I like google analytics and use it on my static websites and would like to add it to my blogs as well. I know how to install it on a static website, just by adding the code to every page. But how do I install google analytics on a wordpress blog? Which pages should I use to paste the code? Thank you for your help.
In WP you can go to admin and then you will find a theme editor. In that you need to find header file and there you need to paste it before </head> tag. I am not sure if its in header or footer but this information you can easily get from Google Analytics.
I have added analytics in my WP blogs at the footer, just before </body> tag, as was said in google manual.
Just use the plugin... its a lot simpler and it definitely makes the updating process less painful...