SEO Beginner’s Blogger Course Setting Up Google Analytics Hey Blogger! It's very important to track the users on your website so that you can see the progress you're making along the way. Google Analytics is the #1 most used and trusted way to track visitors to a website (by far). Most advertisers and bloggers won't even accept any other form of analytics. It's free and shouldn't take more than a few minutes, but it's important to get started on. So today it's time to set up Google Analytics for your blog. This is a bit advanced and can be frustrating, so I'm going to tell you the easiest possible way to do it. If you have any problems whatsoever, just contact Bluehost support chat and they can help you out too. ​ ​ Okay so here it goes. How to Signup with Google Analytics Step 1: First you need to create a Google Analytics account. To do this, visit Google Analytics ​ ​ Signup Page. You will see a screen like the one below. If you already have a Google or Gmail account, then you can use that to sign-in. If you do not have a Gmail account, then you would have to create an account for yourself. Step 2: Once you sign-in with your Gmail account, you will be prompted to a screen like the one ​ below. This is where you will signup for Google analytics with your Gmail account. Step 3: On the next screen, you will be given choice to choose between a website or mobile app. ​ Make sure you select website. After that you need to enter account name (It will be the Google Analytics profile name for this website), Website name, website’s URL, country, and the time zone. Once you have entered this information, click on the Get Tracking ID button. You will be presented with Google Analytics terms and service which you must agree to, so click on I Agree button. Step 4: Now you will be presented with your Google Analytics tracking code. You can copy this ​ tracking code and paste it in a text document somewhere because you may need it later if you run into issues and have to contact Bluehost support chat. Now that you have setup a Google Analytics account, it's time to install Google Analytics in WordPress. Step 5: Download, Install and Activate The Google Analytics Dashboard WordPress Plugin This is pretty easy. If you have already completed the course, you'll know exactly how to install new plugins to your WordPress Website, but just in case you aren't sure, I'll walk you through it. First, navigate to your WordPress dashboard and hover over "Plugins" on the left hand side of the screen, then click "Add New". Then simply search the term "Google Analytics" in the plugin library search and the first or second result should be Google Analytics Dashboard. Click Install and then activate the plugin. Once activated, you'll see "Google Analytics" on the left menu of your dashboard. Hover over it and click "Tracking Code". Now, at the top of your screen you should see a link that says "authorise the plugin" as pictured below: Click that and you'll be brought to the plugin's authorization page. Now click the button that says "Authorise Plugin". This will bring you to a new screen that gives you the option to paste a code. You don't have this code yet, so click the link that says "Get Access Code". This will open Google Accounts. Since you just signed up for a Google account, you'll be able to pick a name from the list. Once you click your account with Google, you'll be brought to this page: Click the "ALLOW" button. You'll now see a code. Copy that code, then go back to your WordPress dashboard tab in your browser and paste the code there and click Save Access Code. Now make sure that your Google Analytics account that you created previously is chosen under "Select View" and click "Save Changes": Now you have Google Analytics set up and tracking on your WordPress site. Viewing Reports on Google Analytics Website It will of course take a little while for your Google stats to populate. Your tracking will start from the moment you added the Google Analytics Plugin and tracking code to your site and will not be backdated. So wait a few days and then you'll see some stats in your dashboard like this: Google Analytics is capable of showing you a treasure of data collected from your stats. You can view this data by visiting your Google Analytics dashboard and clicking on the reporting tab. You will see the built-in Google Analytics reports in the left column. Each section is divided into different tabs and clicking on a tab will expand it to show more options. ● Audience tab will show reports to help you understand your users. ​ ● Acquisition reports explore where your users came from. ​ ● Behavior reports summarize what your users do after they arrive on your site. ​ ● Conversion reports show how well you’re doing against your goals. ​ The Audience tab is the one you'll most likely want to view and for most bloggers, Users is the most important metric. So, if you have 100 Users per month, that means that 100 different people viewed your site in the month. If for some reason the plugin doesn't work and you can't see any tracking, no problem! Sometimes these things have glitches. Simply contact Bluehost Support Chat and tell them you want to add a ​ ​ Google tracking code to your website. Give them the tracking code from Google that you copied in Step 4 (The longer code you copied and pasted to a text document) and tell them to paste it in the correct spot in your header.php file. Pasting code in the backend is a bit advanced, so it's easier to simply ask Bluehost to do it. In 99% of cases the plugin will work right away and it's much easier, but if you have to contact Bluehost chat it shouldn't take more than a few minutes for them to install it manually. Either way, Now you can track your traffic! How cool is that? I hope this was useful Happy blogging! .