Google Analytics - Setup Overview

These instructions are a guide on how to setup Google Analytics 4 on a new website.

 

Getting Started

 

https://analytics.google.com/

Login with your Google Account.

 

Press the Gear/Admin icon

 

Press Create Account:

 

 

You will be guided through a multi-step setup process:

 

  1. Account Setup - where you describe your domain name.
  2. Property Setup - where you describe a "property" that you are collecting data from.
  3. About Your Business - where you answer some demographic questions about your business.
  4. Terms of Service - accept.

 

After going through these preliminary steps the process becomes more focused on how to setup Analytics for your website.

 

 

Setup Process Steps

 

  1. Account Setup

Enter account name - domain name without punctuation characters is suggested.

 

Choose Account Sharing Options - recommended selections:

  • Modelling contributions & Business Insights
  • Technical Support
  • Account Specialists

Press NEXT.

 

 

 

  1. Property Setup

 

Property name - domain name without punctuation characters is suggested.

Select time zone and currency.

 

 

Press Next.

 

  1. About Your Business

Fill out the form and press the Create button.

 

 

Accept the Terms of Service:

You will then be taken to the Data Collection Setup process.

 

 

Data Collection Setup Process

 

Choose WEB

 

Set up data stream

A data stream is a source of activity data from part of your site.  For example, if you have a website, and an Android and IOS app, you have the ability to setup a data collection stream for each of these.  Our focus is just on the website.

 

On the page that appears, enter website URL and Stream Name.  For stream name we'd suggest a name such as DomainName-WebSite. 

 

 

Press Create Stream.

 

Installation Instructions

At this stage Google Analytics will generate a set of Javascript code that will be installed on your site. A window will appear showing  this code which will be installed on your site a few steps from now.

 

The installation instructions appear:

 

 

Click the Copy icon to make a copy of the highlighted code.

Save this code exactly as shown.

 

This Google Analytics code (with a different value for the highlighted item in yellow):

 

<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->

<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-P38CZ352XK"></script>

<script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];

function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}

gtag('js', new Date());

gtag('config', 'G-P38CZ352XK');

 </script>

 

will be installed on your site using Back Office / Settings in your website.  Note the highlighted code

G-P38CZ352XK will be different when you create your own Google Analytics account.

 

Close the installation instructions pop-up.

 

Initial Google Analytics Setup Confirmation Appears

 

A window will appear titled "Web stream details".

Note the highlighted ID above.  This identifies your setup for Google Analytics.

Initially you will see a message on this page:

that indicates Analytics data collection has not started yet.  This is because you need to take the code Google Analytics provided and install it on your web site.

 

Install Google Analytics Code on Your MarketGrabber Website.

 

Now comes the easy part!  You will be "pasting" the Google Analytics Code into a data entry form on your web site.

 

Login to the back office of your website, click on the Settings icon, click on settings for the edition you use (Employment in this Example), click on the Make Changes button at the bottom of the form.

 

 

Paste in the code Google provided into the box labelled HTML Header Code for All Pages and press the Save Changes button.

You have successfully installed Google Analytics Code on your MarketGrabber website.

If you go to your website and "view source" in your browser, you will see this code on all public pages of the site.

 

Before performing the next step, go to your website and click around on a few pages.

 

Return to Google Analytics to Check that it is Receiving Data from Your Site

 

Go to the analytics home page and you should see a message "Your website's data collection is active".  This should typically happen in under an hour.

 

 

At this point Google Analytics is capturing data from your website.  It may take up to 24 hours for your first Analytics data to start appearing in the different Google Analytics reports.

 

To see Google Analytics reports click on the Reporting icon:

 

Congratulations!  You've complete your setup of Google Analytics and installing it on your site.

 

From this point forward, you can use Google's extensive online documentation to view reports and understand the reports in more detail.