Home Google ToolsGoogle Analytics How to Install Google Analytics on WordPress | Google Analytics 4 Tutorial

How to Install Google Analytics on WordPress | Google Analytics 4 Tutorial

by Stewart Gauld
Last updated on January 10th, 2023
How to Install Google Analytics on WordPress | Google Analytics 4 Tutorial

If you are looking for a perfect solution to get insights about the users & visitors on your WordPress website with Google Analytics, then in this Google Analytics tutorial you will learn about how to install Google Analytics on your WordPress website.

OK, so you have managed to build a great WordPress website and are getting rave reviews about it from your customers & users. However, you are still unsure about your visitor behavior on your website.

Well then, it is time to integrate your WordPress website with GA4, also known as Google analytics 4, an insightful and easy to use analytics tool by Google!

But, before we get into how to install Google Analytics on WordPress, let’s briefly discuss the difference between Universal Analytics (UA) and Google Analytics 4.

Compared to the previous version of Google Analytics called Universal Analytics (UA), Google Analytics 4 is far more effective in terms of insights.

It has the advantage of being customizable, ensuring that you receive the relevant analytics you require. GA4 is now the default version whenever a new analytics property is created.

Google analytics 4 is an important tool that will help you to understand user behavior, experience & engagement on your web platform.

It also helps to integrate website performance and mobile app data into a single property, thus simplifying the reports & making it a breeze for you to understand what is happening on your website.

Just plug in GA4 and start tracking your user & website performance right away and the best part is that you don’t have to touch any specific code to get that done. Making this an easy process for beginners.

Okay, so how to get started?

Let’s dive into a quick step-by-step guide to help you with installing Google Analytics on your WordPress site.

How to Install Google Analytics on WordPress?

However, please note that to get started, the first and most basic requirement is to have a Gmail account that you can link with your Google analytics.

Step 1:

Step1 Login to your WordPress dashboard, and navigate to ‘Plugins’ and click on Add New.

As you move to the new plugin section, navigate over to the search section and type ‘GA plugins’. Once you find the free GA Google Analytics Plugin by Jeff Starr, click on Install & then click on Activate.

Read more : How to Connect Google Analytics 4 with Wix & Squarespace

Step 2:

step2 You can now locate settings under plugins or you can move to settings from your dashboard, click on it, and then down below in the pop-up, you’ll find Google Analytics.

Once you click on that, you will be taken to the Plugin settings. Here, in the plugin section, you need to add your Google Analytics tracking ID.

Navigate down & click on the Google site tag, here a section to add the site tag will appear.

Now we need to find the information from our Google Analytics account and then add this information into this section to connect Google Analytics with WordPress. To do this, we need to log in to Google Analytics.

 Read more : Google Analytics 4 Tutorial for Beginners

Step 3:

step3 Now open up a new browser and type in analytics.google.com. Make sure you choose the correct login account for which you want to enable analytics updates. If you don’t have an existing Google account, you can easily create a free Google account.

Once done and you are on the analytics page, click ‘Start Measuring,’ enter your business/account name, and then scroll down to the bottom and click the next step.

Now, in the property setup, add in your business/account name again, for which you want to track the data. Also, do select your reporting time zone and your currency.

If your business is in the US, both these details will be the same. Now click on Next again and move on to filling in the basic information about your business, such as the industry category, business size, and all the information options that you want GA to measure (this is optional and not vital).

Now click on Create, which will generate a pop-up to select your country & a list of terms & conditions. Check the box next to the Terms and Conditions and then click ‘I Accept’. Now select the option for your email communication from the pop-up and select Save.

 

Step 4:

step4 The next and most important step is to connect your Google analytics with a data stream. Click on the ‘WEB’ option to connect your website with Google analytics. It will lead you to a section where you can add the URL. There will be the option of using ‘HTTP://’ or ‘HTTPS://’.

If your site is SSL secured, you can select HTTPS://. If not, then go for HTTP://. However, it is highly advised to get your website SSL secured for security reasons. Once you select either of them, add the URL of the website. Next to the URL section, add your business name to the ‘Stream Name’ section. Now click on Create Stream.

 

Step 5:

step5 Once the stream is created, an information page with all its details will appear. From here, copy the measurement ID & head back to the WordPress dashboard. Here in the ‘GA Tracking ID’ add the ‘Measurement ID’ from your Google analytics.

As the Global Site tag is already selected, head back to the GA Page and navigate down to the ‘tagging instructions’ and below ‘add new page tag’. Click on the global site tag, the information there is the global site tag that we want to copy and paste into our GA Plugin Page.

To do that, head over to the copy icon and click on it. Now, on the GA plugin settings page, head to the plugin settings, and navigate over to the ‘Custom Tracker Objects’, and paste the global site tag.

Make sure that the entire code is there and you have also selected ‘including tracking code in page head’. Once all the checks are done, come down and click on save changes and that’s it!

Just like that, you have successfully integrated Google Analytics into your WordPress website!

You can read our beginner’s guide on How to Install Facebook Pixel on WordPress

As you successfully integrate GA into your WordPress website, make sure that Google Analytics is working effectively on your website. To do that, head back to your analytics page, exit the webstream details page and move to the left top of the screen and click on home.

It’s important to note that it takes a good amount of time before a significant amount of data is seen on your GA dashboard. To check whether the GA has been properly connected to the website, head to the ‘Realtime’ section below ‘home’ and then head over to your website and scroll down the page to replicate visitor engagement.

Return to the analytics page, and you’ll see that your data as a website visitor, as well as information about the visitor’s location and other such factors, is reflected in real-time on your analytics dashboard.

And that’s it! Your website is now successfully connected to Google Analytics! You can start monitoring your website’s performance.

Google Analytics 4 Tutorial (Video Tutorial)

Feel free to watch our brief video below on how to install Google Analytics 4 on WordPress.

YouTube video

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My name is Stewart Gauld. I’ve been helping small and local businesses with digital activties over the last 7 years.