Setting up Google Analytics

Setting up your account

Currently Google Analytics is a free web analytics resource for webmasters and you’ll be able to set up tracking for five sites (profiles) in one account. You’ll need to register an account with Google, unless you’ve already got an account.

Once you’ve set up or logged in with your Google account credentials at Google Analytics, you’ll be prompted with the question whether you’d like to sign up, after which you can start the account set up phase. All you need to do is enter the first website URL, the name of your account and your time zone details, then provide a few contact details and accept the user agreement. All that’s left then is setting up the javascript code and your account will be prepared to start receiving data.

Setting up the basic javascript code on your site’s pages

As opposed to locally hosted software which parses your web server’s basic log files, Google Analytics is a hosted solution which works with a simple javascript, entered in the code of all pages on your website. All you need to do is copy the provided javascript - preferably the latest version, (preferably the latest version “ga.js”, which provides you with better customization options down the road) and paste it at the bottom of the code on your website’s pages. In the case of html-based pages, you’ll want to put this code directly above the </body> tag.

Whenever a page is requested – and fully loaded – this script is triggered and sends all relevant info to the ga.js script on Google Analytics’s servers, which then updates your account’s data.

The above script is the default configuration and will enable basic functionality - all you need as a beginner, already providing you with a ton of detailed data. For the more advanced users (that require more in-depth reporting and/or a certain degree of customization) there are a number of enhancements that can be applied to the Google Analytics script that will enable advanced features.

Applying filters

 

Traffic data generated by you, possibly other people in your company or at home can be filtered out by applying simple rules. You can exclude traffic from domains and specific IP-addresses, for example. You can also apply a filter which will provide you only with traffic to a specific subdirectory. Should you want to view only the traffic data to a hosted blog, you could apply a filter for ^/blog/ (Note the accent, this symbol is required to indicate the domain name, being the root folder).

How to grant other users access to my Google Analytics account

 

You can choose to allow other users access to your site’s Google Analytics reports by following these steps:

1. Go to Analytics Settings
2. Click Edit for the site in question#
3. At the bottom of the profile settings, click ‘Add User’ in the ‘Users with Access to Profile’ section
4. Fill in the new user’s details, keeping in mind that they must have a Google account
5. Specify whether the new user should get administrator rights or report viewing rights only

Setting goals

Goals will help you analyze how many visitors convert by reaching the goal you set out for them. A goal can be reaching an order confirmation page, a thank you page for a registration form or a page that is likely to be viewed mostly by visitors who are interested in your site and browse around looking for information.

Setting up goals is easy. Log in to your Googlelytics account, go to Analytics Settings, click Edit for the site you’d like to set goals for and in Profile Settings click Edit for G1 (the first out of 4 available goal settings).

There are a number of fields you’ll have to fill in and it’s worth it to take your time. All your goals related reports will depend on it!

• Goal URL: Enter the URL of the page that will indicate that visitors have reached the page you want them to go (registration thank you page, order confirmation etc.).
• Goal name: Tag the goal with as short a name as possible (for easy viewing in the reports)
• Active goal: This allows you to deactivate or re-activate the goal. Leave the default setting set to On in this case, since you’re creating a new goal.
• Define funnel: If your site offers a set path through which visitors can reach goals, this will be a particularly important set of settings to activate. By entering the URLs that make up your “funnel” or path towards your goal you’ll be able to view reports that can show you how many visitors exit your site from which step. This is powerful information for analysis since it will allow you to optimize badly performing pages.
• Case sensitive: In the event that you have pages with similar file names which differ only by the use of caps, this is a relevant setting. In most cases there’s no need to tick this box.
• Match type: This setting is relevant only when your site uses dynamically created pages. If your site uses static pages, always go for ‘Exact match’. Should your site generate pages dynamically with variables that change per visitor session (with ? a query string, e.g. www.example.com/checkout.cgi?page=1&id=9982251615) you’ll want to use ‘Head match’, which means Google Analytics will only pick up the simple URL, without query strings (e.g. www.example.com/checkout.cg). ‘Regular expression’ is useful only when your site’s URLs differ even in the basic form and this setting will allow you to specify part of the URL that remains constant, regardless of different visitor sessions.
• Goal value: You can specify the revenue that is earned every time a goal is reached. Use this setting only if the same revenue is received every time the goal is reached. If you offer different products or services for the same goal you’ll want to set up e-commerce tracking and that means that you should leave this field blank (Google Analytics will look for e-commerce settings in this event).

Now just click Save Changes and you’ve set up a goal!

How to link your AdWords account to Google Analytics

Linking your AdWords account to Google Analytics is a fairly easy procedure. Before you follow the below steps you must ensure that you either:

• Use the same Google account for AdWords as for Google Analytics (and that your Google Analytics account has Admin rights)
• If you haven’t used the same Google account, create a new account in Google Analytics, using the account user name of AdWords (See “How to grant other users access to my Google Analytics account”)

Then follow these steps:

1. Log in to your AdWords account at http://adwords.google.com.
2. Click the Analytics tab
3. If you already have an Analytics account, click I already have a Google Analytics account.
4. From the Existing Google Analytics Account drop-down list, select the name of the Analytics account you’d like to link to
5. Keep the checkboxes selected on this page, unless you’re sure you’d like to disable auto-tagging and cost data imports (Not recommended. This would only be advisable if you have the intention of manually tagging your AdWords links)
6. Click Link Account
7. Your two accounts are now linked. If you opted to keep auto-tagging turned on, Analytics will start automatically tagging your AdWords links for detailed campaign tracking reports. Cost data will also automatically be imported from your AdWords campaign.