Google Analytics On A Custom WordPress Blog

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a great, free for all, tool for a detailed tracking of the website visits. It certainly boosts up your knowledge off the visitors and enables you to get a full , detailed report about your website.

The main features this analytic tool offers

Advanced Segmentation

With this option the administrator can filter the site traffic into different segments. They can filter on example : “Paid traffic” or “Direct traffic” . Or they can easliy make their own custom segment. This way enables the admins to look closer to the personal interests of the visitors.

Motion Charts

The motion charts are a visual way to look at the traffic generated via your website. These charts enable the admin a multi-dimensional analysis to the Google Analytics report. It lets you create relationships with traffic data that are difficult to see in the text-based reports.

Custom Reports

Present the information in a nice editable and saveable report , so you can easliy organize all the different information the way you want. With an easy drag and drop interface you are able to make your own report , with multiple levels of sub-reports. These reports are saved for as long you want.

Fast Implementation

Implementation can be achieved in no – time , and is very easily done. You don’t need to have much knowledge of web programming. Google does everything for you.

Keyword and Campaign Comparison

Track and compare all your ads, email newsletters, affiliate campaigns, referrals, paid links, and keywords on Google and other search engines.

Custom Dashboards

Create widgets that hold all the interesting information you want , and have the option to mail these widgets to yourself.

AdWords Integration

Buy keywords on Google AdWords and use Google Analytics to learn which keywords are most profitable to your business.

Internal Site Search

Find out how your visitors search your site, what they look for, and where they end up.

Funnel Visualization

Find out which pages result in lost conversions and where your would-be customers go.

Site Overlay

See traffic and conversion information for every link as you browse your site. This is a great tool, get a personal insight of the visitors behaviour.

GeoTargeting

The most fun parts of tracking visits , is to know where the visitors are from. Get a nice visual overview where the pageviews are requested from.

How to implents Google Analytics with WordPress?

The integrated WordPress stats function is a great tool for tracking general traffic of your blog, but why would you track it on a basic way if there are better options for the same price?

I use Google Analytics for some time already and i must say , it’s great! It gives me a full detailed report on what people are interested in on my blog , and where the visitors come from. It gives me the chanche to change the content of the blog depending on what people want.

So in order to track WordPress blog traffic , you will need to register with Google Analytics , doe that here.

After the sign up , you will have to add a new Website Profile.

When this new profile is added , Google Analytics will return a Web Property ID , that will be needed for tracking the blogs traffic.

Once you have this information it’s time to install the Google Analyticator plugin for your wordpress blog.

1. Upload the google-analyticator folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.

3. Configure your tracking settings through the ‘Settings’ > ‘Google Analytics’ menu in WordPress and add your personal Web Property ID.
4. Watch Google Analytics for excellent traffic information.

This is basically the 4 magic steps to a excellent , detailed and genius overview of your WordPress blog traffic!

Just note that between the actual recording of the traffic and creation of the Google analytics account , there can be a black hole of maximum 24 hours! After this time the status of your tracking will be “active” and data will start to be collected!