How To Set Up Google Analytics

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a powerful data analysis tool. It collects anonymous information about how your website visitors, found you, interacted and used your website – Google can’t tell you who visited your website for data privacy but it can tell you lots of insightful information that enables you to make calculated business decisions when making changes to your website.

Some of the information Google Analytics provides are:

• The device your visitors use
• Number of website visitors
• What pages your users visit
• Where your visitors came from
• Multiple demographic segments of your visitors (Gender, location, age etc)
• Conversion statistics (Especially useful if your website sells products/services)

Sound good so far? The best part of Google Analytics is it’s free! This makes Google Analytics accessible for everyone and our Lincolnshire digital marketing specialists are here to explain how you can add it to your website.

The 3 easy steps to set up Google Analytics

1) Create your Google Analytics Account

Creating a Google Analytics account is very easy, all you need is a Gmail account. If you already have one, click here to set up your Google Analytics account.

If you need a Gmail account, create one here first.

Once you have signed in to your Gmail account through Google Analytics, you need to set up your analytics account.

The first thing you need to do is name your account. We recommend your company or website name.

Next, you need to add your first property to your account.

You can have 4 properties within a single Google Analytics account and these are used to manage multiple websites under one account. You can add more properties once set up so for now, let's focus on setting up one.

Again, we recommend calling your property your website name. Enter your location, time settings and currency and click next.

The last step is a couple of questions about your business. Select your industry type, size of business and if you wish, your intentions on using Google Analytics.

You’re all set! Your Google Analytics account is all set up.

Now let’s focus on setting up your first data stream so you can start gathering those all-important insights.

2) Set up your data stream

We now need to set up a data stream. This is a piece of Java Script that you will place on each page of your website so Google Analytics can collect information.

Click the settings cog in the bottom left hand corner and then select ‘Data Streams'

Google Analytics can be set up with 3 different types of Data Streams depending on the type of platform you want to track visitors on. For this how to, we are focusing on websites.

To get started, click ‘Web’.

Next, simply enter your website domain and your website name and click ‘Create stream’.

Now your data stream is collected, you can now access the Java Script tag needed to collect data. Click on ‘Global Site Tag’ and copy the small snippet.

Tip: Paste the tag somewhere safe as you will need it later. Don’t worry if you lose it! You can always copy the tag again by going back into the data stream.

3) Add the tracking code to your website

The final step! Adding the code to your website.

For most, hearing the word ‘code’ is daunting however, there are multiple simple ways to do this so no need to panic! If your website is managed by an agency or partner, simply send them the snippet you copied in step 2 and they will know what to do. If you manage your website using a platform such as Wix, Shopify or WordPress, most of these have a section you paste the code into and they handle the rest. If you develop and manage your own website, you will be pleased to know its still very simple to implement. Here are some pointers to help you implement the tracking code on to your website:

• Code the website yourself? Add the tag into the as the first time on every web page
• If your website on a platform? Here are some helpful links to direct you to the section in your platform where you paste the tracking code
• Wix - Adding Your Google Analytics Tracking ID to Your Wix Site | Help Center | Wix.com
• Word Press - How to Add Google Analytics to WordPress (Easy Tutorial) (websitesetup.org)
• Shopify - Setting up Google Analytics · Shopify Help Center
• Square Space - Using Google Analytics with Squarespace – Squarespace Help

Successfully added your tag? You’re all done!!

With the power of Google Analytics, you are now collecting powerful data and insights on your website visitors which you can use to help you make decisions when making changes to your website.

Not sure where to go from here?

At our Lincolnshire website agency, our eCommerce specialists can help you with a whole variety of services, including website development, website design, graphic design, digital marketing and more. We also offer several eCommerce products, including exit-intent technology, order management systems and a secure website hosting platform.

Our eCommerce experts can help your business with Google Analytics so that you can track traffic, sales, audience reports and a whole range of information. All of our digital marketing clients are set up on Google Analytics and we provide weekly or monthly analytics reports for each of these clients. If you're interested in what we can do for you, or if you would like to attend one of our remote training sessions for Google Analytics, please call us on 01522 706085, email info@iocea.com or click here to send an enquiry.