Among lots of Google Analytics plugins for WordPress, Google Analytics by Yoast is a very popular and widely used plugin. This simple but feature-rich plugin lets you retrieve information from your Google Analytics account in a convenient way and provides access to all the relevant features right from your dashboard.
In today’s article, I will show you how to install and set up the Google Analytics by Yoast WordPress plugin.
Installing the Plugin
First of all, download and install the Google Analytics by Yoast from WordPress plugin repository. Once you activate it, you will find a new menu item titled ‘Analytics’ in your website dashboard along with a notice like this:
Connecting the Google Analytics Account
Before using the plugin, you need to set up some basic things. To do that, click the ‘Google Analytics settings’, or go to Analytics > Settings from your website dashboard. From this page, you will be able to connect your Google account with the plugin. However, you need to sign up with Google Analytics to use this feature. Signing up is free and only takes a minute. Click the ‘Authenticate with your Google account’ button.
This will open a new window asking you whether you want to allow Google Analytics by Yoast to access your Google Analytics data:
Click ‘Accept’. In the next screen, you will be provided with a code. Copy the code and close the pop-up window. Paste the copied code into the ‘Paste your Google code here’ field. Then, click ‘Save authentication code’.
General Settings
At this point, you need to select a profile. To do that, click the ‘Analytics profile’ drop-down menu and select your website.
Check the ‘Track outbound click and downloads’ and ‘Allow tracking of anonymous data’ boxes. You will also find some other options in the page. If you want to hide the IP addresses, check the ‘Anonymize IPs’ box. The ‘Ignore users’ field allows you to specify the types of users whose activities will be excluded from the report. Lastly, ‘Disable analytics dashboard’ lets you stop the plugin from fetching analytics data. After making the necessary changes, click ‘Save changes’.
Universal Settings
Next, go to the ‘Universal’ tab. The first option of this section allows you to enable universal tracking. For this feature to work, you need to switch your Google Analytics account to Universal Analytics. Yoast has a helpful tutorial for that process.
Google Analytics by Yoast also allows you to view your analytics data sorted by demographics and interests. To do that, log in to your Google Analytics account. Go to the Reporting tab. Then, go to Audience > Demographics > Overview. Click the ‘Enable’ button. Then, get back to your website dashboard and go to Analytics > Settings. Check the ‘Enable Demographics and Interest Reports’ and you are done. After making the changes, click ‘Save changes’.
Advanced Settings
Now, go to the ‘Advanced’ tab. As the name suggests, you will find all the advanced level options in this section. Let me introduce you to some of the useful options here. First of all, you can track downloads as either Event or Pageview. Then you will find a separate field to specify the file extensions for downloads. The next few options will let you define how you want to define and track your outbound links. Don’t forget to click the ‘Save changes’ button after making the changes.
Final Words
Being a very dynamic plugin, Google Analytics by Yoast comes with lots of options to configure. As this article was intended for the beginners, I tried to keep the discussion short. However, if you are still confused about anything, feel free to leave a comment below.
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