How to Enable Google Analytics Site Search for WordPress
Posted on 26. Mar, 2010 by Julius.
There are a lot of people using Google Analytics for their blogs. It’s a great way to get some insight on your blog. However there are a few things that you should set up in order for Analytics to be more useful.
One of these things is what I am talking about here: enabling site search. If you have site search enabled then this will give you a lot of insight into what kind of content your visitors are searching for and what they are trying to find.
Before we can start you of course need to have a Google Analytics account. If you don’t have an account then sign up for Analytics.
Edit Your Profile – Step 1
After signing in you will see a list of all your accounts. Click on the account for which you want to enable site search. You will now see a page containing different web site profiles, it could also be just one profile. Now click on Edit (as seen in the picture below) within the web site profile.
Website Profiles: Click on Edit within the profile which you want to edit
Edit Your Profile Settings – Step 2
Again you will be lead to a new page. On that new page look to the top right corner. There should be again an Edit button (as seen in the next picture). Click on that button.
Main Website Profile Information: Again, click on Edit (top right corner)
Enable Site Search – Step 3
Now you are going to see a new page which let’s you edit all of the settings. Scroll down to the section Site Search. Within that section click on Do Track Site Search. If you use the standard WordPress search function then enter s as the query parameter.
Site Search: Click on Do Track Site Search and enter the query parameter s if you use the default WordPress search
Save Changes – Step 4
Once you have done that scroll to the bottom and click on Save Changes. Now simply wait for visitors to come and use your site search function and it will show up in Google Analytics.
It’s important to check the site search stats from time to time to see whether people are having trouble finding your information.
Was this article useful? Have you already set up site search for your WordPress blog?
Related posts:
Mars Dorian
26. Mar, 2010
That’s useful information, but I use WordPress Statistics at the moment, because it’s much more organized and less overwhelming. If you could give 3 solid reasons why I should convert to Analytics, I’m all yours
jules
26. Mar, 2010
I use WordPress statistics too. But I also use Google Analytics. And yes you are right Google Analytics is somewhat overwhelming but once you have gotten to know it, it is such a great tool. For example the thing about internal site search I mentioned here … you can’t do that by using WordPress statistics. Analytics also gives you a lot more information such as if you use Google Adsense you can integrate it within Analytics.
You can also customize Analytics to show you through which keyword people got to your web site and also on which page of Google this was. I will definitely do some more posts on Analytics, just try it and I will help you to make it a useful tool to you.
Patrick Toerner
01. Apr, 2010
I use both as well, wordpress stats for daily( or rather minutely) use and google analytics when I really want to check things out.
Mars, I am sorry to say it, but you gotta get Google Analytics working. It can seem overwhelming because it has so much stuff, but a lot of this stuff is actually very useful.
Take conversion tracking for example. You can set up Google Analytics to send you an email every time something happens, like every time someone lands on your thank-you page. So you get an email every time a new reader subscribes or whatever you want to track.
I see wordpress stats as the little sister to google analytics. I use wordpress stats mostly, but if I really want to see whats going on I hop over the the big brother.
jules
05. Apr, 2010
Thanks for the comment. I will soon visit your blog, I just got back from Scotland. I am glad this post has been useful to you. What would you like to hear more about though? Are there some topics that I should cover?
Jack | Blog Marketing
29. Mar, 2010
I actually use both google analytics and wp-stats. WP-stats will give you the total number of page views while GA will give you the number of unique visitors.
Great post Jules!
jules
05. Apr, 2010
Thanks Jack. I am glad you like it! Sorry it took me so long to reply but I just got back from Scotland. Won’t travel anymore soon
Eric
31. Mar, 2010
I did this and I’m not entirely sure what to expect but we’ll see what happens. I don’t check my stats hardly ever though I might keep up on that a bit more now too.
jules
05. Apr, 2010
I guess I’ll have to write more about this. I soon write a post about how you can use that to get some insightful information. I am glad you have tried it Eric
Thanks for stopping by!
Patrick Toerner
01. Apr, 2010
By the way, great post. The pictures helped, it took like 20 seconds to do.
Ralph
05. Apr, 2010
Julius,
So far I have been getting whatever stats happen to happen with whatever tools I install. I would like to understand them better and you have given me a start here. I look forward to more of these snippets. I can digest them, implement them and gradually build a better understanding of the tools like Google Analytics.
jules
06. Apr, 2010
Thanks Ralph. I know what you mean. Sometimes it’s hard to draw some sort of information from these tools but I will write an article about it soon. I hope I can get you to the point where you understand why Analytics is such a better tool.
David Radovanovic
01. Jul, 2010
Thanks. I always wondered about setting up “Site Search” and what was the query parameters. Still don’t quite get the different parameter values though. Why “s” ?
Julius
01. Jul, 2010
Glad to David
Well if you use WordPress then your search result page’s URL will look something like this http://andbreak.com/?s=your+search probably with some additional parameters. In this case s is simply the parameter to indicate that a search is taking place. And with Google Analytics you need to tell it when a search is taking place. So that’s why you need to enter s as the search query parameter. I hope this helps 