How to Connect & Integrate Google Analytics to Your WordPress Site – Easy Steps

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Last updated on March 26th, 2024 at 06:52 am

Do you want to know “How to add Google Analytics to WordPress Website”?

Imagine you open a shop, and you want to know how many people come in and what they like.

That’s what Google Analytics does for your website.

It helps you understand who’s visiting, what they’re doing, and what they like the most.

Did you know that over 30 million websites use Google Analytics?

It’s like a must-have tool for understanding your online visitors.

Websites using Google Analytics see an average increase of 20% in user engagement.

It’s like learning what your customers love and giving them more of it.

How to install and add Google Analytics to WordPress?

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that provides valuable insights into your website’s performance, visitor behaviour, and marketing effectiveness.

Integrating it with your WordPress site allows you to track important metrics and make data-driven decisions to enhance your online presence.

Let’s explore the different options to add Google Analytics to WordPress.

1. Create an account with Google Analytics

First of all, you need to visit Google Analytics and sign up with your Google account.

create account google analytics

account setup google analytics

Fill up your account name (anything you want) then click all the checkboxes and be done.

Let’s move on to the second step.

web google analytics

Now in the next step, you can see 3 things:

  1. WEB If you want to check stats for your website then click here.
  2. APPS This option is for app owners who want to check the statistics of their apps.
  3. APPS & WEB This option is for both website and app owners.
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For now, we are here to check website stats, so click on the WEB and come to the next step.

account creation google analytics

In this last step, you have to enter your website details.

Website name You can fill up anything you want.

Website URL Enter your URL with Http/Https.

Industry category Choose your website category.

Reporting Time Zone Your country’s time zone or whatever you want.

terms of service google analytics

Read their terms and conditions, click them and continue.

tracking id google analytics

On the next page, you will get your tracking ID and code.

Copy the tracking ID for later.

You can use the code to enter manually in the header or footer, but I prefer to use the tracking ID with the help of these two plugins or a theme for better results:

  1. MonsterInsights
  2. CAOS
  3. Themify Ultra Theme

2. Connect with MonsterInsights

First, you need to activate and install the plugin.

monster insights google analytics

Settings – General

You can connect Google Analytics with MonsterInsights or manually enter your tracking ID.

I prefer manually entering the tracking ID otherwise you can check both.

Engagement

Here you can enable or disable demographics or link attribution settings.

You can also add a URL for cross-domain tracking.

Do these settings as per your need.

Leave blank or default if you don’t know about these options.

monster insights google analytics

monster insights google analytics

eCommerce, Publisher & Conversions are premium options for which you have to pay. So leave this for now.

monster insights google analytics

monster insights google analytics

monster insights google analytics

Here you can give user role permissions to see reports, save settings, and exclude them from tracking.

Enable or disable the dashboard widget and reports.

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Show or hide admin bar reports.

Enable or disable automatic updates.

Show or hide announcements.

Allow or disallow usage tracking.

monster insights google analytics

monster insights google analytics 7

monster insights google analytics 7

3. Connect with CAOS (Host Google Analytics locally)

This plugin hosts google analytics locally which means your page speed/performance is not affected by external requests.

This plugin can create a folder anallytics.js which you can cache and optimize.

Activate and install the plugin.

caos google analytics

Enter your Google Analytics tracking ID.

Allow tracking – always

Snippet type – default

Enable compatibility mode – Leave blank or choose MonsterInsights if you want both plugins.

Stealth mode – disable

Which file to download – analytics.js 

Save analytics.js to – leave this as it is

caos google analytics

Position of tracking code – Header 

Serve from a CDN – if you are using CDN then enter the URL here otherwise leave blank. (not for Cloudflare users)

Capture outbound links – this is used to track “when users leave your site or click on outbound links on your site”.

This only works if you choose the analytics.js file for download and disable stealth mode.

Cookie expiry period – you can set a cookie (in days)

use adjusted bounce rate – for now, leave this blank 

Change enqueue order – 0

Disable all display features functionality – leave

caos google analytics

Anonymise IP – disable

Track logged-in administrators – disable

Remove settings at uninstall – Enable if you want all the settings to be removed after the uninstallation.

Save changes and done.

4. Themify Ultra

If you are using the Themify Ultra theme (recommended), then you can directly add the Google Analytics code to the theme settings.

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No need to install an extra plugin and load your server.

themify ultra google analytics

Click on Themify Ultra – Themify settings – General – Google Analytics.

Add the code and save – done.

Easy and Simple, right?

5. How to Check Stats?

After all the steps are done, wait for a few hours for Google Analytics to analyze and collect the data.

  1. You can check your stats in your admin dashboard with MonsterInsights.
  2. Or visit the Google Analytics site directly.
  3. Or download the Google Analytics app on your mobile and log in with the same ID to check the stats directly on your mobile.

Wrapping Up – Add Google Analytics to WordPress

Adding Google Analytics to your WordPress website is a fundamental step in understanding your site’s performance and user behaviour.

Google Analytics provides a powerful tool for website owners, enabling them to track their progress and adapt their strategies to achieve their online goals.

So, don’t delay – take advantage of this valuable resource and start using Google Analytics for your WordPress site today.