stay on your website for a particular period.
The final destination. For example if you wanted the user to land on a particular webpage.
Event. for example if you wanted viewers to click on a link or play a video.

From there, you may choose even more precise objectives, such as determining the minimum amount of time visitors must spend on your website before you can declare it a success. After you’re done, save the target so that Google Analytics can begin tracking it.

Step 5: Make the Link to Google Search Console

With the aid of Google Search Console, webmasters and marketers may obtain crucial search analytics and data.

You can do the following with it:

Examine the keyword searches for which you appear in search engine rankings.
Watch as Google evaluates your website.
Check the crawl rate of your website.
Find out which pages on your website are linked to from within and outside.

How to do it:

Click the gear icon in the main dashboard’s lower left corner to configure it. Next, select Property Settings from the column in the middle. Click on Adjust search console after swiping down.
You may begin the process of adding your website to Google Search Console right here.
After selecting the Add button, this page will be displayed to you. Click the “Add a site to Search Console” button at the bottom.
You can add a new website to Google Search Console from this point on. After naming your website, click Add.
Follow the instructions to add the HTML code to your website. After completing that, select “Save,” and Google Analytics should reappear.

To view your Google Search Console data, make sure to return later since your data may not appear immediately.

Navigating Digital Success with Google Analytics

For digital marketers, Google Analytics is a must-have tool. It enables you to monitor the effectiveness of all your digital marketing initiatives as well as your website’s performance.

Additionally, it aids in calculating ROI and enhancing audience comprehension. Without it, navigating the digital landscape would be like sailing on an ocean without a chart or compass.

Fill out the form below or contact us directly at dan@dangilmour.ca or call (778) 312-3188 to get started.