When you start building a blog, the next thing which hits your mind is that how are you going to track that how many visitors are coming to your website. There are quite a few services through which you can find the details about the visitors, although, I prefer to use Google Analytics (it’s part of my daily work schedule to check it) and there are reasons as to…

Why I prefer Google Analytics for checking the traffic stats for my blogs-

1. Detailed information about visitors : Google analytics gives detailed information about visitors and that includes their screen resolution, browser information, the OS they are using, their geographic location, the amount of time they spend on your webpage etc.

2. Detailed information about the content : Google analytics gives in depth detail of the popularity of content, the keywords which are helping you in getting traffic, the websites which are referring visitors to your website.

3. Graphs and reports to help you improve your website : Google analytics shows all the stats in pretty graphs and lets you export the collected data in CSV formats and thus allows you to create your own reports, so that you can use that data to improve your website and thus improve the visitors experience.

Now the important part which comes in and that is how to install Google Analytics on your WordPress blog -

There are two ways of doing the same and one is by manually editing the code and the other is by making use of various plugins available on the internet and I’ll take you through both the options and lets see how to install Google analytics on your wordpress blog by editing the theme -

1. Get a Google Analytics account.
2. Add your website address in the account and get the analytics code.
3. Login to your WordPress blog admin or Dashboard.
4. Go to Design->Theme Editor
5. On the right hand side look for a file which says Footer.
6. Look for the tag which says < /body >
7. Paste the analytics code, just above that tag.
8. Save the file & that’s it.

Make use of various WordPress plugins to install the analytics code -

1. WP Google Analytics : The feature of this plugin is that it lets you add the code through the options and on top of it, it gives you the following features too -

1. Not log anything in the admin area
2. Log 404 errors as /404/{url}?referrer={referrer}
3. Log searches as /search/{search}?referrer={referrer}
4. Log outgoing links as /outgoing/{url}?referrer={referrer}
5. Not log any user roles (administrators, editors, authors, etc)

2. Local Analytics : Another gem of a plugin and full of features. It not only helps you put the Google analytics pretty easily but it also helps you in tracking various other things. Here’s the complete list of it’s features -

1. Compatible with latest Google Analytics Code Update
2. Includes support for local caching of ga.js
3. Includes support for tracking Adsense and YPN ad clicks
4. Includes support for tracking email links, external links and file downloads
5. Includes support for tracking subdomains and main domain in a single profile
6. Includes support for tracking visits to Admin Panels
7. Includes support for tracking logged in users

There are various other plugins, however these are one of the best plugins available for Google analytics for WordPress and I would recommend them at any given day. Although I prefer to go through manual way but if you are not comfortable in editing the files, then these two plugins will be the best bet for you.