Google Analytics Management

Google Analytics (GA) is a free service that provides valuable insights to help website owners shape a successful strategy for their business. Knowing what content drives engagement, where visitors are coming from, and what devices they use to view the content is essential.

I recommend having Google Analytics in place at launch or before launching your website, even if you won’t look at the data immediately.

Note: These instructions are for setting up Google Analytics 4 (GA4) from scratch rather than migrating from the old Universal Analytics (UA). Why? Even though Google will automatically attempt to convert your old UA property over to GA4, you want to take control and create a new GA4 property to avoid any issues. No worries if you’re too late and Google has already migrated you. While you could try tidying up your converted GA4 property, starting with a fresh GA4 property is easier.

Google Analytics Setup

The steps in this section should be followed if you only need to track simple website traffic. Please refer to the ‘Google Tag Manager’ section if you need to track additional entities, such as Ads.

1. Visit the Google Analytics website.
2. Select the Google account you will use to manage your Google Analytics.
3. Click ‘Start Measuring.’
4. Enter an account name and click ‘Next.’
5. Property Name > Enter your business name with ‘GA4’ appended to it (e.g., My Business GA4).
6. Adjust the ‘Property Details’ (Time Zone, Currency, etc.) as desired and click ‘Next.’
7. Adjust the ‘Business Details’ (Industry Category, Business Size, etc.) as desired and click ‘Next.’
8. Adjust the ‘Business Objectives’ (Generate Leads, Drive Online Sales, etc.) as desired.

Note: Choose ‘Get Baseline Reports,’ as this gives you everything, and then if there’s something you don’t want to see later, it’s easily adjusted.

9. Click ‘Create.’
10. Accept the terms.
11. Choose a Platform > Click ‘Web.’
12. Website URL > Enter your domain name.
13. Stream Name > Enter your business name with ‘GA4’ appended to it (e.g., My Business GA4).
14. Click ‘Create Stream.’

At this point, the ‘Install Your Google Tag’ window should appear and may mention some plugins that are already installed on your website as options for adding your Google Tag to your website.

If you were to click on the ‘Choose Another’ button to try and detect another plugin, you might notice the MonsterInsights and Google Site Kit plugins. If you already use either of those plugins or another detected plugin, great. Choose one and follow any provided instructions. However, if you don’t use either plugin, don’t install one of these just because they are listed here.

Instead, for those already with plugins like Perfmatters or SEOPress implemented, you can use those to avoid installing another plugin, and I will cover those steps in the next section.

Install Your Google Tag

Important: Choose either Perfmatters or SEOPress to implement your Google Tag, not both.

Perfmatters would be my top recommendation here because it allows you to configure your analytics in a more performance-optimized manner. Hosting Google Analytics locally, as Perfmatters does, can help speed up your site by reducing extra DNS lookups and resolving any “leverage browser caching” issues from their script.

Perfmatters

1. From your Google Analytics account, go ahead and close the ‘Install Your Google Tag’ screen,
2. Copy your GA4 Tracking ID (ex. G-1234567ABC) to your clipboard.
3. Perfmatters > Analytics.
4. Enable Local Analytics > Toggle ON.
5. Tracking ID > Paste in your GA4 Tracking ID.
6. Tracking Code Position > Footer
7. Script Type > Google Analytics 4 Minimal (See Available Script Types)
8. Save changes.

Note: Google Analytics advises you to load the script in your website’s header, but this is to prevent any issues if someone aborts loading the page (in rare cases, it might not fire). If you have a fast-loading website, loading GA in the footer is fine and won’t impact your page view counts.

Note: You can use the Perfmatters ‘Delay JavaScript’ feature to prevent Google Analytics from loading requests until user interaction.

SEOPress

1. WordPress Dashboard > SEO > Analytics > Toggle ON.
2. Enable Google Analytics Tracking > Check the box.
3. Enter Your Measurement  ID (GA4) > Paste in your GA4 Tracking ID.
4. Save Changes.

Verify Tracking

1. Google Analytics Dashboard > Close the ‘Google Tag’ and ‘Web Stream Details’ windows.
2. Click ‘Next.’

At this point, you should see a ‘Data Collection Pending’ message.’

3. Click ‘ Continue to Home.’
4. Email Communications > Choose the desired communications and click ‘Save.’
5. Visit your website from a browser where you’re not logged into your website and reload the Home page a couple of times. 
6. In Google Analytics, you should see a ‘Your data collection is active’ message and see the ‘Users in the Last 30 Minutes’ box start populating.

Congrats! You’ve successfully set up the new GA4 tracking technology and are ready to gain valuable insights into what people are doing on your website.

Analytics-Based Optimization

Let’s say you discover that most website visitors use mobile devices. While you should be optimizing your website for mobile already, learning this information should light a fire under you to ensure your website is delivered quickly and beautifully over mobile devices.

Check out my Optimize MyListing Websites for Outstanding Performance guide for ways to help with faster delivery on mobile devices.

Another example is if you learn that certain posts/pages are not getting the views you hoped for or that people are quickly bouncing out of your content. 

This could mean that the value is not there for these particular assets, and the content either needs to be enhanced or rolled into other existing content.

Grant Team Access

If you need to grant others (team members, consultants, etc.) access to your Google Analytics account, here are the steps.

1. Google Analytics Dashboard > Click on the ‘Admin’ icon (i.e., gear icon) in the far left-hand menu at the bottom.
2. Account Access Management > Click the ‘+’ icon.
3. Click ‘Add Users.’
4. Enter the team member’s email address. (Note: You must use a Google Email account here.).
5. Choose the desired role for the team member. (Note: You’ll typically want to grant the Editor role here since you typically give access for management/maintenance of your GA account.).
6. Click Add.

Google Tag Manager

If you want to track multiple tag entities like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel, please check out the Google Tag Manager for MyListing Websites guide.

Video Tutorial