How to configure Google Analytics and succeed at it

How to configure Google Analytics? Is a tool that allows you to monitor websites, blogs, and social media. So, if you are in the world of marketing and you manage social media or your own website, this article can help you. Next, we will tell you how Google Analytics works.

Likewise, this tool is at your disposal when making both predetermined and customizable reports.

It’s compatible with other Google tools. This means it’s possible to combine it with AdWords, Blogger, or YouTube.

How to create an account

Creating an account in Google Analytics is a very simple and free process. To begin, the first thing to do is access the Google Analytics website. Next, you must click on the “create an account” button.

The most comfortable thing is to use a Gmail account. If you have one, log in.

If you don’t have one, you can easily create it. All you have to do is follow the steps shown when clicking on “Create Account”.

Once you log in, you will click on set up free. Once there, you can start setting up your new Analytics account.

Steps for setting up an account in Google Analytics

The first thing is to put the name of the account that you’re going to create. For this, try to be as clear as possible to identify it when it’s searched.

After the name, the next thing it’s going to ask you is to accept some permissions from Google. Remember that this is a free will of each one. So, this won’t affect the results.

After clicking on Analytics, you’ll see different options to start the configuration.

By default, the option marked as “Website”. Unless your project is an app or has an app and a web, you will leave this option selected.

When you click next, you will see the options to enter all the property data.

This is where you enter all the data of the site (name, URL, category according to the contents of the site and time zone). After this, you will enable the option to share data with Google. Remember to pay attention to the first one: “Only with other Google products”.

This step will allow you to link Analytics with other key Google services. For example, Adwords or Search Console.

You must look at the different fields so as not to make mistakes.

Property Name

Here, you will place a descriptive name to identify it quickly. Remember that with each Gmail account you can have up to 100 accounts. 

We tell you this in case you want to have different analytics accounts.

Website URL

In this option, you must select the web protocol option, meaning if you have an SSL protocol or not, with which we will select HTTP or HTTPS.

Then, the domain will be entered as shown in the URL with www or without www. This depends on whatever is your case.

Industry Category

Here, you can select which market sector the web belongs to.

Most times the people don’t give importance to it. This is because Google can segment by sectors and make comparisons.

Report time zone

You must configure this box correctly. This is so that the data is then correctly displayed concerning the time zone of our target audience. Thus, it will allow making correct decisions when analyzing said data.

Once you click the create button, you will have access to more settings within the property.

Search Console

Here, you can link the analytics account with Search Console. The latter is another of Google’s free tools. This is essential to perform a good SEO on a website.

If you click on adjust Search Console, a new window will immediately open.

There, you can select the Search Console account that you want to link to Analytics to allow you to cross-reference the data.

Then select the account and press “Done” and you will have the accounts linked.

Data sharing settings

In this option, you must accept or not the boxes you’re considering.

Remember that the acceptance of them will not affect the data that analytics provides us.

Then, select “Get Tracking ID” and accept the terms of use.

After this, return to the home page to continue with the second phase of Google Analytics configuration.

Setting properties and functions for advertisers

To configure the Analytics account, among the three views that you will see, you will click on “Property Configuration”.

You must activate all the information elements you see:

1. Activate demographic and interest reports. This is necessary to collect data from the basic profile of your users at the sociodemographic level.
2.  Improved link attribution. Here, you will also select “Yes” in “Enable the Users metric in reports”

To finish this step, click “Save”. Then, you will continue with the basic configuration of the properties of the Google Analytics account.

The basic views to identify segments of interest

Little by little, you will optimize the Google Analytics account to speed up decision-making.

For this, you will do it based on the data that Google will provide you.

You must not forget to correctly configure various points of view:

Name

The clearer the better, as an analytics property can have up to 25 views.

Country or territory of the time zone

As mentioned above, in property settings, you must take care to not leave errors at the time of presentation of data collected by analytics.

Coin

This is an important fact if your website is e-commerce. With it, you can correctly identify the currency of the transactions.

Exclude robots

If you check this box, analytics will try not to count the visits of the different bots as real visits.

The next step is to create the views. The best option for this is to create them with no filter.

Later, you can assign it to the most suitable views. At the end of the day, it’s about getting a dashboard that shows data. Besides, it also follows an information architecture useful for our purposes.

We recommend creating three views to get started:

• Master: In this view, no filters will be put. This is because we will use it as if it were a backup copy. This, in case you make a mistake in any filter configuration and you lose data.

Remember that filters are not retroactive. Also, you won’t recover anything you filter.

• Job: Here is where you will apply filters, alerts, or whatever you want to do. Besides writing any changes or modifications you make to the project.

• Tests: Here, you won’t test any filter before implementing it in the work view. Thus we will avoid losing data because of errors.

Remember that it’s very important to be clear about the aim or objectives. These can be what you want to analyze and what specific data you have to achieve the success of the project.

Otherwise, you will waste time and resources that can be key to the future of the business.

Also, it’s important at this point to remember that the “view filter” isn’t the same as the “report filter”. We will explain this last concept later.

Include the Analytics tracking code on the website

When you include the Google Analytics tracking code, the system itself shows two options. These are, do it yourself or send it to the professional who develops the web.

You can find this code in the account ownership section. For this, you need to click on tracking information and then on tracking code.

As it’s about developing your own project, we’ll focus on explaining how you should include this element.

On the Google Analytics page itself, Google offers instructions on where to place it. This means inside the head tag (<head> </head>), which is a tag to mark the header space.

By placing it at this specific point, you avoid having to repeat this step on all the pages of the site. This is because, in most cases, the header is unique for the entire web.

This way, you will have to find the header.php file of the site, locate the closing tag, and continue going to the Administration menu.

Once here, click on the option “Tracking information” and then on “Tracking code”.

The only modifications that we need to make are to:

1. Identify our account and that it shows the visit data in the dashboard
2. Enable demographic data of interest and enhanced link attribution that we selected in the previous step.

Activation of demographic reports in the Google Analytics interface

By activating this part of analytics, you can get data that will allow you to know a little more about the visitors. It will show the age and gender ranges of the users who come to the website.

Then, this data gets sorted into groups as it does for Display ads. Here, we can see which age or gender segment it becomes, more or less.

Once you’re done implementing the tracking code, you just have to validate it.

This is a straightforward process and is the last step before starting your data analysis.

To check that you have inserted the code correctly, just go to the Audience section of the Google. This is Analytics account> “Demographic data” > “Overview” and click “Enable”.

Once you have completed all these steps, end the process.

Activation of the Search option on the Site

A great source of information on any website is the searches made by visitors on the website itself. This option is very easy to configure and people often left it un-activated.

To activate this option, you just have to go to the settings of any view. There, activate the tab “Site search settings”. Next, it will ask for a search parameter. This is the character that appears in the search results URL of your website. It’s usually between the symbols ’? or & and the = ‘.

For example:

• WordPress is usually one (s)
• Prestashop is usually the words (search_query)
• Magento we can find a (q)

Remember that if you activate the option, you will have first-hand information about what users are looking for on the website and cannot find. Imagine how easy it would be once you have that data. This can mean knowing the needs of users.

If it’s a blog, you can write about the topics you are looking for. On the other hand, if it’s an online store, you can try to get and include the demanded products in your stock. All you have to do is go to the reports, click on behavior, site searches, and overview. Thus, you will already have the data your visitors are looking for.

At what point will Google Analytics show the first data from the online project?

Given the internal functioning of Google, after this first configuration, it will be necessary to wait a while to visualize the resulting data.

It’s highly unlikely that the process will take more than a few minutes.

On the other hand, you can check the correct installation of the Analytics code if you go to the menu and use the Real-Time option. Once there, if you access your Site, the visits will appear if you have correctly configured the code.

Be careful if you have implemented it with a plugin. This is because many of them exclude visits if they are blocked as administrators. Besides, sometimes we forget about them, thinking it doesn’t work. So, what’s happening is that we are telling it to not take us into account.

Next, you must prepare something to create custom dashboards optimized for each of the KPI’s. Then, you will create objectives that measure these KPIs. Without a doubt, this is something that will mark the success of the analysis of a website.

With these small modifications or implementations, you can start using our google analytics account to monitor, analyze the data of our visitors and learn to improve the web and SEO positioning.

Why? Because the data collected and how you see it’s a basic analytics setup.

Google Analytics view configuration recommendations

Create Custom Alerts

It’s a good option to create custom alerts in Analytics. To create them, go to the Settings of the view. Once there, click on Custom Alerts.

With them, when something happens that breaks the instruction that we show in the rule, it will automatically notify us by mail. Now, we’ll put some examples of alerts you can create:

• Organic traffic decreases + 10% daily / weekly / monthly
• Increase organic traffic + 10% daily / weekly / monthly
• You have received no visits
• And more.

Once you click New Alert, the screen will open with the options to start working. The first thing will be to create a name that is clear and identifiable. This is because it will allow us to know what has caused the alert. For example:

“Increase 10% weekly Organic traffic” This name would suit us if what is being measured is an increase of over 10% from one week to the previous one.

Show the alert’s view

Next, you must select to what view you will apply the alert. By default, the one we are currently working on will appear. However, it gives us the option of applying the new alert to any view in which we have permissions.

Now you must select the comparison period. This can be daily, weekly, or monthly to your liking or need. Also, don’t forget to check the box to activate the sending of the email. This is because it can activate all the emails we need.

Select below the conditions you want to apply in the alert. This so that when they are met the notice will arrive by email.

Different dimensions or metrics can be varied according to needs. You can select different dimensions (Country, Source, and Medium) and metrics (Sessions, Users, Goals).

Then, the condition to be met, and the value for the alert to be met will be shown. Finally, click to save. There! You have the first alert.

It can be, for example:

• The first is to monitor the possible decline in organic traffic from one week to the next.
• The other is also important. Why? Because it helps us to notify us if it doesn’t register any session during a day. So, this can warn us of problems on the website.

Conclusion

Google Analytics is a tool that you can never waste. Besides, you must take into account if you manage social media, web pages, or blogs.

Creating an account is quite simple and free, so don’t wait any longer and register. Start keeping track of the statistics of your fans or users who visit you! With the help of the metrics, you will know where to improve.

As an agency specialized in Digital Marketing, we love to teach our users the new statistics management options that you can implement.

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