How to Get Started with Google Analytics for your Domain in 2023

Last updated on January 17th, 2023 by Melinda Bartley

How to set up Google Analytics on your domain

Do you want to easily set up Google Analytics for your domain to start tracking its data and performance?

If you want to grow your website or online business, you absolutely need Google Analytics. It’s one of the first things you should set up when you launch your website.

In this guide, we’ll show you the easiest way to get Google Analytics set up on your site so you can start tracking it right away.

Why You Need Google Analytics

Understanding your website visitors is the key to growing your traffic, subscribers, and revenue. By installing Google Analytics on your WordPress site, you can gather all your website data, which provides actionable insights to grow your business. That way, you can eliminate guesswork and start making informed decisions based on the data you’ve gathered.

You can collect and track visitor information such as:

Geographical location
Demographics
Interests
Devices and browsers
Shopping behavior
Product performance
Sales performance
Sources/mediums of traffic
Insights on page speed and links

There’s a lot you can do with this data to improve your website’s design, marketing campaigns, blog strategy, and so on.

Before you get started, there are a few important things about Google Analytics that we need to point out.

What You Need to Know About the New Google Analytics

Google Analytics recently launched a new version of its platform called Google Analytics 4 (GA4). The previous version was called Universal Analytics (UA) and will be discontinued in July 2023.

If you’re already using Universal Analytics, you’ve likely seen this warning in your dashboard:

“Universal Analytics will no longer process new data in standard properties beginning July 1, 2023. Prepare now by setting up and switching over to a Google Analytics 4 property.”

If you’re just getting started, you can set up the new version directly. Here’s what the dashboard looks like:

Google Analytics 4 is more advanced and user-oriented so you can expect advanced tracking. Here’s what makes GA4 stand out:

Gives you deeper insights into customer journey across platforms and devices
Uses machine learning to make the platform more intelligent
Tracks data that’s more durable for the future
Seamlessly integrates with Google’s advertising platform
Makes it easy to optimize campaigns to get a better ROI

Now to set up Google Analytics, you need to sign up for an account and get a tracking ID that they give you.

You need to add this tracking ID along with a code snippet to your website. This process needs a fair amount of technical knowledge. So many domain owners tend to give up easily and hire someone to do it for them.

But we’re here to tell you that there’s a really easy way to set up Google Analytics and connect your domain to it without touching any code whatsoever.

Follow the steps below and you’ll be all set in just a few minutes.

How to Set Up Google Analytics on my Domain

Since WordPress is the most used platform in the world, we’ll keep the steps in this tutorial for WordPress sites.

If you haven’t set up your website yet, we recommend using WordPress to build it. It’s free, comes with unlimited customizations, and is scalable. Learn more: Why Use WordPress.

That said, let’s get started with the tutorial.

Step 1: Sign Up for a Google Analytics Account

Google Analytics is free for everyone to use. All you have to do is visit the Google Analytics website and create an account.

Next, you’ll be asked to sign in with your Google Analytics account or sign up for a new Google Account.

Once you log in, you’ll see an option the ‘Start measuring’. When you click on this button, a new page will open where you can start setting up Google Analytics.

On the new page, you need to enter the settings for your domain that you want to track. First, select the Website option.

Below that, you can give you account a name and make sure to check all the boxes in the Account Data Sharing Settings section.

After that, you need to fill in the details of your online property. This includes the name, currency, and reporting time zone.

Now Google will give you 2 options to choose from:

Set up a GA4 property (recommended option)
Set up both GA4 and UA at the same time

Keep in mind, after July 2023, these options will change as you won’t be allowed to set up Universal Analytics.

So we’ll choose ‘Set up a GA4 property’ here. You’ll need to fill in more business information. Once you’ve entered all the details, scroll down and click Create.

A popup will appear to accept the Google Analytics Terms of Service. Check the box and click “I Accept”.

Now you’ll need to create a data web stream. Since you’re setting this up for a WordPress website here, click the Web button.

Now you need to fill in your website’s URL and name.

Finally, you need to click on the ‘Create stream’ button and you’re done here. Now you need to connect your domain to this Google Analytics account.

Step 2: Connect Domain to Google Analytics

We mentioned earlier that connecting your domain to Google Analytics can be quite technical. You need to know how to locate and edit your website’s theme. Then you need to paste a code snippet inside the header.

We don’t recommend doing this simply because the smallest mistake can lead to a broken website. Why take the risk when there’s an easier way to do this?

Meet MonsterInsights.

MonsterInsights is hands down the best analytics plugin for WordPress. It lets you easily connect your site to Google Analytics by clicking a few buttons. There’s zero coding involved.

This makes MonsterInsights the most beginner-friendly solution to set up GA4 on your WordPress site. There’s a free version of this plugin in the WordPress repository but you may also want to check out its pro version. It has some really cool tracking features that are so helpful to your site.

For instance, you can add:

Form tracking
Event tracking
eCommerce tracking
Custom dimensions
Social media tracking
Outbound link tracking

All of this can be done with a few clicks.

To get started, you’ll need to sign up for a MonsterInsights account. Then inside your account, you can download the plugin file which you’ll need to install on your WordPress site.

In your WordPress admin panel, navigate to Plugins » Add New and click the Upload Plugin button at the top.

Now you can choose the MonsterInsights zip file you downloaded. Upload and activate the plugin on your site.

Once done, MonsterInsights launches the setup wizard for you. This will guide you through the steps needed to connect to Google Analytics.

On the welcome page, you’ll get options to choose the category of your website:

Business website
Publisher (Blog)
eCommerce

You need to choose one that best describes your site and continue to the next step.

You’ll need to connect MonsterInsights plugin to your website using the MonsterInsights license key.

In your MonsterInsights account or in the email receipt of your purchase, you’ll find your this key.

Simply copy and paste it in the setup wizard when you’re asked.

Then click on the ‘Connect MonsterInsights’ button and it will verify your account and link it to your site.

Now you’re ready to connect your domain to your Google Analytics account.

On the next page, you’ll see an option to connect your Google Analytics with your MonsterInsights account. Choose your account and then grant MonsterInsights the permissions it needs.

Next, you’ll need to pick a profile to complete the connection. In case you have multiple websites connected to your Google Analytics account, select the right website property here.

Now select your profile and click the ‘Complete Connection’ button.

MonsterInsights will authenticate the connection and when it’s done, it will redirect you back to your MonsterInsights setup page.

That’s it. Your website is now connected to Google Analytics.

It’s really that easy with MonsterInsights. You don’t have to use any coding. Now the best part is that all your data is collected from Google Analytics and displayed in neat reports right inside your WordPress dashboard.

This means you don’t have to leave your site or have two tabs open to track your website.

Up next, we’ll give you a few more tips on using MonsterInsights.

Step 3: Using MonsterInsights the Right Way

With MonsterInsights, you can set up all sorts of custom reports and settings for your domain

When you connect your site to Google Analytics, the plugin will display recommended settings that you can choose to add to your site.

These reports are enabled by default:

Events tracking
Enhanced Link Attribution
File Download Tracking

Below this, there are more settings for tracking info that you can configure:

These settings include:

Affiliate Link Tracking – Two affiliate link paths are added by default, and you can add more affiliate link paths
Access to MonsterInsights Reports – Choose who can see the MonsterInsights reports within the plugin
Automatic Plugin Updates – Enable or disable the option to install updates automatically

Once you’ve selected the settings you want, you can save and continue to the next page.

Here, you’ll see more tracking options, addons, and helpful plugins.

Standard Analytics & Reports – The standard MonsterInsights reports you’ll get in your WordPress dashboard
Enhanced Link Attribution – This can help you see where users are clicking on your site
20+ Advanced Tracking – Even more advanced tracking, such as author tracking, form conversion tracking, scroll tracking, and more
All in One SEO Toolkit – The best WordPress SEO plugin that integrates with MonsterInsights
eCommerce Tracking – Instantly enable Enhanced eCommerce tracking
Advanced Growth Tools – Get access to our campaign URL builder, popular posts addon, and A/B testing integration
Privacy Compliance Addon – Helps Google Analytics become compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and more
Advanced Reports – Get access to advanced reports inside MonsterInsights, such as a real-time report, search keywords, publishers and eCommerce reports, and more
Smart Form Builder by WPForms – The most popular WordPress form builder plugin

After you choose the settings and reports that you want, you’ll see a message ‘Awesome, You’re All Set!’

You can finish and exit the wizard. That’s it! You’re ready to track and improve the performance of your domain.

Up next, we think you’ll find these guides helpful:

These posts will help you tighten up your domain security and also get started with marketing your website.

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