Web analytics is core to understanding how customers and prospects are using your website. Google Analytics is a comprehensive free offering that provides wonderful insights so you can better serve customers.
Follow these steps to set up Google Analytics.
Set Up Steps To Start Understanding How Customers Use Your Website
1. How To Create A New Google Analytics Account
- Visit google.com/analytics, click the Sign in to Analytics button (top right), and follow the on-screen instructions.
2. How To Locate Your Google Analytics Tracking ID so you can add it to your website
3. How To Add Google Analytics To Your Website
- Ask Your Web Developer OR
- Using WordPress Header and Footer Plugin OR
- Using Google Tag Manager (for which you’ll need to Set Up Google Tag Manager)
3. How To Set Up Goals In Google Analytics
- Make sure to to add a goal value in order to use ‘page value’.
- Tip: use € / $ /£ 1 if you can’t yet estimate the value.
4. How To Set Up Site Search in Google Analytics
(Google call this ‘configuring SEO data in Analytics)
5. How To Connect Google Analytics To Google Search Console
- If you don’t already have a Google Search Console account (formerly Google Webmaster) you will need to sign up for and set up your search console account
- Verify your Google Search Console account using either Google Tag Manager or Google Analytics
Additional Advisable Steps
A. Create an additional view (Google Analytics creates one by default).
- Keep one ‘unfiltered’ view which you’ll use for testing and other purposes
- The second ‘main’ or ‘master’ view will be used to present data from prospects and all other valuable website visitors.
N.B. Adding filters to a view means that data is NEVER available. In other words filters created at the level of Google Analytic property views are destructive. That’s why you always keep the ‘unfiltered’ view. (This is different from ‘Advanced Filters’.)
B. Add various filters to this ‘main’ view
- Exclude website traffic from internal users and consultants by creating IP Filters
- Tip: typing “what’s my IP” into Chrome tells provides your IP address
- Tip: don’t forget folks in remote office.
- Add spam filters and exclusions (see below).
C. Add additional views for different teams or users who only want to see a subsection of the data.
Examples might include the support team who want a view filtered on support data, or in larger organizations each marketing team might find their own view useful. e.g. paid search view,
Further Resources To Set Up & Maintain A Clean Google Analytics Account
Google Analytics Sample Account Structure
Setting Up Google Analytics For eCommerce