WordPress SEO Google Analytics
Do you want to install Google Analytics in WordPress? Knowing how your audience interacts with your website is crucial for your success.
The best way to know your audience is through your traffic stats, and this is what Google Analytics provides for FREE.
In this article, we will share why WordPress Google Analytics plugin is important, and how you can easily install Google Analytics in your WordPress website (step by step).
Site Kit by Google – Analytics, Search Console, AdSense, Speed
Site Kit is the official WordPress plugin from Google for insights about how people find and use your site. Site Kit is the one-stop solution to deploy, manage, and get insights from critical Google tools to make the site successful on the web. It provides authoritative, up-to-date insights from multiple Google products directly on the WordPress dashboard for easy access, all for free.
BRINGING THE BEST OF GOOGLE TOOLS TO WORDPRESS
Site Kit includes powerful features that make using these Google products seamless and flexible:
- Easy-to-understand stats directly on your WordPress dashboard
- Official stats from multiple Google tools, all in one dashboard
- Quick setup for multiple Google tools without having to edit the source code of your site
- Metrics for your entire site and for individual posts
- Easy-to-manage, granular permissions across WordPress and different Google products
SUPPORTED GOOGLE TOOLS
Site Kit shows key metrics and insights from different Google products:
- Search Console: Understand how Google Search discovers and displays your pages in Google Search. Track how many people saw your site in Search results, and what query they used to search for your site.
- Analytics: Explore how users navigate your site and track goals you’ve set up for your users to complete.
- AdSense: Keep track of how much your site is earning you.
- PageSpeed Insights: See how your pages perform compared to other real-world sites. Improve performance with actionable tips from PageSpeed Insights.
- Tag Manager: Use Site Kit to easily set up Tag Manager- no code editing required. Then, manage your tags in Tag Manager.
- Optimize: Use Site Kit to easily set up Optimize- no code editing required. Then, set up A/B tests in Optimize.
Is Site Kit free?
The Site Kit plugin is free and open source, and will remain so. Individual Google products included in Site Kit are subject to standard terms and fees (if any) for those products.
What are the minimum requirements for Site Kit?
In order to successfully install and use Site Kit, your site must meet the following requirements:
- WordPress version 4.7+
- PHP version 5.6+
- Modern browser – Internet Explorer is not supported
- Is publicly accessible – it isn’t in maintenance mode, accessible only via password, or otherwise blocked
- REST API is available – Site Kit must be able to communicate via REST API with Google services. To ensure that the REST API is available for your site, go to Tools > Site Health.
Why is my dashboard showing “gathering data” and none of my service data?
It can take a few days after connecting Site Kit to a Google service for data to begin to display in your dashboard. The “gathering data” message typically appears when you’ve recently set up a Google service (i.e. just created a new Analytics account) and/or your site is new, and data is not yet available for display.
If you are still seeing this message after a few days, feel free to get in touch with us on the support forum.
Before adding Google Analytics to WordPress.
Is Site Kit GDPR compliant?
When using Site Kit, site owners are responsible for managing notice and consent requirements – including GDPR requirements – as described in Google’s Terms of Service.
By default, Site Kit does anonymize IP addresses upon activation of the Google Analytics module. In addition, Site Kit provides a mechanism in the form of a simple API for cookie consent plugins to integrate with Site Kit and prevent Site Kit’s Google service snippets from being rendered on a page if the user has not granted consent. More information about how this API works is available in this GitHub issue.
Where can I get additional support?
Please create a new topic on our WordPress.org support forum. Be sure to follow the support forum guidelines when posting.
How to Install Google Analytics in WordPress for Beginners
Note: Make sure that your website is live. If your website isn’t live yet, Site Kit can’t show you any data.
However, if you have a staging environment in addition to your production site, Site Kit can display data from your production site in the staging environment. Learn how to use Site Kit with a staging environment.
INSTALLATION FROM WITHIN WORDPRESS
- Visit Plugins > Add New.
- Search for Site Kit by Google.
- Install and activate the Site Kit by Google plugin.
- Connect Site Kit to your Google account. If there are multiple WordPress admins, keep in mind that each admin must connect their own Google account in order to access the plugin.
MANUAL INSTALLATION
- Upload the entire
google-site-kitfolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory. - Visit Plugins.
- Activate the Site Kit by Google plugin.
- Connect Site Kit to your Google account. If there are multiple WordPress admins, keep in mind that each admin must connect their own Google account in order to access the plugin.
AFTER ACTIVATION
- Visit the new Site Kit menu.
- Follow the instructions in the setup flow.
- Go to the main Site Kit dashboard which already displays key metrics from Search Console.
- Connect additional Google tools under Site Kit > Settings. Learn more about which tools are right for you.
Benefits of Google Analytics in your WordPress Dashboard?
- Easy-to-understand stats directly on your WordPress dashboard
- Official insights from multiple Google tools
- Quick setup for multiple Google tools without having to edit the source code of your site
- You’ll get aggregated insights from Google products, distilled in a dashboard that your clients or other teams can easily access. No need to copy data from multiple products to compile reports for clients.
- The site performance stats and improvement recommendations come directly from Google — your customers will be getting the latest best practices recommended by Google products.
- Site Kit provides roles and permissions to help you manage access to the site’s data and make sure only the relevant people can see stats.
- Easy connection to official Google tools. Your customers don’t have to edit the source code to set up Google tools.
- Added value for your platform. Your customers get important information about how their site is performing right in your own dashboard.
- Flexible UI. You can pull stats from the plugin dashboard and display stats natively in your platform’s UI.
Site Kit displays metrics from multiple Google services to help you understand how your site is doing. Here’s an overview of the different reports in Site Kit and what each report means.
- All traffic
- Search funnel
- Popularity
- Speed
- AdSense
WordPress Google Analytics
Visibility: To view this report, connect Google Analytics through Site Kit.
This report helps you understand how people found your site, based on data from Analytics.
This report covers the following metrics:
How people discovered your site. Here are some of the most common channels:
Referral: people who found your site from a link on another website. This means other sites are linking to your site, and it’s a good idea to check who is linking to your site in Google Search Console.
Organic: People who found your site from a search engine.
Direct: People who typed your site directly into their browser, or who bookmarked your site. These are your most loyal readers.
None: Analytics doesn’t know where the traffic is coming from.
Top countries from where users discovered your site.
If there are more than 5 countries, they will be grouped in “Others” slice — you can see the full list by following the link to the detailed Google Analytics report.
Devices people were using when they visited your site: desktop, mobile, or tablet.
We recommend that you periodically review this section and check for any significant changes in how people are finding your site.
Here are some other metrics you can explore:
- Check the bounce rate per traffic source. This provides you with an overview of the users who have left your website after a single visit.
- Check the time that people spend on your site per traffic source. For example, you can compare traffic coming from social channels versus search engines, and see if there are differences in how long people from each source spend on your site.
This report shows you how many people saw and clicked your site in Google Search. Data comes from Search Console and Analytics.
This report covers the following metrics:
How many people saw your site in Google Search results.
People who clicked a link to your site in Google Search results.
People who found your site on Google Search during a session on your site. If a user visited your site more than once in a single session, it counts as the same user, which makes this data unique.
Visibility: To view this metric, connect Analytics through Site Kit.
The number of goals that people completed on your site in a defined timeframe, as previously defined by you (for example, you can set up a goal in Analytics to track the number of people who clicked an “add to cart” button on your site).
Visibility: To view this metric, connect Analytics through Site Kit and set up a goal in Analytics.
For advanced users: Learn more about how to set up a goal in Analytics.
Periodically review and check for any unusual spikes or dips in clicks or impressions. A weekly rhythm of weekend dips, or dips or spikes over holidays, is normal.
This report helps you understand what people search for when they find your most popular pages based on data from Search Console and Analytics.
This report covers the following metrics:
What people searched for when they saw your site in Google Search results. The search queries are ranked by impressions.
Your pages with the most views, including the top search query associated with the page.
Visibility: To view this metric, connect Analytics through Site Kit.
Do the queries that showed your site match what you expected? Are the most popular pages the ones you expected? Do the search queries match what you’d expect people to search for when looking for your content? Consider using the search queries for inspiration for future content.
Visibility: To view this report, connect PageSpeed Insights through Site Kit.
If you have a developer or agency working on your site, you can share this report with them to help understand and plan the next steps to improve your speed score.
This report tells you how fast your homepage is, based on data from PageSpeed Insights. Check for any critical issues affecting the speed of your homepage. If found, open the report to troubleshoot.
The score can range from slow, average, and fast. We recommend focusing on improving the slow issues (score 0 to 49).