Good question to ask if you really want to know your site visit statistics! This is a great topic to cover if you are relying on site traffic from organic searches and the results of your online marketing efforts. As a business owner and a website user, it’s really important that you or someone else monitor your site traffic so you know if you’re getting the visibility you desire. The more traffic you have, chances are you’ll be able to convert visitors to clients or customers. And how do you track your site traffic? Easy! Use Google Analytics to monitor and analyze your traffic data for you! If you do not already have an account, as long as you have a Google account, all you have to do is activate the Google Analytics section and set up your website URL.
But that is just half the task. You will need to connect your Google Analytics account to your website so it can start tracking traffic. Well good news! If you have a WordPress site, there are two great plugins that I use to do all the hard work for me. Here are the details for each plugin:
GA Google Analytics, by Jeff Star
The GA Google Analytics plugin is a lightweight plugin that inserts your required GA tracking code (you can quickly find this in your Google Analytics account once you set up your site URL). And that’s all there is to it! If you want to view your site stats, you can access your Google Analytics account at this URL: https://analytics.google.com/. I would recommend saving this in your site bookmarks for easy access.
Some additional features of this plugin:
- Regularly updated and “future proof”
- Stays current with the latest tracking code
- Includes tracking code in header or footer
- Includes tracking code on all WordPress web pages
- Includes option to add your own custom markup
- Sleek plugin Settings page with toggling panels
- Option to disable tracking of admin-level users
- Option to enable page tracking in the Admin Area
- Easy to customize the tracking code
However, if you’re looking for a simple and real-time dashboard view of your stats right inside your website, I highly recommend the second plugin below.
Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress by MonsterInsights
With the Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress, it adds a dashboard feature right into your WordPress site, so you can see all the useful information about your visitors right inside your WordPress dashboard itself. It has so many features I could not list them all here. The dashboard feature is my favorite because when I’m looking at the stats, I can see it right above my blog activity. If you’re blogging each day like I have been these past few days, you should be able to see your stats going up because you have not only blogged, but you’ve shared it in your social media platforms. This is a good example of where you can pinpoint where your traffic is coming from, whether it be a blog post or an email campaign you have sent out. It’s good to manage these statistics because it measures your traffic and conversions.
Here’s a screenshot of what your dashboard would look like (Note: this is a new install on a test site, so no stats yet):
If you don’t have these plugins installed on your WordPress site, I encourage you to do so as soon as possible. And if you need help setting up your Google Analytics account and setting up the plugins and tracking your traffic, I can help you with this. Shoot me an email or schedule a time on my calendar. Happy to help!
Until tomorrow…Day 11 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge!
Please keep in mind that I may receive commissions when you click my links and make purchases. However, this does not impact my reviews and comparisons. I try my best to keep things fair and balanced, in order to help you make the best choice for you.
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