As you probably know Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. Its flexible and easy-to-use features let you see and analyze your traffic data and marketing effectiveness. Sounds good, right ? But here comes the question ” How to install it ? “.

This article is a short guide that will help you to insert the Google Analytics code in your WordPress blog in a few steps.

1. The first thing you have to do get the Google Analytics code. To do this just visit the following site: http://www.google.com/analytics and create a Google account  (if you don’t have one) .

2. Now sign in. If this is your first visit to Google Analytics then most likely you will be prompted to enter the information for the website you want to track.

3. Enter your names, phone number and choose your country.

4. Finally you have to agree with the Google’s terms of service.

5. The nex thing you will see is the Tracking code. Now just copy that code.

6. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard (admin panel) and go to Appearance > Editor .

7. From the sidebar open the file  footer.php

8. Paste your Google Analytics code into your footer.php file just above the ending body tag and click Update.

ga-footer

Now go back to the Google Analytics site and click Continue. That will take you to your acount overview. Dont worry if you can see any statistics for your website. Google Analytics generally updates your reports every 24 hours. This means that it could take 24 hours for data to appear in your account after you have first installed the tracking code.

If the Tracking Status shows a warning icon, “Tracking status unknown,” then probably the system hasn’t yet detected the code. But if everything is OK you would see something like on the picture below:

ga-overvew

Here is a very useful video: