Tag: google analytics

How to Track User Engagement in WordPress with Google Analytics
Are you properly tracking user engagement on your WordPress site?

User engagement is one of the most important metrics to track because it helps you better understand your audience and what they want. With Google Analytics, you can easily see how people interact with your website.

In this article, we will show you how to track user engagement in WordPress with Google Analytics.

Why Track User Engagement With Google Analytics?

Generally, WordPress website owners consider traffic and pageviews to be the most important indicators of their website’s performance. They assume that higher traffic will result in more conversions and sales.

While that is generally true, you can get even better results by tracking and optimizing user engagement.

User engagement shows you what users do when they arrive on your website. It helps you identify patterns of highly engaged user behavior that lead to more conversions and sales.

For example, you may realize that users visiting a specific page are 10X more likely to make a purchase than any other visitor on your website. You can use this insight to redirect the user’s attention to that page.

Similarly, tracking engagement can help you see which affiliate links or banner ads your visitors are clicking. Using this data, you will be able to optimize your content to get more clicks and boost conversions.

That said, let’s see how you can set up user engagement tracking in WordPress using Google Analytics.

Tracking User Engagement in WordPress Using Google Analytics

The best way to set up user engagement tracking in WordPress is by using MonsterInsights. It’s the best analytics plugin for WordPress that helps you configure Google Analytics without writing code.

MonsterInsights automatically sets up outbound link tracking, form conversion tracking, scroll depth, affiliate link clicks, and other advanced tracking features in Google Analytics out of the box.

It automates the process of pasting different analytics codes and event tracking in WordPress, so you don’t have to deal with the hassle of code and configuration.

For this tutorial, we will use the MonsterInsights Pro version because it includes advanced tracking features and more dashboard reports. However, there is also a MonsterInsights Lite version that you can use for free and get started with user engagement tracking.

First, you will need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you will see the MonsterInsights welcome screen. Go ahead and click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button. You can then follow the setup wizard to get everything ready in minutes.

For more details, please see our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Now that you have Google Analytics with MonsterInsights ready to go, let’s take a look at what user engagement metrics are best to track and how you can track them.

These aren’t all of the metrics you can track with MonsterInsights and Google Analytics, but they are the most important ones to start with. You can click the links below to jump ahead to any section:
1. Tracking Your Most Popular Content

The first thing you want to figure out is which posts and pages on your WordPress blog are popular amongst your users. These important pages and posts on your website get the most traffic.

Figuring out what your users like on your site can help you plan a content strategy that expands on what’s already working.

MonsterInsights makes it really simple. You just need to visit the Insights Â» Reports page in your WordPress admin area and go to the ‘Overview’ report.

After that, you can scroll down to see other reports with different data.

You will find your most popular content in the ‘Top Posts/Pages’ section.

On most websites, 90% of the traffic goes to 10% of the top pages and posts.

Once you find these top pages, you can optimize them for maximum conversions by adding content upgrades or targeted lead magnets on these posts.

2. Tracking How Users Engage With Forms on Your Website

Most websites rely on contact forms to collect user leads and feedback. Sadly, most WordPress contact form plugins don’t give you accurate tracking and conversion data.

MonsterInsights lets you leverage the events tracking feature in Google Analytics to see how many times your forms are viewed and submitted.

To enable form tracking, you need to visit the Insights Â» Addons page. On this page, you will need to install and activate the Forms addon.

Once you have activated the addon, MonsterInsights will automatically start tracking all forms on your website.

It works with popular contact forms plugins like WPForms, Formidable Forms, and others. MonsterInsights also tracks your website comment forms, user registration forms, and more.

You can check these settings by going to Insights Â» Settings in your WordPress dashboard and then clicking on the ‘Conversions’ tab.

Next, MonsterInsights shows the performance of your WordPress forms inside your dashboard.

Simply go to Insights Â» Reports from the admin panel and click on the ‘Forms’ tab. The report shows the number of impressions and conversions, as well as the conversion rate for your different WordPress forms.

For more details, please see our guide on how to track form conversions in WordPress.

3. Tracking eCommerce Store Performance in Google Analytics

Google Analytics offers many features specifically for eCommerce websites. However, these features are not turned on by default in Google Analytics, and most users don’t even know that they exist.

eCommerce tracking lets you see shopping behavior, checkout behavior, product performance, sales performance, and so much more. The best part is that you can combine this data with your overall website traffic to gather better insights.

With MonsterInsights, you can easily set up Enhanced eCommerce on your website without editing code. It seamlessly works with popular plugins like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, GiveWP, MemberPress, and more.

You can see our guide on how to set up eCommerce tracking in WordPress for more information.

Once you have configured tracking, you can head to Insights Â» Reports from your WordPress admin menu and click on the ‘eCommerce’ report and select ‘Overview’.

Using the report, you can quickly see how your online store is performing.

It shows stats like conversion rate, number of transactions, revenue, and average order value. It also helps identify products that users engage with the most and where they are coming from.

MonsterInsights also lets you track coupons in your online store.

You can go to eCommerce Â» Coupons in MonsterInsights reports to view the report.

You can also view the eCommerce report in your Google Analytics property.

Simply visit your Google Analytics account and go to Reports Â» Monetization Â» Ecommerce purchases.

You may also want to see our guide on how to set up WooCommerce conversion tracking.

4. Tracking Who’s Clicking on Your AdSense Ads

Many websites rely on ads to make money online while creating useful content. With Google Analytics, you can actually see how users interact with ads on your site.

For instance, you will be able to track how many clicks each ad is receiving, discover which ads your audience is ignoring, identify the most effective ad placements, and more.

First, you need to sign up for a Google AdSense account and integrate it with your website. You can follow our guide on how to add Google AdSense to your WordPress site.

Next, you can link your Google Analytics account with Google AdSense. To do this, log in to your AdSense account and head to Account Â» Account and Authorization Â» Google Analytics Integration from the menu on your left.

From here, you can click the ‘+ New link’ button and select your Google Analytics property.

Once your accounts are connected, you can visit Google Analytics to view the reports.

To view your AdSense reports, go to your Google Analytics 4 account and visit Monetization Â» Publisher Ads.

If you have a Universal Analytics property, then you can view the data by going to the Behavior Â» Publisher page.

Note: Universal Analytics is no longer collecting your website data. However, you can still access its reports and view old data.

5. Tracking How Far People Scroll Your Website

When tracking user engagement in WordPress, it’s also important to see how far visitors scroll your website.

It gives you insights into how people use your site and helps improve your page length. Plus, you can use the data to place your AdSense ads, call-to-action buttons, and affiliate links where they will get the most visibility and conversions.

MonsterInsights automatically enables scroll-depth tracking. You can view the report by going to Insights Â» Reports from the WordPress admin panel and clicking the Publishers Â» Overview tabs.

Next, scroll down and view the ‘Scroll’ report.

It will show the average scroll depth percentage. MonsterInsights will trigger events in Google Analytics 4 as users scroll 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of a page and compute the percentage from those results.

6. Tracking Your Affiliate Links in Google Analytics

Most marketers use affiliate plugins to manage and cloak affiliate links. This makes your affiliate links look more user-friendly.

Here is an example of a cloaked affiliate link:

https://example.com/recommends/product-name/

MonsterInsights allows you to track affiliate links in Google Analytics. This data helps you figure out which affiliate products are doing well, which pages are generating more affiliate revenue, and more.

To enable affiliate link tracking, you need to visit the Insights Â» Settings page. Next, you can switch to the ‘Publisher’ tab and head to the Affiliate Links section.

First, you need to enter the prefix for your link under the Path field, like ‘/refer/’ or ‘/recommend/.’ After that, you must provide a Label that you would like to use for those links in your Google Analytics reports.

When you are done, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Next, you can view your top affiliate link clicks in MonsterInsights reports. Simply head to the Publishers tab and scroll down to the ‘Top Affiliate Links’ section.

Here, you will see which affiliate links are getting the most clicks so that you can promote them more on your site and boost sales.

Additionally, MonsterInsights will also show your Top Outbound Links. These are external links that people click and exit your site. You can use insights from this report to get more backlinks, form partnerships, sign up for affiliate programs, and exchange guest posts.

For more detailed instructions, see our guide on how to track outbound links in WordPress.

7. Tracking Video Engagement in Google Analytics

Do have you videos embedded on your WordPress website? If so, then you can track how people engage with them.

With the MonsterInsights Media addon, you can automatically track YouTube, Vimeo, and other HTML 5 video embeds on your website. The best part is that you don’t have to edit code to set up tracking. The plugin takes care of everything.

You can view the data inside your WordPress dashboard. Simply head to Insights Â» Reports and then click the ‘Media’ tab.

Next, you will see stats about your top videos.

For instance, you can see how many people played the video, the average watch time, the completion rate, and more.

To learn more, please follow our guide on how to track video analytics in WordPress.

8. Tracking Marketing Campaigns in Google Analytics

If you are running different campaigns on your website, then you can track their performance in Google Analytics. This data helps you see which campaigns get the most engagement so that you can replicate them.

To start, you can add UTM parameters to your campaign links. These are special tags that pass additional information to Google Analytics and help differentiate campaign URLs from regular links.

If you are using MonsterInsights, then you can use the URL Builder tool to create links with UTM parameters. Simply head to Insights Â» Tools from your WordPress dashboard and select the ‘URL Builder’ tab.

Next, you can fill in the details of your URL.

For instance, you can add your website link, a campaign source like a newsletter, a campaign medium such as email, a campaign name, and other details.

After entering these details, MonsterInsights will create a custom URL with UTM parameters. It will look something like this:

https://example.com?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_sale

You can simply copy the link and use it in your campaigns.

Once you have added custom links with UTM parameters, MonsterInsights will start to track them in Google Analytics.

You can then view a report inside your WordPress dashboard and see which campaign is generating the most engagement.

Simply head to your MonsterInsights reports and then go to Traffic Â» Campaigns.

Next, you can scroll down to see campaign details.

The report will show the number of sessions, engaged sessions, purchases, conversion rate, and revenue for each campaign.

9. Tracking Bounce Rate in Google Analytics

The bounce rate is the percentage of users who land on your website and decide to leave without going to a second page.

In the latest version of Google Analytics, you won’t find bounce rate as a default metric that’s visible on your reports. This is one of the key differences you will notice between Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Universal Analytics.

You will need to manually add the bounce rate to pages and screens reports in GA4. This can be tricky for beginners, especially for anyone who isn’t familiar with the Google Analytics interface.

However, an easier way to view the bounce rate is by using MonsterInsights. Simply go to Insights Â» Reports from your WordPress admin menu and click on the Publishers Â» Overview tabs. The plugin shows the bounce rate for your important pages.

A higher bounce rate indicates that you were unable to convince the user to visit other pages. Users can leave your website by clicking on the back button in their browser, clicking on an outgoing link, or closing the window.

Every site has a bounce rate. However, higher bounce rates can indicate problems with your website that are affecting user experience and causing low engagement.

To lower the bounce rate, you can speed up your website, improve internal links, ensure that your content meets the search intent, improve the readability of your articles, show popular posts, and more.

For more tips, you can see our guide on how to increase pageviews and reduce the bounce rate in WordPress.

10. Tracking Time Spent on Your Website

Another indicator that shows user engagement is session duration or the amount of time users spend on your site.

If users are abandoning your site without spending enough time to look at it, then something is wrong, and you need to fix it.

In the MonsterInsights Overview report, you can see the average session duration for your website in the past 30 days.

If you are using Google Analytics 4, then you will see a new metric called average engagement time. It tells you the average time your webpage was being focused on by a user.

You can view the report by logging in to your GA4 account and then heading to Reports Â» Engagement Â» Overview.

Using the data, you can better understand your user journey. If the engagement time is low, then you can look into issues like fixing slow site speed, debugging any errors, and making your site’s interface user-friendly.

11. Tracking Pageviews Per Visit With Google Analytics

Pageviews per visit is another excellent indicator of how engaged your users are. A higher number of pageviews per session means that people are visiting multiple landing pages and articles on your site. This helps increase the time users spend on your site and decreases the bounce rate.

In Google Analytics 4, you can view the sessions per user metric based on different traffic sources and see how many pages users view in a single session.

Just head to Reports Â» Acquisition Â» User acquisition from your GA4 property.

This helps you see which traffic channels are converting the best for your website. You can then focus your content marketing efforts on areas that are actually driving results.

Universal Analytics will also show you the total page views for a given period on the Audience Â» Overview page. However, to track engagement, you want to see pageviews per session.

You can also break down page views per session by source and channel.

Simply go to the Acquisition Â» All Traffic Â» Channels page.

As a bonus, you can also use the UserFeedback plugin to find out what your visitors really think about your website.

This is something that analytics can’t track.

UserFeedback, built by the MonsterInsights team, lets you easily create popup widgets to collect real-time feedback about your website.

You can ask questions like what information is missing from your site, why users didn’t buy a product, what type of content they are interested in, and more. This will help you better understand intent and improve engagement. There’s also a free version of UserFeedback that you can try out.

For more details, you can see our guide on how to get quick feedback on your articles in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you track user engagement in WordPress with Google Analytics. You may also want to see how to create an email newsletter the right way and our expert pick of the best SEO plugins and tools to optimize your website for search engines.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Track User Engagement in WordPress with Google Analytics first appeared on WPBeginner.
24.08.2023
How to prepare yourself for Google Analytics 4
A new Google Analytics is coming to town, and it’s time to get ready! This new Analytics will replace the good old Universal Analytics on the 1st of July, 2023. So if you haven’t started with Google Analytics 4 yet, don’t put it off any longer. Because from July on, your Universal Analytics will no longer process any new data. You will have to have your new analytics set up to make sure you keep collecting data! In this post, we’ll tell you more about what you can expect from Google Analytics 4 and how to prepare for it.

Why set up your Google Analytics 4 now?

Good to know: If you have a 360 Universal Analytics property (the paid version of analytics), you will receive a one-time processing extension until the 1st of July, 2024.

A few years ago, Google first mentioned Google Analytics 4. The reason for creating this new type of analytics is the complexity of collecting and analyzing data. People’s online journeys are becoming more intricate (and spread over several platforms or devices). In addition, privacy is becoming increasingly important in how you collect data.

It’s good to know this new property can happily coexist with your current Analytics property. Getting started with Google Analytics 4 doesn’t mean you won’t be able to use your Universal Analytics anymore. This property will continue to function and collect data until the data we mentioned above. But from that date on, you will have to make the switch, so let’s dive into what this new version of Analytics (formerly known as “App + Web”) entails.

As we mentioned, you can use Universal Analytics until July 1, 2023. From that day on, it will no longer process any data. But that doesn’t mean you should wait until that date to create your new Google Analytics 4 property. We strongly advise you to create it now to ensure your property is set up in time. Ideally, you would have set it up months ago. This will also allow you to start collecting data on your new property. The earlier you start, the more historical data you have to give you context when making decisions regarding your website.

What to expect from Google Analytics 4

Google calls this “the next generation of Google Analytics”. On their help center page, they name a few advantages over Universal Analytics:
- It’s durable for the future and privacy-focused
- It uses machine learning to get you insights into customer journeys across platforms and devices
- It has enhanced integrations with Google’s advertising platform to optimize campaign performance
However, it is good to know that this newest version of analytics seems to have been built with data analysts in mind. Where Universal Analytics was a tool for marketers, this new generation seems more difficult for the average user. Ecommerce expert Luke Carthy did an interesting talk on Google Analytics 4 during YoastCon 2023, in which he also explained how to make it work for marketers:

Interested in hearing the rest of what Luke says? Go to Yoast SEO academy and watch his talk on Using GA4 to boost ecommerce conversions. You can find ten more talks by SEO experts we invited to YoastCon there. If you don’t have an account yet, you can sign up for free to watch these videos and check out our other courses!

How to prepare yourself…

There’s no way around it; Universal Analytics is being replaced by Google Analytics 4. Google encourages people to set up this new property (alongside your current one) as soon as possible. So how can you prepare yourself? We’ll discuss setting it up when you’re already using Analytics. But also how to set it up when you’re not using Analytics yet.

When you’re already using Analytics

The very first step is to create a Google Analytics 4 property for your website. This can be done from your Google Analytics account. Setting up this new property doesn’t mean losing access to your analytics setup. This setup will remain the same and functional. The new property will collect data next to your existing property; you can access them both.

To help you set up your new property, Google has introduced a GA4 Setup Assistant wizard. You must have an editor role on your Google Analytics account to use this wizard. The steps to get to this wizard are thoroughly described on Google’s page on how to add a Google Analytics 4 property (to a site that already has Analytics).

When you’ve created your new property, there are a few more things you can do to ensure you’re getting the most out of it. This new version is focused on giving you more insight into the complex customer journey and improving your marketing efforts. Google’s page on how to switch to Google Analytics 4 gives a great overview of what you can do to properly set up Google Analytics 4. If you want to learn even more, you can take their Skillshop Course to discover whatâ€™s new with Google Analytics.

When you’re new to Analytics

If you aren’t using Analytics, you must start by setting up an account. Go to google.com/analytics and click ‘Get started today’. When logged in, you can go to Admin (the cogwheel in the bottom left corner) and click the blue button ‘Create Account’ in the top left corner. You must set an account name and decide on what data you want to share with other Google services.

After that, you click ‘Next’ and add a property to your new account. Google explains how to do this on their page on setting up Analytics for a website and/or app. After you’ve set up your new account and property, you can start getting familiar with Analytics and dive into the data to get more insights into your site visitors and their behavior. Of course, it can be overwhelming at first. But you can find loads of information and training in Google’s training and support section.

To summarize

Now is the time to add a GA4 property to your account. This helps you get used to this new way of analyzing your data, and it comes with new features that give you more insight into your audience and the performance of your marketing campaigns. Adding this new Analytics property won’t change anything in your current Analytics setup; you can use and view both properties until July 2023. After that, your old property won’t process any new data, and you will have to switch to Google Analytics 4. So start immediately and get the most out of this new version of Google Analytics!

The post How to prepare yourself for Google Analytics 4 appeared first on Yoast.
16.06.2023
Introducing UserFeedback â€“ Easy Survey Tool to Uncover What Users are Really Thinking
Do you want to know why your website visitors abandon your site?

Ever wished there was an easy way to read your website visitors’ minds WITHOUT learning telepathy or using an expensive user survey tool that costs a fortune?

If youâ€™re like me and most other smart website owners, then you have at least wished for this solution a couple of times in your WordPress journey.

Today, Iâ€™m excited to share the launch of my free UserFeedback plugin, which enables you to collect real user feedback quickly and easily.

We built this tool because we want to know the “why” behind every website visitor’s action that Google Analytics won’t tell you.

When you know the why or the intent behind users’ actions, you can easily figure out why your visitors buy or do not buy your products.

Background Story

In 2016, I acquired a Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, completely revamped it, and launched it as MonsterInsights.

The goal of this plugin was to help users make informed decisions by showing them the data that matters to their businesses.

For example, you can easily see which products or pages are the most popular or where your most profitable traffic comes from.

As the plugin grows, I often get asked by our users: is there a way to understand the intent of every website visitors’ actions?

When you know the intent … the “why” behind users’ actions, you can figure out why customers purchased from you or, better yet, why they did NOT purchase from you.

Unfortunately, Google Analytics only tells you half the story: “What is happening on your website?”. It’s not built to answer the other half of the question: “Why are your visitors doing that?”

In fact, most of the customer feedback tools in the market charge exorbitantly high prices, which aren’t affordable to small businesses.

After a lot of thought and consideration, we decided to release a brand-new plugin called UserFeedback, which enables you to understand user intent by collecting real time feedback from them.

With UserFeedback, you can:
- Create a demographic survey to fill out your buyer personas
- Ask website visitors to leave their phone number for a callback
- Run customer satisfaction surveys to see what buyers think about your products
- Run NPS surveys
- Ask for feedback on your website design
- Run product surveys to find out what buyers are actually using your products for
- And so much more
What is UserFeedback?

UserFeedback is a free and powerful WordPress plugin that lets you launch in-the-moment surveys to collect quality feedback from your website visitors.

It comes with built-in templates and questions to make creating feedback surveys quick and effortless, including:
- Website feedback/experience
- Ecommerce store survey
- NPS survey
- Post purchase review
- Product usage survey
- Competitive research
- And so much more!
Anything youâ€™ve ever dreamed of being able to easily ask your customers, you can ask with UserFeedback.

In combination with a powerful analytics tool like MonsterInsights, website owners can finally see both the â€œwhyâ€ and the â€œwhatâ€ of their usersâ€™ behavior on their WordPress websites.

When you have direct access to your visitorsâ€™ wants and needs, you can make changes that will take your website and business to the next level.

My plan is to continuously add more helpful templates and addons to make UserFeedback even more powerful and essential to understanding your website visitors.

Collect Feedback in Minutes, not Hours

UserFeedback makes it super easy to launch a survey in minutes, not hours. Its 20+ survey templates give you a head start, so you donâ€™t always have to start a feedback survey from scratch.

Each of those templates is pre-designed for different user needs. Based on your requirements, choose the right template, make quick changes, and publish it on your website.

For example, the Website Design Feedback template comes with a star-rating question, whereas the NPS Survey template lets your users grade their loyalty on a scale of 1 to 10.

The best part is that you can build and preview your design within the dashboard.

Get Best Results with Laser Targeted Surveys

UserFeedback enables you to display the right surveys at the right time to the right users. Here are some targeting options you can use for the best results.
- Logged in status: Choose to show your surveys only to logged in or not logged in users.
- Page URL: Show it only on certain pages
- Traffic source: Display it based on the traffic source, like organic traffic, PPC ads, social media, and so on.
- Device type: Choose which types of devices the survey should appear
- Display timing: Choose the right time to show the survey.
- Exit intent / scroll targeting: You can show it to users who abandon the site on desktop or show when a user scrolls halfway down the page.
- And much moreâ€¦
Now that you know how UserFeedback works, letâ€™s take a look at how our customers are using UserFeedback to grow their businesses.

1. Focus on What to Prioritize Next

Are you looking to redesign your website? Wondering how to improve your website copy to boost sales and conversions?

One of the best things about UserFeedback is that it lets you collect feedback score on every page of your site. That way, you can quickly find pages that arenâ€™t resonating well with your audience and prioritize those pages while redesigning.

2. Get Feedback to Validate Your Plans

Pushing out new changes on your site can be intimidating. It’s especially true when you change the pricing plan on your website.

With UserFeedback, you can validate your plans with a survey and learn what users think about your latest plans.

3. Boost Profit by Reducing Customer Churn

UserFeedback comes with several targeting options, including exit intent. This targeting option helps you understand why users are leaving by collecting feedback at the exact moment when people churn.

4. Collect a Constant Stream of Great Suggestions

Do you want to encourage users to provide you with suggestions to improve your product?

One of the reasons most people hesitate to provide feedback is that itâ€™s not easy to do so. With an on-site survey, you can make it convenient for them to send you feedback. Plus, you can collect a constant stream of suggestions to improve your product.

5. Fix the Problems Before They Develop

The biggest benefit of collecting feedback is that it helps you quickly identify problems before they develop. That means you can quickly rectify your problems before your customers start complaining about it.

Get Unlimited Everything â€“ Questions, Responses, and Sessions

A big reason why we built UserFeedack is that most feedback tools are just too expensive. They slow down your site and charge you based on the number of responses and sessions â€¦

Letâ€™s take a look at how UserFeedback surveys compare to another feedback tool, Hotjar.

As you can see while the basic plan is free, it only allows you to get responses for up to 35 daily sessions.

On the other hand, UserFeedback lets you ask unlimited questions and get unlimited responses without a daily session limit!

Whatâ€™s Coming Next for UserFeedback?

UserFeedback is a great tool that helps you uncover more insights about your website visitors that Google Analytics won’t tell you. Iâ€™m extremely pleased with the community response so far, as everyone is loving the new features.

We have lots of great features coming, including:
- Customizable survey designs so you can fully tweak them to match your websiteâ€™s colors, fonts, and personality.
- Advanced integrations to automatically let you send a special email, add entries to a spreadsheet, and so on.
- Additional prebuilt templates to collect feedback for a variety of additional websites.
Weâ€™re truly building something special here. If you have ideas on how we can make the plugin more helpful to you, please send us your suggestions.

As always, I want to thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner, and we look forward to continuing to serve you for years to come.

Yours Truly,

Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner

P.S. Want us to acquire or invest in your WordPress business? Learn more about the WPBeginner Growth Fund.

The post Introducing UserFeedback â€“ Easy Survey Tool to Uncover What Users are Really Thinking first appeared on WPBeginner.
06.06.2023
How to Get GA4 Site Annotations and Notes in WordPress

Are you looking to add site notes and annotations to Google Analytics and track them in WordPress?

You can record key changes to your WordPress website and other events that impact website traffic using annotations. These notes can help you uncover additional insights and provide context to changes in traffic on your website.

In this article, we will show you how to get GA4 site annotations and notes in WordPress.

What Are Google Analytics Annotations?

Google Analytics annotations are short notes that you can record in the analytics reports. They help you track internal changes that can impact your website traffic.

For example, you can record changes you made on a particular day, like sending out a new email campaign, posting on social media, or running an ad campaign.

You can also record when you make changes to the content on your WordPress blog, such as publishing a new landing page, editing the meta title, updating website designs, and more.

Using site notes and data from Google Analytics reports, you can exactly see what caused your website’s traffic to change.

Let’s say you launched a new ad campaign on a particular day and added an annotation in Google Analytics. The next time you view the traffic stats and see a change, you will know that it could be because of the new campaign.

This also removes the need to backtrack your moves. You don’t need to go through your notebook, social profiles, or update logs to review your changes on a particular day.

Why Get GA4 Annotations and Notes in WordPress?

Sadly, there are no site notes and annotations in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) yet.

GA4 is the latest version of the popular analytics platform by Google. It lets you track visitors from your website and mobile app in the same account. Besides that, the new version also uses a different method of collecting and processing website data.

There are many differences between Google Analytics 4 vs. Universal Analytics. One of these is the lack of site notes and annotations, which was available with Universal Analytics, which no longer can be accessed from July 1, 2023.

After the sunset date, you won’t be able to add more site notes to your Universal Analytics property. This means you will need to manually make your own notes or record key changes to your website from your WordPress dashboard.

That being said, let’s see how you can get GA4 site notes and annotations in WordPress.

How to Get GA4 Site Notes and Annotations in WordPress

The easiest way to get GA4 site annotations and notes in WordPress is by using MonsterInsights. It is the best analytics plugin for WordPress and makes it super easy to configure Google Analytics without editing code or hiring a developer.

The MonsterInsights Site Notes feature lets you add annotations directly to your traffic reports and from the WordPress content editor. Plus, it offers features to easily control and manage your site notes.

For this tutorial, we will use the MonsterInsights Pro version because it includes Site Notes and more features like customizable categories, the ability to add screenshots and media to your notes, and more.

In the Pro version, you will also get advanced features like eCommerce tracking, link tracking, form conversion tracking, advanced dashboard reports, and more.

However, there is also a MonsterInsights Lite version you can use to get started and add Site Notes to your analytics reports.

First, you will need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you will see the MonsterInsights setup wizard. Simply click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button to continue.

From here, you can follow the onscreen instructions to set up Google Analytics in WordPress. For more details, please see our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

With MonsterInsights, you can also set up dual tracking. It allows you to track data in a GA4 property and Universal Analytics simultaneously. This way, when Universal Analytics shuts down, you will have historical data in Google Analytics 4 for analysis and comparison.

You can see our guide on how to switch to Google Analytics 4 in WordPress for more details.

Adding Site Notes and Annotations in WordPress

Once you have set up Google Analytics in WordPress, you can now add site notes to your MonsterInsights reports.

First, you need to go to Insights Â» Reports from your WordPress admin panel and open the ‘Overview’ report. After that, just click the ‘Site Notes’ option below the graph.

You will now see more options appear.

Go ahead and click the ‘+ Add New Site Note’ button.

After that, you will need to enter the details of your site note.

You can start by selecting a date. Then, simply type in your site annotation details, like a change you made to a blog post or when you sent an email newsletter.

MonsterInsights also lets you select a media file that you can attach to your site note. For example, this can be a screenshot or video of your campaign uploaded to the WordPress media library.

There is also an option to select a category for your annotation. There are 3 categories offered by MonsterInsights by default, but you can add more. The default categories are Blog Post, Website Updates, and Promotion.

Once you have entered the details, simply click the ‘Add Site Note’ button.

You can then view all your site notes under the graph.

Managing Your Site Notes in MonsterInsights

You can also manage your Google Analytics annotations by going to Insights Â» Site Notes from the WordPress admin panel.

Here, you will see all the site notes you have already added. Plus, you can click the ‘Add Site Note’ button to insert more annotations.

Next, you can switch to the ‘Categories’ tab and customize your site note categories.

MonsterInsights lets you add more annotation categories by clicking the ‘Add New Category’ button. Simply enter a name for your new category and select a color of your choice.

There is also the option to edit existing categories. For instance, you can edit the Promotion category, change its name, and select a new color.

Lastly, you can switch to the ‘Export’ tab in the Site Note settings to save your annotations.

MonsterInsights will create a CSV file to save on your computer. You can then use the exported annotations for future use or analysis.

Adding Site Notes in the WordPress Content Editor

Another advantage of using the MonsterInsights Site Notes feature is that you can add notes from the WordPress content editor.

This is really useful if you are publishing or making changes to a blog post or landing page. You can quickly make a note, and it will appear in the MonsterInsights reports.

First, you will need to add a new post or page or edit an existing one.

From here, simply open the ‘Post’ settings panel on your right and scroll down to ‘MonsterInsights’. From here, you must enable the toggle for ‘Add a Site Note’. After that, you can enter your note and select a categoit.

Once the page or post is published, it will automatically create an annotation in MonsterInsights. You can then view it by heading to Insights Â» Site Notes in your WordPress admin panel.

We hope this article helped you learn how to get GA4 site annotations and notes in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on WordPress SEO and our expert picks for the best Google Analytics solutions for WordPress users.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Get GA4 Site Annotations and Notes in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

31.05.2023
How to Recover a WordPress Site from a Google Search Penalty
Are you looking to recover your WordPress site from a Google search penalty?

Google penalties are a dreaded nightmare for any website owner. Your web pages can be removed from search results or dropped down in search rankings, causing the organic traffic to fall significantly.

In this article, we will show you how to recover a WordPress site from a Google Search Penalty.

What is Google Search Penalty?

A search penalty is a punishment that Google delivers to websites that violate its guidelines.

Google’s goal is to present the best search results to its users. However, sites that try to manipulate or cheat the system to achieve higher search rankings through unethical means are usually given search penalties.

As a result, penalized WordPress sites might see a drop in search rankings or be de-listed from the search results in extreme cases.

Google imposes 2 types of penalties:
- Manual penalties – These are imposed by Google’s internal team, and you are notified of any offense. It can be for things like spam content, cloaked images, hidden text, unnatural internal and external links, and other violations against the Google Search Essentials guidelines.
- Algorithm penalties – An algorithm penalty is when Google rolls out an update to the search algorithm to provide better search results. This type of penalty is hard to diagnose because you don’t get any notification from Google.
Since this is a comprehensive guide, we’ve added a table of contents. You can click the links below to easily navigate to any section you’re interested in:
How to Check for a Google Search Penalty

If your WordPress site is hit with a Google search penalty and you’re not sure how to check it, then there are different ways you can try.

Check for Manual Actions in Google Search Console

First, you can log in to your Google Search Console account and look for manual penalties imposed by the search engine.

Simply head to Security & Manual Actions Â» Manual actions from the Search Console menu on the left. Here, you’ll see any manual penalty given by Google.

If you see the ‘No issues detected’ message, then you’re in the clear.

That said, here’s a list of manual actions that Google can apply to your site:
- Site abused by third-party spam
- User-generated spam
- Spammy free host
- Structured data issue
- Unnatural links to and from your site
- Thin content with little or no added value
- Pure Spam
- Cloaking or sneaky redirects
- Cloaked images
- AMP content mismatch
- Sneaky mobile redirects
- Hidden text or keyword stuffing
- News and Discover policy violations
Check Google Analytics for a Drop in Organic Traffic

Next, you can check your site’s organic traffic in Google Analytics. If there is a considerable drop, then it could be a result of a search penalty.

This method is useful to check for algorithm penalties, especially after Google releases a new update.

In Google Analytics 4, you can go to Reports Â» Acquisition Â» Traffic acquisition and look at the Organic Search figures.

You can edit the date range at the top and compare it to a previous period to look for a decline in traffic.

To drill down further, you can use a keyword tracker tool and see search term rankings for your website. If you notice a drop in different keyword rankings, then it could mean you’ve been hit with a search penalty.

Search Your Website and Content on Google

Lastly, if you’re not seeing your web pages appear in Google search results, then there is a way to check if it’s been banned or delisted.

Simply enter ‘site: example.com’ in Google and see if your site appears. Just replace example.com with your own site URL.

If you don’t see your website appearing in the search results, then it could be delisted due to a search penalty.

You can also search for some of the text from your most important pages on Google. This will also help check for delisting or decline in search rankings for core pages.

Having that said, let’s look at different ways you can recover a WordPress website from a Google search penalty.

1. Perform an SEO Audit to Find Critical Issues

An SEO audit is a process of finding out whether your WordPress website is correctly optimized for search engines.

Running an SEO audit can help uncover critical SEO issues and errors on your site. This way, you can quickly fix them and recover your site from a search penalty.

A simple way to conduct an SEO audit in WordPress is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. It is the best SEO WordPress plugin that helps set up your site for search engines without technical knowledge.

With AIOSEO, you can use its SEO Analysis tool inside the WordPress dashboard to run an audit. It checks your site on different parameters and highlights any critical issues. Plus, you get recommendations for fixing errors, which will help recover your site from a penalty.

You get started by following our guide on how to set up All in One SEO in WordPress.

2. Clean Your Backlink Profile

One of the most common reasons why Google issues a search penalty is because of unnatural links to and from your WordPress website.

Sites that have bought spammy links or participate in different link schemes to boost their search engine rankings are mainly penalized by Google. This could be either through a manual action or an algorithm update.

A quick way to recover your site from such penalties is by identifying and removing spammy backlinks. However, this can be a time-consuming task, especially if you have to visit every page on your site to remove the backlink.

An easier way to go about this is by using AIOSEO. It offers a powerful Link Assistant feature that helps you see all the internal and external links on your site.

First, you’d need to go to All in One SEO Â» Link Assistant from your WordPress admin panel. After that, you can click on the ‘Domains Report’ tab at the top.

Next, you can view all the domains linking to your website.

On this page, domains that look unnatural or spammy are highlighted. Next, you can select the domain, click the Bulk Actions dropdown menu, and choose the ‘Delete’ option.

After that, you can click the ‘Apply’ button to remove links from a particular domain.

You can also click on any of the websites to view which pages they’re linking to on your site. Next, you can click the trash can icon to remove a backlink from a particular page or post.

If you are unable to remove an unnatural, spammy, or artificial link, then you can disavow them using Google’s disavow links tool.

Do note that this method is for users with technical knowledge and is unsuitable for beginners. For more details, you read Google’s instructions on how to disavow links to your site.

3. Perform a Content Audit

Another way to recover your website from Google search penalties is by auditing your content.

Here are a few things you can look into and fix on your website.

Fix Thin and Duplicate Content

Google will penalize sites with thin content with little or no value for users. This includes low-quality content that’s auto-generated or spun through software. Or affiliate pages with a few paragraphs and a link to promote the product.

Similarly, if you have duplicate content or articles scraped from other websites, then Google can also hand you a search penalty.

A simple way to fix this is by identifying pages that have relevant or thin content and then rewriting them. You can use Google Analytics to uncover pages with very low or no traffic.

Simply head to the Reports Â» Engagement Â» Landing page in Google Analytics.

After uncovering content with thin content, you can then add more value by covering the topic in depth, making the content engaging using images and videos, and ensuring you have unique content.

On the other hand, you can find pages that have duplicate or auto-generated content and simply remove them from your website. Simply copy some of the text and enter it on Google. The search will show all the pages and posts on your site with the same content.

If other websites have scrapped your content, then you can use tools like Copyscape to find plagiarised content. To learn more, you may also want to see our guide on how to easily find and remove stolen content in WordPress.

Remove Keyword Stuffing and Hidden Text

If your site’s text doesn’t make sense and is filled with search terms to rank higher, then you can also get a search penalty for keyword stuffing. Similarly, websites with hidden text and keywords in your site’s CSS styling can also be penalized by Google.

You can easily fix this issue by removing or editing content that has keyword stuffing. Try using variations and avoid repeating the same search terms. You can also use keyword research tools like Semrush to find different keywords to use on your content.

Semrush also offers an SEO writing assistant tool that helps you discover LSI and related keywords, readability score, language tone, and more to help you create optimized content.

Remove User Generated Spam

Next, you need to check your website for spam comments. These are comments that have advertising links, spammy user names, auto-generated or off-topic comments, and other irrelevant links.

In WordPress, you can simply go to Comments from your WordPress dashboard and then mark the comment as Spam. You can also select the Trash option and remove the comment.

To learn more, please see our guide on tips and tools to combat comment spam in WordPress.

Review Internal Linking on Your Site

Google’s search crawlers use links on your website to find new content and build a contextual relationship between your new and old content.

Auditing the internal links helps recover your WordPress site from an algorithm penalty. For instance, if there are no or few internal links on a page, then you can add internal links to other relevant pages and boost their rankings.

Using the AIOSEO link assistant, you can improve internal linking on your website. It will show you existing links and also provide new linking opportunities. Besides that, you can also highlight orphaned pages that have no internal links.

For more details, please see our guide on internal linking for SEO.

Audit Page Load Speed

When conducting an audit, you should also check your website load time. While a slow-loading site would not lead to a Google search penalty, it will impact your search engine rankings.

That’s because Google now uses page load speed as a ranking factor. Sites that load fast will have an advantage over slow-loading websites.

You can use IsItWP’s free website speed test tool for auditing page load speed. The tool will show an overall score and provide suggestions for improving page speed.

You can find more details by following our guides on how to run a website speed test and the ultimate guide to boosting WordPress performance.

4. Ensure Your Site is Not Hacked

If your WordPress website is hacked and injected with malicious code that can be deceptive to Google’s guidelines, then you can get a penalty.

Usually, hackers would add scripts or pieces of code that would create sneaky redirects on your website. Since this goes against the guidelines, your websites might be deindexed from the search results.

You can check for security issues in Google Search Console by heading to the Security & Manual Actions Â» Security issues section.

Besides that, you can run a WordPress security audit to uncover any issues that might result in a penalty. For example, you can scan your site for malware and other security vulnerabilities.

We recommend using a WordPress security plugin like Sucuri to prevent an attack on your website. It also checks your site’s files for suspicious code and helps clean up your website.

You may want to see our ultimate WordPress Security guide to make your site secure and safe.

5. Research Recent Google Algorithm Updates

Lastly, if you see a drop in traffic or search rankings after a Google update, then you might be hit with an algorithm penalty.

Unlike a manual penalty, it is very hard to diagnose the impact of an algorithm change. Google won’t tell you the reason for the drop in rankings or traffic for your site.

However, you can research the latest Google algorithm update and see what has changed. After that, you can audit your site’s SEO, content, and security to fix any issues.

The best way to stay updated with the latest algorithm changes and adjustments is by following WordPress blogs. There are many popular marketing and SEO blogs that share the latest news, case studies, and other information about Google’s algorithm changes.

Aside from that, you can also follow our ultimate WordPress SEO guide for beginners and make sure your site is properly optimized for Google.

Submit a Reconsideration Request to Lift Penalties

After you’ve fixed an issue that led to Google search penalties, the next step is to submit a reconsideration request and lift the penalties.

This step is fairly simple if you receive a manual penalty. You can head to your Google Search Console account, view the Security and Manual actions section, and request a review for the particle issue.

When submitting the reconsideration request, we recommend that you cover the following things:
- Explain that you understand Google’s guidelines and best practices in detail. You can share links to answers in Google forums, YouTube videos, and other documentation offered by Google regarding the manual action.
- Show that you’ve done everything that you can to fix the issue, like removing unnatural links. You can include screenshots, a list of links removed, and provide other evidence to present your case.
- Reassure that your site is made for users and not search engines, and you won’t make the same mistake again. You can also ensure that all other activities on your website are within Google’s guidelines.
Once you’ve submitted a consideration request, Google will review it. The response time usually depends on the severity of the penalty. It can take days, weeks, and even months to hear back from Google and find out whether your penalty has been lifted or not.

We hope this article helped you learn how to recover a WordPress site from a Google search penalty. You may also want to see our guide on how to increase your blog traffic and the best SEO checker and website analyzer tools.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Recover a WordPress Site from a Google Search Penalty first appeared on WPBeginner.
10.05.2023
How to Enable Customer Tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics
Do you want to enable customer tracking in WooCommerce?

Customer tracking allows you to offer a personalized shopping experience based on customer behavior in your eCommerce store.

In this article, we will show you how to easily enable customer tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics.

Why Enable Customer Tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics?

Google Analytics allows you to see where your visitors are coming from and what they do on your website. In other words, it helps you track your traffic sources as well as user engagement on your website.

For eCommerce platforms, Google Analytics offers an enhanced eCommerce tracking feature. This allows you to better understand users’ shopping and checkout behavior. Plus, you can see which products perform the best and track your WooCommerce store’s sales performance.

By default, a WooCommerce store allows your customers to create an account or checkout as guest users. Creating an account helps the user save their shipping and billing information for faster checkout next time. It also helps you offer customers a personalized shopping experience based on their browsing and shopping history.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could track logged-in users with their user IDs in Google Analytics and also see the path customers took before making a purchase?

This will give you access to a treasure trove of information and insights on customer behavior. You can use it to offer a better on-site experience and boost your sales.

Let’s take a look at how to easily enable customer tracking in WooCommerce. Here are quick links that you can use to jump ahead to any section:
Set up Ecommerce Tracking in WordPress with Google Analytics

The best way to set up WooCommerce customer tracking in Google Analytics is using MonsterInsights. It is the best analytics solution for WordPress and helps you set up tracking without editing code.

If you use the native method for tracking WooCommerce conversions, then you’ll need to edit the tracking code, use Google Tag Manager, or both. This can be tricky for beginners, and the slightest mistake can mess up your analytics data.

The MonsterInsights plugin offers an eCommerce addon, which automatically detects WooCommerce and starts tracking customer behavior in Google Analytics. It also comes with a Customer Journey addon that allows you to see users’ behavior before they make a purchase.

First, you will need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

You will need to be on the ‘Pro’ plan to access the eCommerce and User Journey addons, which we will use for this tutorial. However, there is also a MonsterInsights Lite version you can use for free.

Upon activation, you will see the welcome screen and the setup wizard. Simply click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button and follow the on-screen instructions.

For detailed instructions, see our article on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Install the MonsterInsights eCommerce Addon

Once you’ve configured Google Analytics on your website, the next step is to install the eCommerce addon.

The addon automatically sets up eCommerce tracking on your website and detects your WooCommerce store.

First, you need to visit the Insights Â» Addons page from your WordPress dashboard and navigate to the ‘eCommerce’ addon. Simply click the ‘Install’ button, and the addon will automatically activate.

That’s it! MonsterInsights will take care of the rest once the addon is active.

For more details, please see our guide on how to set up WooCommerce conversion tracking.

Enabling User Journey Addon in MonsterInsights

Now that you’ve set up WooCommerce tracking in Google Analytics, the next step is to enable the MonsterInsights Customer Journey addon.

The addon will allow you to see the steps a customer takes before making a purchase in WooCommerce. Plus, it also shows the time it took at each step, the pages a user visited, and more.

First, you’ll need to go to Insights Â» Addons from your WordPress admin panel. Next, navigate to the User Journey addon and click the ‘Install’ button.

The addon will automatically activate and start tracking your WooCommerce customer’s journey.

Next, you can go to WooCommerce Â» Orders from your WordPress dashboard to view the path your customers took when purchasing a product.

After that, click on the order for which you’d like to see the user journey.

On the next screen, you’ll see the path a customer took before buying the product. You get to view the pages they visited, where they clicked, and how much time they spent on a page.

This is really useful information to better understand your customers. You can see which product categories are performing the best and where customers are exiting your store during the purchase process. Using the data, you can then fix these issues and optimize your site for more conversions.

Enabling User ID Tracking in Google Analytics

While MonsterInsights makes it very easy to track customers on your WooCommerce store, it also tracks WordPress ID tracking in Google Analytics.

WordPress ID is a unique ID to identify every user on your website. The user ID is called the ‘Client ID’ in Universal Analytics and the ‘App Instance ID’ in Google Analytics.

Do remember that enhanced eCommerce tracking will enable eCommerce reporting features for your WooCommerce store. However, it does not enable user tracking by default.

Let’s take a look at how you can enable user ID tracking in Google Analytics 4.

Enabling Customer Tracking in Google Analytics 4

To start, you’ll need to go to the Admin settings from your GA4 dashboard and click the ‘Reporting Identity’ option.

On the next screen, you will need to select a way to identify users on your online store.

GA4 uses multiple ways to identify customers. These include user ID, Google signals, device ID, and modeled data. For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll select the ‘Observed’ option and click the ‘Save’ button.

Viewing Customer Tracking Reports in Google Analytics

Now that everything is set up, Google Analytics will now track all your website customers. It will also be able to track logged-in users with their unique WordPress user ID.

View User ID Data in Google Analytics 4

You can view GA4 eCommerce tracking WooCommerce data by going to the ‘Explore’ tab from the menu on your left.

Under Explorations, you’ll see different report templates. Simply click the existing ‘User explorer’ report.

Next, you’ll see the User explorer report in Google Analytics 4.

One thing you can notice is the Client ID will be replaced with the App instance ID.

You can click on any of the app instance IDs to view more details.

For example, the report shows the total events that were triggered, the location of the user, the time stamp for each event, and more.

View User ID Data in Universal Analytics

Note: Universal Analytics has now sunset and is no longer processing data from your website. However, you can still view past data and use it for comparison.

To view all your individual customer activity, you can go to your Universal Analytics account and click on the Audience Â» User Explorer menu.

You will see individual customer reports with a unique ID assigned to all non-logged-in users.

To view customer tracking reports for logged-in users in WooCommerce, you need to click on the Google Analytics logo on the top left corner of the screen.

This will show all your Google Analytics profiles. You will see your website profile and under ‘All website data’ you will see the UserID reporting view you created earlier.

Go ahead and click on the UserID reporting view to load it.

Once it’s loaded, you need to click on the Audience Â» User Explorer menu. This way, you will see a logged-in customer tracking report where each user is represented by their WordPress user ID on your website.

You can click on the user ID to view a customer’s individual tracking data.

For instance, the device category they use, acquisition date, the channel they used to arrive on the online store, and more.

Matching Customer Tracking with Their WordPress Accounts

Now that you’ve identified users in Google Analytics, you can match them with WordPress accounts. This will help you know who this customer is, and how you can create personalized offers, emails, or shopping experiences for them.

First, you need to note down the customer ID you see in your Google Analytics User-ID reporting view.

After that, go to your WordPress website’s admin area and click on the ‘Users’ menu. It will show you a list of all users on your WordPress site.

Next, you can click the ‘Edit’ link below any username in the list.

WordPress will now open the user profile for you.

If you look in your browser’s address bar you will ‘user_id’ parameter in the URL.

Next, you need to replace the value next to user_id with the one you copied from your Google Analytics report and press enter key on your keyboard.

WordPress will now load the user profile associated with that particular User ID. You now have the customer’s name, username, email address, and social media information. You can also track their orders, product views, cart activity, and more.

We hope this article helped you learn how to enable customer tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics. You may also want to see our expert pick of the best free WooCommerce plugins for your online store and how to get a free email domain.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Enable Customer Tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics first appeared on WPBeginner.
20.02.2023
How to Set Up Google Analytics Goals for Your WordPress Site
Do you want to track key metrics like email signups or sales for your site?

If you want your site to be successful, then you need detailed metrics like which pages are getting you the most signups, which traffic source is producing the best results, and more.

In this article, we’ll show you how to set up Google Analytics goals for your WordPress site.

What Are Goals in Google Analytics?

Goals are user interactions that you can track using Google Analytics.

You can set up goals to measure conversions, track sales, email sign-up forms, and more.

All this can help you make more money online and increase your website conversions.

Note: Google Analytics 4 (GA4) replaces Goals with Events, and on July 1, 2023, GA4 will replace the current Universal Analytics. In this post, we will show you how to set up tracking for both Events and Goals simultaneously using the MonsterInsights Dual Tracking feature, as well as how to use Events in GA4 itself.

Why You Need to Create Good Goals in Google Analytics

With goals, you can find out all sorts of details about your site. For instance:
- If you sell digital products, you could use goals to find out which sources are driving the most sales.
- If you run an eCommerce store, you could use goals to see where customers will most likely abandon the checkout process.
- If you’re a personal trainer with a fitness blog, you could use goals to see which posts encourage prospects to fill out your contact form.
Creating the right goals for your site is important. If you have an online store, there’s not much point in setting a goal to track how many people visit your About page. Instead, your goal should be how many customers buy from you.

Let’s look at how to set up goals in Google Analytics. Here’s what we’re going to cover. Use the quick links to jump straight to that part of the tutorial:
Setting Up Google Analytics in WordPress with MonsterInsights

The best way to set up Google Analytics is using MonsterInsights. It is the best analytics plugin for WordPress and automatically sets up tracking for you, and saves a lot of work.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, please check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: You’ll need the Pro version of the plugin or higher to unlock advanced tracking features and reports like the eCommerce report and the form conversions report. There is also a MonsterInsights Lite version you can use for free to get started.

After activating MonsterInsights, you’ll see the welcome screen in your WordPress dashboard. Simply click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button and follow the onscreen instructions.

For more help, check out our instructions on how to install Google Analytics on your site using MonsterInsights.

You can also use the Dual Tracking feature to set up Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tracking in WordPress. GA4 is the latest version of Analytics, and it will replace Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023.

After the sunset date, you won’t be able to track data in Universal Analytics and will have to start from scratch. That’s why we recommend swapping to GA4 sooner rather than later. For more details, please see our guide on switching to Google Analytics 4 in WordPress.

Automatically Track Goals by Using MonsterInsights

Now that you’ve connected Google Analytics with your WordPress site, you can use MonsterInsights to set up goals automatically.

This method is recommended for beginners because you don’t have to manually create goals, edit code, and worry about your tracking working properly.

MonsterInsights helps you track conversions like eCommerce sales, form submissions, file downloads, link clicks, video plays, and more.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these in detail.

Tracking eCommerce Conversion in WordPress

Do you want to find out how many visitors are converting into paying customers?

In Google Analytics, you’d have to set up goals to track specific actions customers perform. This can be tricky for beginners, and it might require editing the tracking code.

However, the MonsterInsights eCommerce addon lets you easily track data from a WooCommerce store. You can also use it with MemberPress, LifterLMS, Easy Digital Downloads, and other eCommerce plugins.

For more details, please see our step-by-step guide on how to set up eCommerce tracking in WordPress.

The best part is that you don’t have to modify the tracking code. MonsterInsights handles everything else for you.

After setting up tracking, you can head to Insights Â» Reports and click on the ‘eCommerce’ tab to view your report. Once you’ve had some sales, it’ll look something like this:

You won’t have to manually set up goals or events to track eCommerce conversions. The plugin will let you see all sorts of other insights, like your top conversion sources, the total of products added to carts, and the total removed from carts.

You can even see how many days it typically takes people to make a purchase, and how often people visit before making a purchase.

MonsterInsights also shows the percentage of new customers that bought a product for the first time from your store. It even shows a percentage of abandoned checkouts. You can use this data to reduce cart abandonment and convert users into paying customers.

Tracking Form Submissions in Google Analytics

Another great way to use Google Analytics and MonsterInsights is to track form conversions.

You can do this for any type of form. Here are just a few examples:
- Non-fiction author: A form where people sign up for your email newsletter to hear about your upcoming books.
- Realtor: A contact form where prospective clients fill in their details so you can call them back and arrange viewings.
- Personal trainer: A booking form that customers use to book and pay for their personal training session.
- Restaurant: A form that customers use for ordering food delivery.
MonsterInsights works with all WordPress contact form plugins and helps you track form submissions.

To start tracking form conversions in MonsterInsights, go to Insights Â» Addons and find the Forms addon. Simply click the Install button beneath it to install and activate it.

This addon lets you track form submissions as ‘Events’ in Google Analytics 4. You don’t have to set up anything extra.

Once you’ve installed and activated the addon, you’re done! Just go to Insights Â» Reports and click on the ‘Forms’ tab to see your report.

After you’ve had some form submissions, it’ll look something like this:

Tracking Link Clicks and File Downloads in Google Analytics

MonsterInsights automatically adds tracking for link and button clicks on your WordPress site. It works out of the box, and you don’t have manually set up goals for tracking different user actions on your site.

You can view the report inside your WordPress dashboard. Simply go to Insights Â» Reports and click the ‘Publishers’ tab.

For instance, you can see which outbound links users click the most on your website.

Using this information, you can sign up for affiliate programs, get backlinks, submit guest posts, and uncover partnership opportunities.

If you have affiliate links on your site, then MonsterInsights also tracks them in Google Analytics. You can see your top-performing affiliates and promote them throughout your site to get more conversions.

MonsterInsights also automatically tracks file downloads on your site. If you offer downloadable content like ebooks, software, plugins, PDFs, and spreadsheets, then the analytics plugin tracks them in Google Analytics.

Tracking Video Plays in Google Analytics

If you have video content embedded on your site, then MonsterInsights can track them in Google Analytics and show which media content performs the best. It automatically tracks YouTube and Vimeo embeds along with other videos uploaded to your Media Library.

All you need to do is install the MonsterInsights Media addon by going to Insights Â» Addons from your WordPress dashboard.

Once the addon is active, you can view reports in your WordPress dashboard.

Simply head to Insights Â» Reports and click the ‘Media’ tab.

Here, you’ll see a graph of how many people played videos on your site in the past 30 days.

If you scroll down, then you can view more details about individual videos. For instance, the report will show video plays, average watch time, average percentage watched, and completion rate for each piece of media content.

For more details, please see our guide on how to track video analytics in WordPress.

Setting Up Goals Manually in Google Analytics

If you don’t want to use MonsterInsights, or if you want to track a different type of goal, then you can do this manually in Google Analytics.

Do note that the latest version of Analytics (GA4) doesn’t have goals. You can only set up goals manually in Universal Analytics.

First, log in to your Universal Analytics account and click the ‘Admin’ tab on the bottom left.

Next, you’ll need to head to the View column.

From here, simply click on ‘Goals.’

Next, you can start creating a new goal.

Simply click the ‘+ New Goal’ button.

There are 4 types of goals you can create:
- Destination: This tracks whether a visitor went to a specific page, like a thank you page, after filling in a form.
- Duration: This tracks how long a visitor spends on your website.
- Pages/Screens per session: This tracks how many pages someone looks at on your site.
- Event: This can track all sorts of things, like button clicks, video plays, and downloads. It requires a bit more setup than the other options.
In many cases, Destination or Event goals will work best for tracking your key metrics.

We’re going to create a Destination goal for this example. Give your goal a name, click the radio button next to ‘Destination’ to set the type, and then click the ‘Continue’ button.

Next, you will need to enter the destination for your goal. This will normally be a specific page.

Note: Only enter the part of the URL that comes after your website’s domain name.

For instance, if your page is:
https://www.example.com/thank-you-for-booking/

Then you should enter:
/thank-you-for-booking/

You can add a value for the conversion if you want. This makes sense if people are completing a payment form or if you know how much each lead is worth to you on average.

If you want to track a funnel, such as a customer moving through a checkout process, then you can also do this as part of the destination goal. This can help you pinpoint areas you might want to improve.

You can click the ‘Verify this Goal’ link to see what conversion rate the goal would have based on your data from the previous 7 days.

If you get 0% and know that you’ve had some form submissions, check the destination URL you’ve entered.

Once you’re happy with your goal, click the ‘Save’ button. You should then see your goal listed in a table. You can edit it, switch it off and on, or create more goals here.

You can’t delete goals once you’ve created them, so you will need to simply switch them off if you no longer want to use them.

You can view your goal data in Google Analytics by going to Conversions Â» Goals, then clicking on Overview.

In the left-hand menu, you can dig further into your goals.

For instance, ‘Reverse Goal Path’ shows you what content visitors viewed before reaching the goal. Goal Flow can be used to examine all sorts of things, like the source that the visitors came from.

How to Replace Goals with Events in Google Analytics 4

As we mentioned before, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the new version of Google’s analytics platform. One of the main differences between GA4 and Universal Analytics is that there are no goals in the latest version.

That’s because Google Analytics 4 uses a completely different method of tracking and recording data. Instead of goals, it uses events to track user interactions and activities on your website.

You can create a custom event by logging into your GA4 property and then heading to the Admin settings.

After that, go to the Property column.

Simply click on the ‘Events’ option.

Next, you will need to add a new event in GA4.

Go ahead and click the ‘Create event’ button.

A new window will now slide in from the right, where all your custom events will be listed once they’re created.

You can click the ‘Create’ button to get started.

Next, you will need to enter details for your custom event.

You can start by entering a custom event name. GA4 already has many prebuilt events, so you can select one from the dropdown menu. For example, we will choose the ‘file_download’ event for this tutorial.

When you select an event name, GA4 will automatically enter the specific Parameter and Operator for the event. In this case, the event will be tracking the ‘event_name’ when it ‘equals’ a Value you will enter next.

In the ‘Value’ field, we will enter ‘.pdf’ so it tracks the number of downloads when a user downloads a file with the PDF extension. You might also use .epub for ebooks or even a specific word you use to organize filenames such as ‘v2’ or ‘_2023version.’

Once you’ve entered all the details, don’t forget to click the ‘Create’ button at the top.

You should now see your new event under the Custom events area of your dashboard.

Next, you can view reports to see the performance of your custom events.

Simply head to Reports Â» Engagement Â» Event: Event name from the menu on your left.

While setting up Events in GA4 is pretty easy, if you want to track multiple things, it can take a long time.

That’s why we think that if you want a simple way to set up event and goal tracking in Google Analytics, then MonsterInsights is definitely the way to go.

Setting up manual goals in Google Analytics might work for you if you’re confident using the Google Analytics interface, or if you have a lot of extra time on your hands.

What matters is that you create and track meaningful goals for your site. This is where MonsterInsights is beneficial, as you can use the data to boost signups, increase sales, and make more money or impact with super easy setup and reporting.

We hope this article helped you learn how to set up Google Analytics goals for your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how to increase your website traffic and our pick for the best email marketing services.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Set Up Google Analytics Goals for Your WordPress Site first appeared on WPBeginner.
06.02.2023
10 Website Marketing Data You Must Track on Every WordPress Site
Are you wondering which marketing data you should be tracking on your WordPress website?

After launching a website, most small business owners rely on their best guesses to make important marketing decisions. Not only does that add huge risk, but it also significantly slows down growth.

In this guide, we will share the top website marketing data that you must track on every WordPress site, so you can make data-driven decisions to grow your business.

Why Do You Need to Track Marketing Data in WordPress?

We believe it’s easy to double your traffic and sales when you know exactly how people find and use your website. Most business owners do not realize how easy it is to track important marketing metrics on your WordPress site.

For example, with a few clicks, you can find out who your visitors are, where they are coming from, and what they do on your website. You can learn which of your articles are getting more visits and which pages on your site are not getting any views.

If you run an online store, then you can see what’s your website conversion rate, which page drives the most sales, what are your top referral sources, and more.

You can use all this marketing data to make informed business decisions and grow your business with confidence.

That said, let’s take a look at the top website marketing stats that you must track on every WordPress site. You can click the links below to quickly jump to any section you’re interested in:
1. Set Up Google Analytics in WordPress

The best way to track marketing data on your WordPress website is by using Google Analytics. It is the most popular website analytics software in the world and is loved by businesses, bloggers, and marketers because it provides a treasure trove of information.

For example, you can use Google Analytics to learn:
- The number of visits and pageviews on your website
- Who is visiting your website (visitor location, browser, operating system, screen size, and more)
- How they found your website
- How users interact with your website
- And a whole lot more
Google Analytics is an essential tool in our own business. However, you’ll need to add a tracking code to your website, which requires editing code. This can be tricky for beginners, and the slightest mistake can mess up your tracking.

An easier way of setting up Google Analytics is using MonsterInsights. It is the best WordPress Analytics plugin and helps you set up advanced tracking in WordPress without editing code.

See our step-by-step tutorial on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

2. Track Outbound Links Using Google Analytics

Any link that takes users away from your website is called an outbound link. If you use affiliate marketing to make money from your website, then those outbound links are also known as affiliate links.

Tracking these outbound links help you see how much traffic you are sending to other sites, and you can use this data to build stronger partnerships with those sites.

As a blogger, you can see which affiliate links are clicked more often by your visitors. This information can help you make a proper affiliate marketing strategy and boost your referral earnings.

The easiest way to track affiliate links in WordPress is by using MonsterInsights. It tracks outbound links and affiliate links on your site out of the box.

You also get easy-to-understand reports inside your WordPress dashboard, including your top affiliate and outbound links.

For detailed instructions see our guide on how to track outbound links in WordPress.

3. Enhanced Ecommerce Tracking with Google Analytics

If you run an online store, then you need to enable enhanced eCommerce tracking in Google Analytics. This would allow you to track the following customer information on your online store.
- Shopping behavior of your customers
- Checkout behavior and tracking the abandoned cart information
- Product lists performance
- Uncover top conversion sources
- Sales performance
Setting up enhanced eCommerce tracking on your WordPress store can be difficult. However, MonsterInsights makes it easy for you and it literally takes a few clicks to configure with no coding needed.

It works seamlessly with the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress, like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, LifterLMS, MemberPress, and more.

The best part is that you get to see eCommerce reports in your dashboard. It shows how your online store is performing, which products are getting the most sales, where your customers are coming from, and more at a glance.

For details, see our guide on how to enable customer tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics.

4. Track User Engagement Data with Google Analytics

User engagement shows you what users do when they arrive on your website. It helps you identify patterns of highly engaged user behavior which leads to more conversions and sales.

For example, you may find out that users visiting a specific page are 10 times more likely to make a purchase. You can then use this insight to send more users to that page, or replicate a similar experience on other pages of your website.

Basically, you will be tracking data about how users interact with your website. For example:
- Tracking your most popular content
- Form submission tracking
- Ecommerce tracking
- Ads tracking to understand how users interact with ads on your website
- Monitoring engaged users
- Time users spend on your website
For detailed instructions, follow our step-by-step guide on how to track user engagement in WordPress.

5. Track Campaign Links with UTM Codes

Google Analytics is really good at tracking where your website traffic comes from. It can even categorize your traffic based on their source, including organic search, organic social, referral, email, and more.

However, when you’re running paid ad campaigns, email marketing campaigns, or social media promotions, you need detailed campaign tracking.

That’s where UTM tracking comes in.

Campaign-level tracking allows you to see exactly which email, ad, or specific call-to-action link helped you get the most traffic or sales.

To make it easy for you to generate UTM links, MonsterInsights comes with a free campaign URL builder, so you can get more detailed reports. You can enter custom campaign parameters like the source, medium, campaign name, and more to create a custom URL.

These tags include native analytics parameters which are tracked by Google Analytics and are included in your reports. You can then see exactly which link users clicked and how your campaigns are performing.

6. Track and Improve Facebook Retargeting Campaigns

Did you know that Facebook allows you to display targeted ads to people who have visited your website in the past? Yes, it’s called retargeting.

You can install a Facebook pixel and display targeted ads to anyone who visits your website. However, if you install Facebook retargeting pixel today, then you will only be able to show your ads to people who visited today and onward.

Even if you are not running a Facebook advertising campaign right now, we recommend installing the retargeting pixel, so you have a built-in audience when you’re ready to get started.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to install Facebook remarketing/retargeting pixel in WordPress.

7. Tracking Google AdSense Campaigns

If you run pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns using Google AdSense, then you can easily see how your ads are performing in the AdSense dashboard. However, these reports only tell you how users interact with your ads not what they do after that.

For that, you’ll need Google Analytics which comes with built-in integration with your AdSense account. This integration enables you to easily track your paid traffic conversions.

You can see our guide on how to properly add Google AdSense to your WordPress site.

8. Monitor Your Site with Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a set of free tools offered by Google to give publishers a look at how their website is seen by the search engine.

It provides immensely useful information like how your pages rank for different keywords (more on this later), the overall performance of your site in search engines, and any errors Google crawler found on your website.

Keeping an eye on Google Search Console can help you boost your site’s search engine visibility. To learn more, see our guide on tips for using Google Search Console to grow your traffic.

For example, here is a report showing errors that occur when a user views the site on their mobile devices. Without Google Search Console, it will be very difficult to pinpoint such issues and quickly resolve them.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console.

9. Track Your Keyword Rankings

Keywords are the phrases users enter in search engines to find what they’re looking for. To get more traffic from search engines, you need to know exactly which keywords are bringing you the most traffic to your website, so you can focus on what’s working.

We have a complete WordPress SEO guide that you can use to learn how to optimize your content for specific keywords.

Normally, beginners rely on manually entering keywords in Google search to see if their site is ranking. This is highly inefficient as you would miss out on thousands of keywords where your site can be easily ranked.

Google Search Console is a free tool that provides you with valuable keyword data with the average position. You can see which search terms are ranking high, search impressions, and how many average clicks you get.

If you’re using MonsterInsights, then you can view the Search Console report inside your WordPress dashboard.

However, it only allows you to see your own site’s keyword data. If you want to research your competitors, then you’ll need SEMRush. This incredibly powerful SEO tool allows you to view in-depth keyword data for any website.

For more on this topic, please take a look at our guide on how to track keyword rankings for your WordPress site.

10. Track Your Email List Growth and Performance

Most popular email marketing services come with stats and insights that you can track. These reports provide useful data like open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribe rate, and more.

You can also see the traffic coming from your email campaigns to your website in your Google Analytics 4 reports under Acquisition Â» Traffic acquisition.

From here, you can see how well your email newsletter traffic converts, and what you can do to improve.

Tracking email marketing data helps you grow your email list. You can create new email forms, change form placements, and use popups to boost subscribers.

While there are definitely other marketing metrics that you can track, we believe these are the top marketing data that every business owner must track on their WordPress site.

We hope this article helped you track the right website marketing data on all your WordPress sites. You may also want to see our step-by-step guide to boost WordPress speed and performance, and our comparison of the best business phone services for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post 10 Website Marketing Data You Must Track on Every WordPress Site first appeared on WPBeginner.
31.01.2023
How to Set Up Google Ads Conversion Tracking in WordPress

Do you want to know how much revenue you’re generating from Google Ads on your website?

Setting up Google Ads conversion tracking will help you uncover insights about your ad campaign’s performance. You can find out which campaign is performing the best, how users interact with your ads, and how you can improve conversions.

In this article, we’ll show you how to properly set up eCommerce Google Ads conversion tracking in WordPress. This is the exact same method that we use on our own websites.

Why Set Up Google Ads Conversion Tracking in WordPress?

If you’re running Google Ads for your WordPress blog, eCommerce store, or membership site, then it is important to know how they’re performing. You can’t improve, what you can’t measure.

Tracking Google Ads conversions helps you see how much revenue you earned from users who clicked on your ad campaigns. It also helps you see which paid keywords and ad groups drive the most conversions. This way, you can optimize your campaigns and budget for more profitable search terms.

Besides that, Google Ads conversion tracking also uncovers how users behave on your WordPress site after clicking an ad. For instance, you might see a lot of users arrive on a landing page, but abandon it after adding products to the cart.

You can use this information to improve the checkout process, offer discounts and incentives as users are about to leave your site, and provide a better user experience.

That said, let’s see how you can add Google Ads conversion tracking in WordPress.

Adding Google Ads to WordPress Website

The easiest way of connecting Google Ads with WordPress is by using MonsterInsights. It is the best Analytics plugin for WordPress that helps set up Google Analytics without editing.

MonsterInsights offers an Ads addon that lets you setup comprehensive conversion tracking without touching a single line of code or hiring a developer.

We will use the MonsterInsights Pro license for this tutorial because it includes the Ads addon. There is also a MonsterInsights Lite version you can use for free.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you will be redirected to the welcome screen in your WordPress dashboard. Go ahead and click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button.

Next, you can follow the onscreen instructions to connect Google Analytics to your site. For more details, you can see our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

With MonsterInsights, you can also use dual tracking to set up a Google Analytics 4 property. It is the latest analytics version and will soon replace Universal Analytics. You can learn more by following our guide on how to switch to Google Analytics 4 in WordPress.

Once you’ve connected Google Analytics with WordPress, the next step is to install the Ads addon. Simply go to Insights Â» Addons from your WordPress dashboard and navigate to the ‘Ads’ addon.

Go ahead and click the ‘Install’ button. The addon will now automatically install and activate on your site.

Creating a Conversion Action in Google Ads

Next, you’ll need to create a conversion action in Google Ads.

First, you can visit the Google Ads website and log in to your account.

After that, go ahead and click the ‘Tools and settings’ option at the top. Under the ‘Measurement’ column, simply select the Conversions option.

On the next screen, you’ll need to create a conversion action.

You can click the ‘New conversion action’ button to get started.

Next, Google Ads will ask you to select the type of conversions you want to track. It will show you 4 options, including a website, app, phone call, or import.

For this tutorial, we’ll choose the ‘Website’ option for tracking ad conversions.

After that, you’ll need to enter the website URL where you’d like to measure conversions.

Once that’s done, simply click the ‘Scan’ button.

Google Ads will now show 2 options to create conversion actions, including an automatic and manual method. In the automatic method, you’ll need to select the conversion goal, choose a match type, and enter the URL. This way is suitable if you know which events to count as conversions.

However, we recommend selecting the manual method. Simply scroll down and click the ‘+ Add a conversion action manually’ option.

Next, you’ll need to enter the Conversion action details.

First, you can select the ‘Goal and action optimization’ for your conversion. This is the action you’d like to track. For example, when a user subscribes to your newsletter, makes a purchase, adds a product to a cart, submits a contact form, and more.

For the sake of this tutorial, we will select ‘Subscribe’ as the goal. After that, you can enter the Conversion name.

You can now scroll down and select a Value for your conversion. Google Ads lets you choose the same value for each conversion, assign different values for conversions, or don’t use a value for conversion action.

We will select the ‘Use the same for each conversion’ option, select the currency, and enter a value for this tutorial.

Besides that, you can also choose how many conversions to count per click.

If you’re tracking email newsletter signups, then we recommend selecting the ‘One’ option. This way, each subscriber is counted once. However, you can use the ‘Every’ option in an eCommerce store and count each purchase as a conversion.

After selecting these options, simply click the ‘Done’ button at the bottom.

You can now see your conversion action under the ‘Create conversion actions manually using code’ section.

Go ahead and click the ‘Save and continue’ button to get instructions for adding the tracking tags for conversion action to your site.

On the next screen, you’ll see 3 options to add the conversion action to your site.

Simply select the ‘Use Google Tag Manager’ option. You should see the Conversion ID and Conversion Label. Copy these to a notepad file or keep the browser window/tab open.

To finish the setup process, you’ll need to head to your WordPress website dashboard and view the MonsterInsights settings.

From here, go to Insights Â» Settings and click on the ‘Publisher’ tab.

After that, you can scroll down to the ‘Ads Tracking’ section.

Go ahead and enter the Conversion ID. Make sure you follow the format, which will look like this: AW-123456789.

If you are tracking Google Ads on Easy Digital Downloads, WooCommerce, and MemberPress, then enter the Conversion Label in the respective field.

That’s it. You’ve successfully set up Google Ads conversion tracking on your WordPress website.

View Google Ads Conversion Tracking Data in Google Analytics

You can take it a step further and connect Google Ads with Google Analytics to get more insights about how people use your website after clicking on an ad.

For instance, you can see the number of visitors from paid search and find out which pages they view after landing on your site. You can also use different filters and create custom reports in Google Analytics.

Let’s see how you can link your Google Ads account with Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics.

Connect Google Ads with Google Analytics 4

First, you’ll need to log in to your GA4 account and then go to the ‘Admin’ settings.

After that, you can click the ‘Google Ads Links’ option.

It is located under the Property column.

A new window will now slide in from the right.

Go ahead and click the ‘Link’ button in the top right corner.

Next, you will see different options for Link setup.

First, you can click the ‘Choose Google Ads accounts’ option.

On the next screen, you’ll need to select the Google Ads account you wish to connect.

Once that’s done, simply click the ‘Confirm’ button at the top.

You will now see the Google Ads account that you want to link.

Go ahead and click the ‘Next’ button.

In the next step, Google Analytics will give you options to enable personalized advertising and enable auto-tagging.

You can use the default settings and click the ‘Next’ button.

After that, you’ll see a summary of your Link setup settings.

If everything checks out, then go ahead and click the ‘Submit’ button.

You should now see a ‘Link Created’ notification in front of your Google Ads account. This means that you’ve successfully connected Google Ads with Google Analytics.

Do note that it can take up to 24 hours for your Google Ads data to appear in Analytics reports.

Next, you can view the Google Ads conversion tracking report in Google Analytics 4.

First, you can head to Acquisition Â» Traffic acquisition from the menu on your left and scroll down to see how many visitors came from the Paid Search channel.

After that, you can go to Acquisition Â» Acquisition overview and view the Session Google Ads campaign report. This will show which campaign got the most traffic.

You can also click the ‘View Google Ads campaigns’ option at the bottom to view more details.

For each campaign, you can see the total number of users, sessions, number of Google Ads clicks, cost per click (CPC), conversions, and more.

Using the information from this report, you can see which campaigns perform the best.

Connect Google Ads with Universal Analytics

If you’re using Universal Analytics, then you can first log in to your account.

After that, head to the ‘Admin’ settings.

Next, you’ll need to go to the Google Ads Links option.

You can find the option under the Property column.

On the next screen, you’ll need to select the Google Ads account you want to connect.

After selecting your account, simply click the ‘Continue’ button.

Next, you will need to enter a Link group title.

You can then select the Views to link with your Google Ads account. Simply click the toggle to ON for the correct Views.

Once that’s done, simply click the ‘Link accounts’ button.

Google Analytics will now show a summary of your settings. Simply scroll down and click the ‘Done’ button.

That’s it. Your Google Ads account will now be linked to the Universal Analytics property.

To view data from your ad campaigns, head to Acquisition Â» Google Ads Â» Campaigns from the menu on your left. You can see the number of clicks, cost, CPC, and more for each campaign.

Final Thoughts on Google Ads Conversion Tracking in WordPress

When it comes to setting up any conversion tracking, the most important thing you want to make sure is that the setup is done properly. This is why we use and recommend MonsterInsights because it just does everything for you behind the scenes without touching any code.

However if you prefer to add code directly on your WordPress site, then you can do that as well by using a plugin like WPCode. This will help future-proof your customizations. There’s a free version of WPCode that you can use by following our tutorial on adding custom code in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to set up Google Ads conversion tracking in WordPress. You may also want to see our ultimate WordPress SEO guide and the best WooCommerce plugins to grow your store.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Set Up Google Ads Conversion Tracking in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

16.01.2023
Best Analytics Plugins for WordPress

There are several popular analytics plugins for WordPress, including:

1. Google Analytics for WordPress: This plugin allows you to easily add your Google Analytics tracking code to your website and view important stats within your WordPress dashboard.

2. MonsterInsights: This plugin is a popular choice for adding Google Analytics to your website, and it also includes additional features like ecommerce tracking, event tracking, and custom dimension tracking.

3. Jetpack: This plugin includes a variety of features, including analytics and website stats, which can be accessed via the WordPress dashboard.

4. WP-Statistics: This plugin provides detailed website analytics and statistics, including page views, visitors, and search engine referrals.

5. Matomo: This is an open-source analytics platform that you can host on your own server, and then use the plugin to integrate it with your WordPress site.

These are just a few options, and the best one for you will depend on your specific needs and preferences. It’s worth trying out a few different ones to see which one works best for you.

15.01.2023