Google Analytics is a powerful, free tool that you can use to monitor the traffic that your web site is getting.
While there are a variety of traffic tools available, I have had no complaints about Google Analytics and recommend it for store traffic sites.
With Google Analytics, you can see:
- How many visitors your site is getting
- Where visitors are coming from
- How much traffic individual pages are getting
- How many people are leaving your site
- Various other interesting statistics
Setting up Google Analytics
- Visit Google Analytics
- If you don’t have one, you will need to create a Google account as well.
- Select "Add Website Profile"
- This will take you to the Create New Website Profile page
- Make sure "Add a Profile for a new domain is selected.
- Enter the URL for your website
- e.g. www.yoursite.com
- Select Finish
- This will take you to a page with a tracking code.
- Copy the displayed tracking code
- To do this:
- Click in the Tracking Code box
- The code should highlight automatically
- Select "Edit" → "Copy" from the file menu.
- Place the tracking code on your site
- • For Atahualpa Theme Users
- Log into WordPress
- Select "Appearance" → "Atahualpa Theme Options"
- Select "HTML/CSS Inserts" from under the Atahualpa Theme Options header
- Scroll down to the HTML Inserts: Body Bottom box
- Paste the tracking code into the box
- Click in the box
- Select "Edit" → "Paste" from the file menu
- Save your changes
- Select "Save Changes" from the bottom of the page
- Make your site send information to Google Analytics
- Load your website now that tracking is installed.
- In Google Analytics, select "Finish"
- This will return to your list of tracked sites
- You should see your site with a yellow triangle denoting that tracking is not installed.
- Select "Edit" next to your sites listing
- This will take you to the sites profile
- Select "Check Status"
- This should be to the top right of the displayed table
- It should now list your tracking status as "Waiting for Data"
- If not, load your page again and then come back and select check status again.
- Wait a day or two and you can start viewing your traffic stats
