WordPress Google Analytics Plugin by Yoast

August 23, 2012 | Written by Ed Andrea

Are you wondering which words attract visitors to your site? Do you want to know why people might be leaving the site? Google Analytics is the first choice, and most popular answer, for these questions.

The biggest stumbling block in the beginning is figuring out how to do the integration and where to place the code that Google Analytics needs. The Google Analytics plugin by Yoast is an easy solution and involves no messing around with the code. Here's how to use the Google Analytics plugin:

Step 1: Set up your Google Analytics account

Go to http://www.google.com/analytics/.
Login or, if you don't have a Google Account, create one.
Login to Google Analytics and you'll see the administration page and you click on the Admin link at the top right of the page.
Fill out the Name and the exact URL you want to follow.
Agree to the terms and save.

The next page will show you the Tracking ID and some code you can embed in a page. You don't need to write these down because a WordPress plugin will take of that for us.

Step 2: Install the Google Analytics plugin

Go to Plugins > Add New.
Search for Google Analytics.
Click install to install the plugin.
Activate the plugin.
Access it from Settings > Google Analytics.

After you've installed the plugin, you'll see a warning, which will go away after you complete the process.
Cick "Click here to authenticate with Google".
You'll be sent to Google to verify the account you used in Step 1.

Step 3: Grant access to Google

Grant Access to Google Analytics.

You will be returned to WordPress after granting access.
Choose the profile you created in

Click Update Google Analytics Settings.

You may run into a little frustration at this point. I found that it takes a little while for everything to get communicated and clicking that button didn't work consistently.

As an alternative you may need to click on "Manually enter your UA code" and type in the code you were issued.

If it has worked correctly, the warning message will no longer appear. If you still see it, try again or switch to the manual method.

Success

Check the source on your homepage. Success is seeing the Google code automatically inserted for you.

Comments

#1 Chad Warner 2012-08-10 20:03

I check the "Show advanced settings" checkbox, then in the Advanced Settings box, I set "Ignore users". This prevents Analytics from tracking logged-in users, which can skew results.

For traditional public websites (non-membership sites), I set "Ignore users" to "Subscriber (ignores all logged-in users".

#2 steve 2012-08-10 20:12

Nice tip, thanks Chad.

#3 davib 2012-08-29 14:17

Well I would say that inserting the tracking code is not the hard part. How does it looks once installed? What stats does it gives you?
I love YOAST SEO Plugin, but I'm not to sold on this, seams like a lot of hassle to have it working. I personally prefer: Google Analytics Dashboard by Carson McDonald... if you want a plugin for that!

#4 MardeeT 2012-11-20 19:30

I can't get this plugin to work with Google 2-Step Authentication. There are errors trying to grant access for this plugin to my google account?

#5 Laura V 2013-01-12 19:57

When I try to grant access, it returns to Wordpress and tells me "Unfortunately, an error occurred while connecting to Google, please try again" and gives me a button to "Re-authenticat e with Google". Which if press results in the same scenario.
I am a complete online rookie and have no idea what could be causing this: this is a brand new website, and the only plugins I have are this one and Wordpress SEO (also by Yoast).
I am not sure if it matters, but it is a website without the www, which as per Yoast's SEO tutorial I removed in Webmaster tools and the Google Analytics profile is set-up without www as well.

Can anyone please help? I would love to use this plugin

#6 Enis 2013-01-16 21:56

@ Laura V,

In Yoast plugin page on your WP admin site, tick the box "manually add tracking code"

And than paste your Google Analytics tracking code in to the field and Update Settings.

Note: If you also activate "ignore users" option in advanced settings section in Yoast Plugin's setting page, and choose "administrator" , which is you as an admin of your Wp website, you wont be able to see the google analytics code in your html code when you want to check if the analytics code is attached. The reasson for this is because you are telling to plugin to ignore you..

But if you check your html code with a browser which you are not logged in as a wp admin you should be able to see the google analytics code added in your html raw codes.

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