How To Set Up Google Analytics Tutorial: 3 Essential Steps For The Beginner
Note from Liz: Hey there! If you’re looking for a Google Analytics tutorial, you might be interested in my 100% Free Google Analytics Quickstart course – takes you through these steps as well as a few extra tweaks to make sure you’re setup for success! Grab your free course by clicking here.
So you have yourself a website. Congrats! Getting yourself a website is a huge step in the marketing your business game. You’re thinking: now what? Noooooooooooow – you set up Google Analytics! Why? Because this simple setup will let you see how many people are coming to your website, from where, how long they’re staying and much, much more.
Ready for Google Analytics? If those two words don’t make you want to party – I don’t know what will. Go ahead, grab your party hat, turn up the music, we’re going to super-ify your website with a Google Analytics setup.
(Looking for specific platform advice? Check out my ultimate guide to installing Google Analytics on any website here)
Step 1 – Sign Up!
Simplest of the steps here is to sign up! Head over to www.google.com/analytics:
At this point either sign in with your existing Google account (Have you signed up for Google Apps for Business, perhaps? or do you currently use Google Adwords? YouTube?) or click ‘Create an Account’ in the upper right.
If you’re already signed in with a Google-related account, you’ll see this screen:
Once you’ve signed up for a new account (if you need it), come back to http://www.google.com/analytics and click “Access Google Analytics” if you’re not already redirected to the setup screen.
Once you’ve signed up, you’ll come to the setup screen:
(after some scrolling…)
For the purposes of this post, we are only setting up Google Analytics for Websites. Should you be interested in setting up Google Analytics for your app instead, I’ll direct you to Google’s guidelines on the subject.
For Website Name, you can simply use your URL if you wish.
For Website URL – just type in your website address! Just as Google tells you – www.yourwebsiteadress.com (they’ve already taken care of the http://).
Industry – this one is optional but will let Google Analytics tailor some suggestions for your account for you. I’ve found most of these don’t apply to the clients I most often work with – if you’re having trouble picking one, I recommend “Online Communities.”
Pick your time zone. This is key for making sure the way Google Analytics counts days lines up with your own business day.
For Account Name – feel free to use your company name. You can have/monitor multiple websites in one Analytics Account, so make sure this name will be appropriate if you plan on adding multiple websites.
Data Sharing Settings – completely optional. Select and deselect as you feel comfortable.
Click the blue Get Tracking ID button, agree to the pop-up Terms of Service (after reading fully of course) and you’re all set!
Step 2 – Installing Tracking Code
This part can SEEM a little intimidating (I know it’s easy to go deer-in-headlights when anyone starts typing code-like characters) but I PROMISE it’s actually really simple.
Once you’ve signed up, you’ll see the following tracking code setup screen:
Note: I’ve blocked out the Tracking IDs in this screenshot so you won’t confuse them for your own. In your own Google Analytics account, there will be an actual number next to the UA- that is unique to your Analytics account.
If you’re using WordPress to manage your site, simply install the Google Analytics for WordPress Plugin and under Settings, manually enter your UA code (just copy and paste everything after “Tracking ID” from your Google Analytics screen). NOTE: Be sure to copy and paste YOUR specific code and not the one in the above screenshot – each UA code is unique to one Google Account.
If you’re NOT using WordPress, installing the code is still pretty easy:
- Copy the code Google displays for you (it includes your unique UA code).
- Paste EXACTLY THAT before the ending head tag in your HTML code.
QUICK TIP: Just do a search within the code to find this tag – “Ctrl+F” on a PC or “Command+F” on a Mac. In the Find box, type “</head>” (minus quotes) - Save. As Google says, Most websites re-use one file for common content, so it’s likely that you won’t have to place the code snippet on every single page of your website.
- and Done! Wait for Google to recognize the installed code (can take a few hours to one day). When everything is installed correctly – the phrase “Status: Receiving Data” will appear next to “Tracking ID.”
Or, you could check out my platform-by-platform ultimate installation guide for more specific installation advice for every and any website.
Step 3 – Add a Second Admin User
Your Google Analytics account is actually now set up and will start tracking data in the next 24 hours – this last step is just a bonus recommendation. By default, the address you signed up for is an admin user for Google Analytics (you have access to do everything in the account). I recommend setting up a second admin user with an unrelated Gmail address (free to sign up).
Why? Because as you may have experienced, Google is great with help forums but not so great at one-on-one customer service. You can’t really call anyone at Google if you lose access to your Analytics email account or something else goes funky. The data won’t be lost but you won’t be able to log in and see it [googling “can’t access google analytics” will show you how many people have had this dreaded problem]. Having a second unrelated email address signed up with your account means having a back-up plan.
You can actually add users either at the Account level or Property level in Google Analytics. For our purposes, we’ll add someone at the account level.
So here’s how (super easy):
- When signed into Google Analytics, click Admin at the top of your screen.
- Select User Management under the left-hand Account menu.
- In the “Add permission for:” field, fill out the email address (remember an unrelated Gmail address works)
- Check all boxes under the drop-down menu to the right. This essentially makes the second user an administrative user with full access.
- Check ‘notify this user by email’
- Click the Add button.
- Log out of Analytics and try logging in with your second-user address. Did it work? Great! You’re done. If not – log in with your primary account info again and make sure the email address was entered correctly.
And done! You now have a Google Analytics Account set up and back-up administrative access in place. Enjoy finding out more about your visitors and what online marketing efforts (visitor source) are working for you!
Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear about how this blog post helped you.
If you liked this Analytics setup guide, great! Use the social sharing buttons at the top of this post to give this post some sharing love.
Hi Liz,
I used your advice alongside with Laura’s WP e-course. I found that I didn’t need to manually enter the UA code (or perhaps I misunderstood?)into settings…and I really thought it was a great idea to set up another admin person. Thanks for this! The screenshots helped and I was glad I had another resource to turn to
Glad you liked it! Not sure how you hooked up your Analytics without entering the code from Google at some point (but the specific set up could possibly change depending on the plugin and theme you’re using) but as long as you’re seeing data in your Google Analytics account, you should be set!
Thank you so much for providing information about Google Analytic’s installation.
Jagat Singh Bharti
I still can’t figure out where to put the code and whether it’s the UA-number bit that I put into the HTML script or whether I copy and paste the 10-12 lines of HTML code into the blog HTML? I am so confused… if you’re able to explain it again or be quite specific about what I do, it’d be so helpful. Thanks in advance!
Hey Lilly – depends on your platform! Feel free to email me with specific Qs. You want that 10-12 lines of HTML code to end up in the header piece of the HTML.
I still can’t figure out where to put the code and whether it’s the UA-number bit that I put into the HTML script or whether I copy and paste the 10-12 lines of HTML code into the blog HTML? I am so confused… if you’re able to explain it again or be quite specific about what I do, it’d be so helpful. Thanks in advance!
Depends on your platform. Ultimately you want the full code snippet in your site’s code. Feel free to message me if you need some more help with all of that! http://www.lizlockard.com/contact
I can’t even sign up for an account, because it says that this Google Site is not a valid URL. The only way I could sign up was by saying that it is not a website and not putting in a URL, but will that ID code actually work in the site to collect data? I put it in and am waiting to see.
Hmm Barbara, can’t say much without looking at what you’re seeing. My best advice would be to double-check the URL you’re entering — do you have http:// vs https:// or do you have www. or not, etc. Hope that helps! Feel free to email me with more specific Qs
I realize I’m replying to a very old post, but if you are still taking questions: Can you tell me where you place the UA code when using Joomla? And do you paste only the UA code?
Do you need to add all the specific browsers and other info in GA? Google Analytics was working fine for us but seems to have lost all its data…. it still knows the UA code but that’s about it.
Hey Michelle! Thanks for your comment
You can find step-by-step for every platform, including Joomla in this post: http://www.lizlockard.com/installing-google-analytics-on-any-website/
Hope that helps!
I set it all up and copied the code to each of the html files. However I still see the message “Status: Tracking Not Installed”. I did all this 5 hours ago. Not sure if I need to wait longer or if there is an issue. I copied the code from the tracking code tab and put it in each of the html files.
//———————Google Analytics stuff START——————————–
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject’]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’);
ga(‘create’, ‘UA-########-1’, ‘mysite.com’);
ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);
//———————Google Analytics stuff END——————————–
This is what it looks like:
//———————Google Analytics stuff START——————————–
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject’]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’);
ga(‘create’, ‘UA-########-1’, ‘mysite.com’);
ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);
//———————Google Analytics stuff END——————————–
Hey Rob! If you’re still having trouble, send me an email through my contact form. GA can take up to 24 hours to recognize your Tracking code.
You can update your pics. Now I see some changes here to sign up.
It’s easy to insert Analytic codes in thesis. Just copy and paste. But still I found the post useful. Thanks Liz.
Thanks Jewel! Google Analytics is always changing it’s true – I think a lot of the tips here hold true though. Thanks for your comment!
Hey, I have word press and I’m confused on how or should I say where to paste my UA code once I have it.
Hi Cornelia! Try the Yoast Google Analytics plugin
GA recently changed a lot of the names for things. I’m confused on step 3. I’m in the Admin button, and the Profiles tab… but there’s no spot to add a user. Has this moved that you know of, Liz? Thanks! I’m excited to be more prepared for worst-case-scenarios.
Yes, step 3 is confusing. It does not appear to be like you say it should. Any advice? I see no response from the last posting in early May, now it is late May.
Hey Tim! Thanks for pointing this out. The post has now been updated!
Hey Laura! Thanks for the comment. You’re right – things have changed a bit. This post has been updated to reflect that
Thanks Liz! That worked perfectly…. but apparently I had already done it when I set up my GA originally. I had no clue!! At least now I know so if I do get locked out, I know what to do.
Thanks for all your help!
Oh good – glad to hear it!
Hello,
Can I use google analytics without a google acount?
I have one Google Apps account. I’m trying to to track two accounts I’ve created within one Google Analytics platform for two separate websites. I noticed in my Google Apps account that if I go to Advanced Tools > Analytics > Set Up Google Analytics > it gives me only one text box to enter a Web I.D. The issue is that I have two (one for each Analytics Website Account). Do you know how I set this up? Do I need to enter both Web I.D.s here separated by commas? Do I not need to enter any Web I.D. here at all? Do I need to set up two separate Google Apps Accounts (one for each Analytics Web I.D.? Any help would be greatly appreciated
Hi Liz. Thanks for the useful tips. I’ve signed up and installed the code on my website a couple of months ago and I found the tools really useful. Thanks again and best regards. Heloisa from Herbalife.
You’re welcome
So helpful, Liz, thank you. I added another user and feel much safer. It’s the little things!
oh good! Glad you found this useful
THANK YOU LIZ!!!!
Thank you SO much for speaking like a human being and not a computer manual!
Using your instructions it was SO easy and non-stressful (and i LOVE that you acknowledged how ‘deer in headlights’ I feel when I see code).
You rule!
Marsha
Oh yay! So nice to hear – glad I could help in a human-being-y way
i like it.
I used to like Google Analytics, but now it just sucks! Your tutorial would be good for someone new to Google Analytics, but for those of us with multiple sites it is now impossible to add a new site. I’m just not going to use it for new sites.
Hey Angela! I agree it *can* be challenging. As for adding a new site, it depends on whether you’re trying to track this site seamlessly with your existing one or if you’d like to track it as a completely separate property. It’s a matter of tracking across domains or just adding a new web property
Hope that helps! Feel free to email me if you run into any trouble.
I have followed all the directions and my mum did it as well and I get this message popping up in red at the top each time.
One or more fields contain invalid data.Please fix and submit again.
I just don’t know what we are doing wrong? Can you help?
Hey Rachel! Not sure what’s going on – why don’t you send me an email via my contact page and we can see what’s up?
I’m having the exact same problem. Could you tell me what you’ve figured out?
We received the same error today when trying to create a new Property and View. Was there an answer to this to tell us what this error means, especially when all info entered is per instructions?
it very useful article for me.this is very helpful me to create this google analytics account. thankyou
i don’t have my own website but for demo purpose i want to check it..so what name should i put in website text box..or should i put my ip address.
Sandip – you’ll need to get a website first
My friend couldn’t get it set up for his Empower Network blog. He followed these steps and was getting the “value is not a valid domain” error. Can you please help?
Hi Adam! Thanks for your message. Hard to say without taking a look but my best guess is that something is going on with the domain you’re typing in – triple check it – periods, wwws, .com’s and all – and if that doesn’t work, send me a message if you’d like me to help further!
Hello.
I just installed Google Analytics on my website. This is the second time I’ve done this but the only difference was on this website, I used a plugin from wordpress.org. Now I am confused a bit because when I tried to check the code on my site, I found two sets of scripts from Analytics there. One is the common var gaq code and the other is the one Google gave from the setup which I pasted before the closing head tag. The code starts with function is orgram. Is that fine that those two scripts are there or I did something wrong. I just put the ua code in the field of the plugin I use but I also pasted the code (function isogram…) in the html of my site.
You should have only one instance of the UA- code. Otherwise you’ll see a *super* low bounce rate and it’ll skew your stats.
Thank you so much . I pasted the code as you instructed. let see what happend next. I hope it would be good anaylsis by google. coz my traffic is 70% low from last two days.
I didn’t have a gmail address so I went to google and got one. Now when I try to add a user it says that email address has permission. When I logged out and logged back in: the new gmail address has become my primary email also in the accounts section of google analytics the new gmail address has become my primary email and the other is alternate and recovery email. This seems to do the same thing you are doing but I am not sure because the original email is still the only user in Analytics. I never did see the screen you showed because it said that address had permission already.
Hi Bobbie! If you can log into Google Analytics with both email addresses, you should be fine
My only question is, I registered as http://www.example.com, but wasn’t sure if example.com (without the www) was a subdomain or not. Does the “Subdomains, or Multiple top-level domains” need to be turned on to catch those stats? Not a huge deal at this point.
Very quick and helpful tutorial. Thanks.
WWW is technically a subdomain but GA and most other entities usually can recognize it as the same site. The across subdomains bit is more for things like blog.yoursite.com or other different-content subdomains. Hope that helps!
I have added a few more pages to my website. How can I include these pages in analytics? Or is this done automatically?
Depends on your platform Anneke. If you’re added the code to a template piece of your site or use a plugin on WordPress – you’re set. If you’re hand-coding each new page as you create them, you’ll have to add the code in manually (ugh) – I recommend going for the template bit when you can.
Great article! Very helpful info. Thank you.
Hi,
How do you add a second web site / domain to track?
Tx
Morne – that depends on how you want to track it – is it part of the same business? Do you want visits to be seamless between the two entities? Most likely you want to setup something called “cross domain tracking”. Feel free to send me a message http://www.lizlockard.com/contact if you need some help with that.
Hi Liz
Glad someone’s produced a simple guide.
I got as far as clicking on ‘Get Tracking ID’ and nothing happened. So I’ve stopped and picked up your site.
Do you have any idea why this has happened?
Look forward to your reply.
Regards
Stan
Hmm all I can suggest is maybe hitting refresh on the page? Sounds like an odd error to me.
in my website when i added Google Analytics 1day it comes 4th page to 2nd page but now i want to come 1st page so what can i do to in my website come top first page please tell me
I set it all up and copied the code to each of the html files. However I see the message “Status: Tracking Not Installed”.
Loved your practical advice to add a second non-Google account. BUT, Google was not having anything to do with that. It kept denying my iCloud address. Grrrrrrrr!
Actually it has to be a Google account! So just create a second gmail address and add that if you don’t already have one
I have copied and pasted the code in the header but google still says tracking not installed. It’s been about a week now and I still have no data. Any help would be much appreciated
Hey Julia – hard to say what’s going on without looking at your website and your google analytics account. Maybe this will help: http://www.lizlockard.com/is-google-analytics-set-up-right/
Feel free to message me if you’d like some more 1-on-1 help!
Hi Liz, when trying to access Google Analytics, i get the following error message –
We are sorry, but you do not have access to Analytics. Please contact your domain administrator for access.
I am the administrator (or should be).
Can you please advise the best action to take?
Many thanks and love the article.
Hmm that sounds odd Kelvin – not sure what’s going on without seeing a screenshot. But maybe this will help? http://www.lizlockard.com/second-google-analytics-mistake/
Feel free to message me if you’d like some more 1-on-1 help!
Hi Liz, 02 May 2014
I have just subscribed to your free ecourse on Google Analytics. I have just a couple of question as follows:
I would like to use GA to track conversions (sales) on an external site that does not belong to me. i am in to affiliate marketing and would like to track conversions, specifically, the thank you page after the sales is complete. Is it possible to track sales by inserting the web address and name of the thank you page? If not, are you aware of any paid for software that can do this? Or perhaps you can guide me on how I can achieve my purpose with GA or with any other web based program.
Thanks and regards
zeke
Hey Zeke! You can only use web analytics software to track conversions on properties you yourself manage. The best you could do with GA is to track clicks on the affiliate links but not the ultimate conversion. To track clicks, you’ll need to do something called “event tracking”
Hope that helps!
Hi Liz,
this is super helpful –
I recently embeded a html code for google analytics on my tumblr theme.
For some reason the data that shows up on the report only shows interaction from the day I embeded it.
I just sayd zero for all the days before hand. Do you know if there is a way to update it so I can get that information. I want to know the unique visitors per month and so far it is only giving me two days worth,
hope this makes sense!
And thankyou this is super helpful!!
Elle x
Hi Elle! Sorry to say that Google Analytics doesn’t “unlock” traffic data – it simply starts counting the day you install it. :-/
I need to be walked through this. =) I have the WP Freelancer theme by GeneratePress. I tried to go into Appearance–Editor, but I didn’t see any way to select “header”, “footer”, or anything like it that people refer to when they discuss editing the code and placing the tracking code before the tag. I scrolled through all of the code I could actually find and didn’t even see a tag. So I’m pretty much blind, I guess.
I do have the Google Analytics by Yoast plug-in activated, and according to their install video, I shouldn’t have to go into the code or do anything special. I followed their video exactly, and it connected for them and not for me. It seems all set-up on the WordPress dashboard, but the Google Analytics page insists “Tracking Not Installed”.
I also tried a couple of different header footer insert plug-ins, and those didn’t work either. Can you help? This is so frustrating.
Hey Michelle! I’d contact Yoast about that one. Best of luck!