Google Analytics records the activity on a website through JavaScript tagging, so that data is recorded when any page on the website is viewed within a web browser. So, if you want to start tracking your website analytics with Google Analytics, the first step is to create an account. If you have a Google AdWords or Webmaster Tools account, it’s best to use the same login for each of these.

Once an account has been created you can add one or more ‘profiles’ – either for the same website (see below) or for other websites that you may want to track. As you create a profile, Google will provide you with the code ‘snippet’ that will need to be added to your website. Google helps this process by providing some alternative code snippets which are dependent on the type of website or tracking you will need.

The important part of installing Google Analytics is that the code snippet is added to every page of your website – ideally you will have a common template or include file in the ‘head’ section of each page, so that the code will automatically be added throughout the site. It’s important to check that all pages have the code added – including any pop-ups that use a unique URL, or any confirmation pages that are displayed once an online form or checkout have been completed.

Google Analytics can be very flexible in tracking different activities on a website – some of this tracking requires more advanced coding on one or more pages of a site, but the typical options that can be used and should be considered are:

Filters

you can add filters to different profiles for the same website, such as tracking visits that exclude (or only come from) your own office location, based on an IP address. These visits may skew the overall results if internal use of the site is heavy.

Cross-domain tracking

if your website visitors are likely to interact between different domains that you own, or sub-domains of your site, then you can track this activity through Google Analytics.

Goals

the use of goals is an important way of tracking user interaction with your website, such as submission of an enquiry form or newsletter request, or above average interaction of the site. Up to 20 goals can be tracked within an analytics profile.

Events

if you want to track clicks to external websites or files (such as PDF downloads) where you can’t add analytics code, then Event Tracking can be set up to record the number of clicks on each link.

E-commerce tracking

this is essential for retail websites, so that product purchase information can be tracked and recorded against marketing activity to provide ROI data.

Search

if your site uses a search function which can be tracked in analytics, you will need to set this up to display usage of the function and the search terms being used.

 

If you would like further information about installing Google Analytics for your website, please get in touch and we’ll be pleased to help.

Alternatively, if you are thinking of using website analytics for the first time, or have already started tracking your visitor data, we can provide you with a FREE analytics assessment to give you an idea of the key elements you should be tracking and reviewing to increase the performance of your website.

Google Analytics

FREE

Request your website analytics assessment

find out more