How To Get A Google Analytics Account
Setting up a Google Analytics account is a relatively straight forward process. The first thing you need is a Google Account. This is a user account that provides you with access to Google products and services. If you don’t already have one, signing up is easy. There are several places on Google’s websites that lead to the sign-up process, but the best place is at https://www.google.com/accounts/ where you can click on ‘Create an account now’ to begin the registration process. You will be asked for an existing e-mail address and to specify a password for the Google account. After that, choose your location, complete the word verification field and read/agree to the terms and conditions before clicking on ‘I accept. Create my account’. Once this form has been filled in Google will send you a confirmation e-mail in order to help prevent spammers and let you verify the creation of the account. After this validation process you’re good to go regarding your Google Account and are ready to proceed with signing up for Google Analytics.
To begin the Google Analytics sign up process, go to http://www.google.co.uk/analytics/ and click on ‘Access Analytics’. Use either an existing login or your newly created Google account login information to sign into Google and you will then be presented with a getting started screen. Click on ‘Sign Up’ to continue. Next comes the main part of the sign up procedure, first you need to choose http:// or https:// dependant upon whether or not your site is hosted on a secure server. Second, enter your site’s URL and name your account. Google defaults the account name to that of your domain, but you can change this should you wish to. Finish this section by selecting the country or territory you’re located in and the time zone. Click on ‘Continue’ to move on.
The next stage allows you to specify your contact information. At the very least you need to enter your country or territory and again click ‘Continue’ to proceed to the next step. We’re nearly there now, all that remains is to read/agree to the ‘Google Analytics Terms Of Service’ and edit your data sharing settings if you want to. Finally when you’re ready, clicking on ‘Create New Account’ will do just that and direct you to the ‘Analytics: Tracking Instructions’ page. The code provided is is the snippet of JavaScript that needs to be copied into every page on the website that you wish to track. You can either add the tracking code now, or copy, paste and save the code somewhere else for when you’re ready to utilise it later. Don’t worry if you misplace the code since you can go back into your account and retrieve it as and when required. Clicking ‘Finish’ will complete the whole process and navigate you to the main ‘Analytics Settings’ section of your account.