Google Analytics is a comprehensive reporting tool, that allows site owners to gather data about website visitors. This data is very important when designing websites because it provides facts about how many visitors the website has, how many page views, the bounce rate, average time on site, traffic sources overview, what pages are most visited and much more.

Visits Report

The number of website visits is extremely significant particularly when you are tracking SEO results. Many site owners will be surprised to find out that they have an average of only 5 visitors per day. Ways to improve traffic is to optimize the website for search engines and run a low budget Google AdWords campaign. However, there is no magic to have a lot of traffic all of the sudden. Traffic is gained in time.

Bounce Rate Report

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that once they landed to the website they will not browse it or view additional pages. A high bounce rate means your website design doesn’t work or the information is not presented properly. The website fails to attract and engage visitors – they will not find anything that catches their attention and will move on. Big chunks of text are especially not helpful in quickly delivering the message.

Average Time on Site Report

Finding a balance between the amount of information and effectively delivering the website message is the key when designing a website. In an ideal world, visitors will read everything the website offers, but in the real world they will just scan the page to find things that get their attention. The usual average time on site is 2 to 3 minutes. How much information can someone read in 2 minutes?

Traffic Sources Overview Report

This report explains where web traffic is coming from. Visitors may come by typing the website url into their browser, by links to the site or from search engines results. If search engine traffic is really low, redesigning and optimizing the website will help.

Content Overview Report

This report provides information about what pages have the most page views. For example, if one of the main menu pages gets the most traffic that information needs to be enhanced. Vice-versa, if one of the pages doesn’t get much traffic, it means that visitors are not interested in clicking on it. Changing the page name might help.

How visitors interact with your site’s content

Google analytics show how your users interacted with your site’s content. It shows you what percent of the user clicked on which link on your site and much more. By seeing the user interactivity, you can work your content around your users.

By seeing the answers to the questions above, you can focus on the strategies that work for your site and eliminate the strategies that don’t work.

How to Signup with Google Analytics
First you would need to create a Google Analytics account. To do this, visit Google Analytics Signup Page.

If you already have a gmail account, then use that to sign-in with. If you do not have a gmail account, then you would have to create an account for yourself.

How to Install Google Analytics in WordPress

There are 3 ways to install Google analytics in  your WordPress or blog Direct paste, functions.php, and plugins.

Direct Paste Method

Copy the code that you recieve when you create your account , and paste it in your theme’s footer.php right above the </body> tag.

Functions.php Method

Add the following code in your theme’s functions.php file and don’t forget to paste your Google Analytics code from Step 6 here.

<?php
add_action(‘wp_footer’, ‘add_googleanalytics’);
function add_googleanalytics() { ?>
// Paste your Google Analytics code  here
<?php } ?>

Plugins Method

There are tons of plugins available to add Google Analytics to your site. The two that we recommend are:

Google Analytics for WordPress by Joost de Valk
Google Analyticator by Ronald Heft