You might know what Google Analytics is, may you have never had it on your websites, or even you might be having it though you never check your data, so here will be guiding you on how to use it. It is not easy for many websites that do not use Google Analytics to measure their traffic.
“Google analytics is popular digital analysis software and is described as a free web analytics in Google that helps you as the owner to monitor the visitors to your website.” Mostly provides your business with valuable insights that assist in setting strategy for the success of your business. This is because they can track, measure, and analyze the website’s traffic, content interactions, and conversions.
You have to monitor critical metrics like visitors. These conversion keywords are using in finding your website since it’s vital to continuously comprehend your website’s performance and address that needs some attention. Here will be we will be looking for Google Analytics absolute beginner’s Guide.
Benefits that are brought about by Google analytics are;
- Data visualization
- You do not have to purchase; it is free, subscribing, and providing credit card information.
- Reporting is easy since you can collect present and compare the combination of data sets.
- You can create reports, check performance and compare metrics at all times.
It helps your business in the following ways;
- Helps in determining what makes works best for your targeted audience and the industry through data as it eliminates time-consuming.
- Helps to know which channels are leading the audiences to your websites like emails and social media.
- Assists you with how you can determine the pages visited frequently and pages that foster more conversions.
- Google Analytics helps you determine the page load times, identify the operating system, monitor resolution, browsers, and user’s internet services.
- It helps identify more insight into the audiences who visit your site, create more interests, and tell you how the visitors do.
Setting Up Google Analytics
By not having an account for google analytics, we will explain coming up with an account as it should not worry you. For all those who already own a Google account that you have been using, you can set up Google Analytics.
Finding that you lack a Google account, then come with one and the Open Google Analytics and log in.
After you log in to your google account, click the option Access Google Analytics.
Then you will register by clicking the sign-up option.
- Complete the information needed to consider crosschecking your application for verifying the marketing products and content.
- Access all the unique insights learning capabilities to come up with most of your data.
- Ensure your insights to results since analytics works with Google’s an advertising and publisher products.
After that, check on how you can share your data under the Data Sharing option. You get options like
- Google products & services; this applies to authenticated visitations data associated with the Google user accounts. It is supposed to enhance interest reporting and demographics. If disabled, data will still move to other different products of Google explicitly linked to your Property.
- Technical Support; you have to allow them to access your analytics data and accounts when providing services and solving the technical issues that may arise to your account.
- Benchmarking; helps you understand the trends of data. All the identifiable data on your web is removed and accumulated to other anonymous data before sharing it with others.
- Account specialists; you have to give access to your Google Analytics data and account so they can find and improve your configuration and analysis and share optimization tips with you.
When you choose the options you need, the next step will need getting the tracking ID; you will click Get Tracking ID. A pop up of Google Analytics Terms and conditions that you ought to accept check an option indicated I Accept. Here you will have accepted all the terms that are provided by Google analytics. Then you will get your Analytics code for your data. For example, UA-65659813-2 indicates, “this is universal analytics tracking ID code for this property. Getting all benefits of universal Google analytics for this property, you have to copy and paste the code in all the webpages that you would like to track.”
Ensure installation of the Code to all the websites, and this depends on the type of site you might be having. An example is that if you have WordPress on your domain, you will have to use Google Analytics by Yoast plugin f0or you to ensure the Code is installed easily despite the theme you are using.
Link Your Website To The Google Analytics
So being a beginner, the Code assists you in linking your websites to Analytics. Without much ado will show how you can link different standard website platforms with Google Analytics.
1. WordPress
Mostly used here is MonsterInsights, which is the most used Analytics for WordPress since it has been used by most common websites like PlayStation, Bloomberg, Zillow, and others. This is preferred as an easier way of adding Google Analytics to WordPress. First, you need to install the MonsterInsights, click on the setup wizard, and then be asked the category of websites you need the chosen amongst and then press on the “Save and Continue button” button. After that, click the option “Connect MonsterInsights.” Then a popup takes you to Google accounts, where you will have logged in and click the “Allow” key to move on. The last stage is selecting the side view track you need and then click the websites here and complete the connection by clicking the “Complete connection” button.
The MonsterInsights will have installed Google analytics to your webpage, and then you will be asked to select the setting. If using an affiliated connection plugin, then include a path you use to mantle associate links, allowing you to track your associate connections in Analytics. Press the “save and continue” option; you will then be asked to install the WPForms and install it. Then after that, you will have successfully set you to google analytics. Then finish the setup and exit wizard.
2. BigCommerce
You will need to log in to Google Analytics, then click on Admin, and then direct it to the view you need. Checking on the VIEW column, choose the e-commerce setting and then set enable the E-commerce ON then finally save. Ecommerce has the following benefits; it gives more insights into sales. It allows you to show how much sales generated by that promo email and help you answer which AdWords’ campaigns convey the valuable customers.
3. WIX
To use google analytics with WIX, you have to have your domain connected with the WIX document. You are supposed to select the premium option and choose a package that includes collecting your domain name. The steps to master are;
- Visit marketing integrations
- Go to Google Analytics and connect.
- Check on the right top and connect Google analytics.
- Paste the ID from Google Analytics and observe to ensure no space is added or left.
- On the check box, select the IP Anonymization; this ensures your Google does not save the sites for your visitors’ IP addresses.
NOTE:
- if you find that many domains are connected to your site, add Google Analytics code to your primary domain instead of using the secondary domain.
- You have to know that it takes about a week to view statistics in your Google Analytics account.
It is essential to know that you are engaging with the third-party service provider’s privacy policy and the terms and conditions by using this service. So, you ought to know that you will be liable for any damage or loss occurring from your reliance on your third party’s service, as personal data exchanges among the third party and you. Thus, when using WIX, ensure you are more careful to avoid damages or those losses that may be arising.
4. Shopify
For you to set up Google Analytics on your Shopify, you have to follow the following steps;
You have to consider having disabled all your Google Analytics to avoid getting inaccurate data.
- Get a Google Account though; if you are not sure whether you had enabled your Google analytics, do the following;
- From the Shopify admin chose online store (preferences)
- Check the section for Google analytics and ensure the box has only the text “ Paste text from your Google here” if otherwise, it should be empty. Then continue, and if you see the Code with prefix UA know that your Google Analytics is enabled and can skip stepping 4
- Here you will turn your eCommerce tracking on. Then click the Themes> Actions>Edit code. After that, check the Layout part and choose a {?}theme. Liquid.
Log in to your Google account if you have it, and if you don’t have it consider creating a Google Account. Then you need to create a Google Analytics account.
Enable Google Analytics; this is done by creating universal Analytics property in Google and adding it to your Shopify store.
Turn on the eCommerce tracking; you can implement the google eCommerce tracking at two degrees;
- We have the basic eCommerce tracking in case you are just in need of revenue data and transactions.
- Enhanced eCommerce tracking in case you require additional information about your visitors’ data.
Turning on the eCommerce tracking follows the same procedures as we had discussed in our proceeding discussions.
5. Square Spare
You can use the square space directly, copy the Google tracking code, and Google Tag Manager.
When linking this site to google analytics to your square space websites, the go-ahead to search for a marketing platform and click start for free. And then log in to your google account. What I can guide is using the Gmail account that is linked with the email that you need to track.
Click on start measuring, and after that, it will ask for an account name and follow the procedure.
After you get the tracking ID for your web, copy and move to your square space to paste it, go to the setting button, and down on set, you will click the advanced option.
Click on the external IP keys and then paste the tracking ID on the spaces available, and you will be able to have linked the account.
You can also go to Google Tag Manager and then create an account with it. After you have an account, go and copy the code, after which the Code you will go to paste it on the google Square Space, and once you are done with that, you click on the save button and back to Google Manager to configure our Google analytics Tag.
After you have Google Analytics Account, you will take off taking various reports to understand which areas of your website need improvement. Some of the reports are devastating, and below will be showing how to use Google Analytics now which you have set;
How Google Analytics Collects Data
“This platform collects data and complies it to useful report using the small scripts of JavaScript tracking code in collecting the data relating to your visitors and how they interact on your site.”
From the discussions we had above, you can monitor the number of visitors to your websites. in the case of a merchandise store, you will determine how many visitors bought an item by confirming whether they made it to the purchase confirmation page.
The tracking code will also collect your browsers’ language, like the language the browser is set to, the type of the browser like Chrome and the devices, and the operating system.
It is also used in collecting the traffic sources as this is what brings users to your pages in the first case. Your search engine or an advertisement they had checked when marketing or the Email marketing campaigns could be due to your search engine.
When the loaded pages collect a tracking code, you have to understand that it is also sending information to the owners and the user’s activity. All this google collects together and calls as a “session.” The session starts when the visitor navigates in the tracking code of the page and ends after a period of 30minutes that he has been inactive. If he/she gets back to the page, the pages take off again. All that data collected by the tracking code is sent to Google Analytics to be compiled into reports. Google analytics organizes the data based on particular criteria and, therefore, stores it into a database that cannot be changed.
Structure Of The Analytics Account
All the google analytics accounts can be grouped into one Organization, but this is not a must. The small-medium businesses use one account, unlike the larger businesses with different accounts for the Organization. Create Property on the account and create a View though it is said that one Property may contain different views. Doing this helps you organize your business better that can show out how your business is.
Google Analytics shows and tells how the data is collected from your websites and how it is accessible and who can access the data. You can find that each Property can have a different tracking ID that appears on your websites. You may have different properties for different products from separate regions. This makes you treat the sales separately, and you will not be able to access the data from a different region other than the one in that Property. We have new views that include past data, and if a view is deleted, only the admins can recover views in a limited time, and then it disappears.
You can also share them and permit other users in the accounts, Property, or the view level. If you have been permitted to access the account, you have the same roles to the properties and views underneath that account. But if you have been given only permitted to access the views, you cannot change or alter any data in both the permission and the account. Despite you having permitted users to access the account, you have to restrict them from adding other users, deleting information, and removing other users. How you configure your organizations, accounts, properties, data views can affect how your data can be collected.
It would be best if you thought when you make implementations, so you have to ensure the properties and views align with the business structure.
Navigating Full Audience Report
When you open your full report, you will see the links underneath segment picker control different data types in the report. Simultaneously, the summary view is the dimension categorized by acquisition, behavior, and conversion metrics. This one makes it easier to interpret the metrics in the context of marketing funnels. So the Audience report provides information concerning your website visitors that involves an in-depth look for your community’s traffic and user behavior after they arrive.
Shortcuts and Dashboards
You can use Dashboards with the shortcuts quickly to find these metrics without navigating to specific reports. The dashboard can be used for various purposes like you can use it to check on an overview of how your page is performing. You can gather different metrics for the business, which glance or compare different reports side by side. To view the reports, you have to click customization and then dashboard on the right corner to view the reports you have collected.
To create a new dashboard, click create, then click starter dashboard and then name your dashboard. You can still add the widgets to your dashboard by clicking add widgets, and then it will let you name the wedges that you would like to appear on your dashboard. Select visualization, and then you may choose a timeline, map, table pie chart, and others included there. For the other customizations, you can follow the procedures provided there.
Tracking Campaigns With The URL Builder
The URL campaign tracking is said to be “the practice of adding some additional parameters” to link you use on your site. After adding this information, the link is referred to as Campaign, which will be automatically in your Google Analytics account.
“For you to navigate to the URL, click the link provided at the end of the lesson and scroll down to the URL builder and on the first step type pastes the URL and fill out the spaces for the campaign medium and campaign source.” It is not a must for you to fill out the campaign content and campaign term so you can leave them as they will not affect you. But remember to fill in the campaign name (maybe values), Term, and content.
If using phrases, the URL will separate the words by underscores to avoid spaces in the URL.
Make sure you used campaign names like “display” for banner ads and “email” for email campaigns if you find that your configuration can break your Google Analytics campaign tracking.
Ways of Setting up Goals in Analytics
The objectives of goal Google Analytics enables you to track the interactions of your website. The interactions may be either clicking buttons, downloads, or even submissions.
We have two types of Goals, either Business goals or Google Analytics goals.
These are goals that you need your users to take on your websites, but Google Analytics uses this characteristic “Goal” to track these conversions.
Once you configure goals on Google Analytics, you create conversion-related metrics. When you set up a Goal, you can develop a “goal funnel” to visualize the different steps needed to complete that goal.
Final Verdict
I’m hoping that you enjoyed this beginner’s guide on how to the Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool with tons of fantastic features and helps you monitor how your website is performing in the search results. We have seen how Google Analytics can be installed on different websites like WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Big Commerce, and even Square Space.
Considering that you have understood how to use Google Analytics as a beginner and know the necessary tools needed to track and optimize your websites, you can employ the knowledge.
