Hey all.. Im new here. Just launched an Online Gift Guide for Sports Enthusiasts at http://www.sportsblend.com. I am not a programmer and wondering how to "properly" install GA on a wordpress blog. Is there a plugin? Can I do it directly from the dashboard or do I have to do it via the ftp or modify php files.. Thanks
Best way to do it is to go to the Editor (on the left hand side options under 'Appearance') and then on the right hand side, you should see a page listed named 'Sidebar'. Clicking on that will load the page code into the central window. Scroll to the bottom, and find the last tag that says '</div>'. Paste your GA code snippet (from the GA site) right above this line. That's it. The reason to do it on the sidebar is because that page should get loaded every time (I've looked at your site and this would be true for you). Putting it at the bottom of the page means the entire page loads before GA counts it, which will be more accurate.
Download the Wordpress plugin from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analyticator/ and install in your wordpress blog. Hope this help.
I would add it to the header or footer, if you use a theme like thesis there is an option within the admin, I would be careful about using too many plugins as it will slow down your website as there are a lot of dynamic php calls.
I would add it on footer.php as well. Just make sure you don't forget to add the line again whenever you change your theme.
I would add it to the footer.php aswell, I don't know why someone suggested sidebar, footer is loaded all the time also :S and it's right at the bottom.
I made a post about this a few days ago, which may help out a lot: http://www.lazyscripter.com/2010/07/how-to-setup-google-analytics-for-your-wordpress-blog/
Google analytics now provide tracking code that need to/can be placed in the header. It is sure shot that header will be loaded each time. So from your wordpress dashboard >go to> appearance >go to>editor There you select header.php. Then header.php file will be loaded in the box. Look for </head> tag.Then you find the code snippet from Google analytics, copy and paste it, just before the closing </head> tag. Don't forget to Save/update the file Then there is traditional way to install it as well. Refer these links for more info For the above mentioned installation http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en_US&answer=174090&utm_id=ad For traditional installation https://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55488 One last thing.. It happened to me... I forgot where to find my snippet code again..I had to search a lot to find it. I found this article useful for that. Where can I find my tracking code from within my Google Analytics account?