Most local business websites have no analytics at all, and many of the rest still carry a dead UA- code. Either way the owner has no idea whether the site is doing anything for the business. This guide uses the Google Analytics 4 screens as they stand in September 2026.
Before you start. You need a Google account (the same one you use for Search Console, so you can link them later), a login for whatever runs your website, and half an hour. If someone else built your site, you only need to send them one short code — step four explains which.
How do you set up Google Analytics, step by step?
Four screens: account, property, data stream, tag. The wording below matches Google's own setup article and the current interface.
1. Create the account
Go to analytics.google.com and sign in. First-time users get a Start measuring button; if you already have an Analytics account, go to Admin instead and click Create, then Account.
Give the account your business name, leave the data-sharing tick boxes at their defaults, and click Next. The account is only a container; it can hold several properties, which matters if you ever run a second website.
2. Create the property
A property is Google's word for the website you are measuring. Enter a name, set the reporting time zone to United Kingdom and the currency to British Pound (GBP), then click Next.
Get the time zone right now: it decides where Analytics draws the line between one day and the next, and changing it later leaves a visible seam rather than rewriting old data. Next come industry category, business size and how you intend to use Analytics. None change what is collected, only which reports Google suggests. Pick the closest match, click Create, accept the terms.
3. Create the web data stream
A data stream is the pipe your website sends data down. In Admin, under Data collection and modification, click Data streams, then Add stream, then Web.
Enter your website address exactly as it resolves — copy it from the browser bar rather than typing it, so you do not measure http:// when your site is on https://. Name the stream. Leave enhanced measurement on; Google recommends it, and it is what collects scrolls, outbound clicks, site searches, downloads, video plays and form interactions for you. Click Create & continue.
4. Copy the Measurement ID
Google now shows your Measurement ID, a short code starting with G-. That one string is the whole connection between your website and your reports. To find it again: Admin → Data collection and modification → Data streams → click your stream.
Correcting something you may have read elsewhere. Guides written before 2023 tell you to look for a "Tracking ID" starting UA-. That was Universal Analytics. Standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing data on 1 July 2023, and from the week of 1 July 2024 the old interface, the API and all historical Universal Analytics data were withdrawn. If your site still carries a UA- code it has collected nothing for over three years, and that data is gone for good.
How do you add Google Analytics to WordPress?
Three routes, in rising order of effort: a plugin field, the theme header, or Tag Manager.
| Route | How it works | Where it bites |
|---|---|---|
| Site Kit by Google | Plugins → Add New Plugin → search "Site Kit by Google" → Install → Activate, then sign in and let the wizard connect Analytics | Easiest route, and it surfaces Search Console figures in your dashboard too. Another plugin to update, and it wants broad Google permissions |
| An SEO plugin or theme field | Most SEO plugins and many themes have a box for the G- ID, or a header-scripts field | No extra plugin if you already run one. A field inside the theme itself does not survive a theme change |
| Edit the theme directly | Paste Google's gtag.js snippet immediately after the opening <head> tag | Works everywhere, but a theme update can wipe it silently. Only sensible in a child theme |
| Google Tag Manager | Install the container, then add a Google tag inside it | Overkill for measurement alone. Worth it only if you will also track phone taps and email clicks |
"How to add Google Analytics to WordPress without a plugin" is one of the most-searched versions of this question. You can — but a theme-editor change is one careless update away from switching your measurement off without telling you.
How do you install Google Analytics on Wix, Squarespace or Shopify?
All three have a built-in route and a catch: Wix needs a paid plan, Squarespace hides the field under developer tools, and Shopify no longer lets you paste an ID.
| Platform | Where the Measurement ID goes | The awkward bit |
|---|---|---|
| Wix | Marketing & SEO → Marketing Integrations → Google Analytics → Connect, then paste the G- ID | Needs a Premium plan with a connected domain. Not available on a free Wix site |
| Squarespace | Settings → Developer Tools → External API Keys → the Google Analytics account number field | Called an "account number" though it wants the G- Measurement ID. On older sites it sits under Advanced instead |
| Shopify | Install the Google & YouTube sales channel, connect your Google account, then choose the GA4 property in the channel | Shopify's help centre prompts you to install the channel during setup. The old "paste your ID into Preferences" instruction most blog posts still give no longer reflects Shopify's documented route. Nothing is tracked while the store is password-protected |
| Other builders | Look for "analytics", "tracking" or "integrations" in settings. Google lists built-in support for Blogger, Drupal, Duda, GoDaddy, Google Sites, HubSpot and WooCommerce among others | Some only accept the old UA- format. If yours does, use the manual snippet instead |
How do you add Google Analytics to a hand-coded site?
You paste one snippet into every page's <head>. Google's instruction is to place it immediately after the opening <head> tag on each page you want measured. The snippet is in Analytics under your data stream, in the install instructions panel, and begins <!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->. Copy it whole; do not retype it.
If your site uses templates or a static-site generator, put it in the shared head partial once. If it is a folder of separate HTML files, it goes in every one — a page you miss reports nothing, a common cause of traffic that seems to vanish mid-visit. This is also the only route where you fully control when the tag fires, which matters for consent.
Do you need a cookie banner for Google Analytics in the UK?
Yes. Google Analytics reads and writes first-party cookies, and the ICO's Guidance on the use of storage and access technologies, last updated 29 April 2026, is direct: "You still must obtain consent for all analytics purposes, as they cannot be considered strictly necessary for the provision of the service."
Three things follow. Under PECR you must say what the technologies do and obtain consent before they run. A banner that only informs — "we use cookies, carry on browsing" — does not collect consent, and declining must be as easy as accepting. And the tag has to wait: a banner that appears after Analytics already fired is decoration.
Most consent tools handle the waiting through Google's consent mode, which passes the visitor's choice to Google's tags. That changes your reports. When analytics_storage is set to denied, Google's documentation says the tag will not read or write first-party analytics cookies and instead sends cookieless pings used for modelling. A visitor who declines is not invisible, but is not counted the same way either.
General information, not legal advice. How the rules apply depends on your site, your cookies and your visitors. If it matters commercially, take proper advice. The ICO's guidance is free to read and written for non-lawyers.
What should you actually look at once it is running?
Five reports answer a real business question. Everything else is built for large online shops and advertising teams and can be ignored for years. What matters as much as each report is what it cannot tell you.
Reports → Reports snapshot — "is anyone coming?"
The Users figure is how many different people visited in the chosen date range. Set it to the last 28 days and compare with the 28 before. What it cannot tell you: whether those people were any good. Ten visitors who all rang you beat 400 from the wrong county.
Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition — "where are they coming from?"
Rows for Organic Search, Direct, Referral, Organic Social. A healthy local service site is usually led by Organic Search. What it cannot tell you: which search someone typed — that lives in Search Console. And "Direct" is partly a dustbin for visits whose source was lost: taps from apps, PDFs and some email clients land there.
Reports → Engagement → Pages and screens — "what are they reading?"
Which pages get read and which never do. If the homepage takes everything and your service pages nothing, either your navigation hides them or Google is not ranking them. What it cannot tell you: why. A page with no visits might be badly linked, badly titled, or about something nobody searches for.
Reports → User → User attributes, and the Tech report — "who are they and on what?"
Location tells you whether your visitors are in your actual patch. The Tech report splits phone from desktop, and on most trade sites the majority is phone — the argument for a tappable number above the fold. What it cannot tell you: reliable demographics on a small site. Google applies a two-month retention period to age, gender and interest data whatever your settings say, and small data sets are withheld to stop individuals being identified.
Reports → Realtime — "did that just work?"
A test instrument only: load your own site and watch yourself appear. What it cannot tell you: anything about trends. Nobody should watch Realtime as a business measure.
One number is absent from that list: enquiries. Visits are not enquiries, and the gap is where most website money is lost. That is the job of conversion tracking, and for which figures actually show a website earning its keep, read how do I know if my website is actually working.
What are key events, and what happened to conversions?
Key events are what Google used to call conversions in Analytics. Google's help centre now states: "From now on, events that measure actions that are important to the success of your business are now called 'key events'," while conversion has been narrowed to mean an action used to measure and optimise ad campaigns, mainly in Google Ads. The chain runs event → key event → conversion.
It matters for one practical reason: half the tutorials still say "set up a conversion" while the button in your account says key event. Same job. Marking a key event changes no tracking — it adds a Key events column to reports like Traffic acquisition, telling you which sources of visitors actually produce work. None of it is needed on day one.
Why is Google Analytics not working or not showing any data?
Four causes cover almost all of it, and ten minutes rules them out.
- The tag is not on the page. View the page source and search it for your
G-ID. If it is not there, the ID was never saved, was saved on one page only, or your builder needs the site republishing before settings take effect. - Wrong ID. A transposed character, or an ID from a different property in the same account. Compare it against the stream details panel character by character.
- Your cookie banner is doing its job. If the tag waits for consent and you previously declined, you see nothing. Clear the site's cookies, accept, reload.
- Your ad blocker. Many block Analytics by default. Test on a phone on mobile data.
If all four check out, be patient in the right place: Google says it may take up to 30 minutes for data collection to start, so use the Realtime report for the first check rather than the standard reports, which lag by a day or so.
The one to watch for. Double counting. If a plugin adds the tag and you also pasted it into the theme header, every visit is recorded twice and your traffic appears to double overnight. Search the page source for your G- ID and count the matches. One is correct.
What Google Analytics cannot tell you
GA4 undercounts, and anyone selling you a figure to two decimal places is overselling it. Four limits are worth remembering permanently.
Consent and blocking mean the total is a floor, not a count. Every visitor who declines cookies, or whose browser blocks the tag, is missing from the cookie-based figures. Google publishes no percentage for this and I have found no figure for UK small-business sites solid enough to quote. Treat your Users number as "at least this many" and judge it on direction over time.
Modelling needs a scale you probably do not have. Google fills some of that gap with behavioural modelling, but the documented thresholds are steep: at least 1,000 events a day with analytics_storage='denied' for at least 7 days, and at least 1,000 daily users with consent granted on at least 7 of the previous 28 days. A local service site does not come close, so the declines never get modelled back in.
It cannot see anything that does not happen on your website. A customer who finds you in the map pack and taps Call straight from the listing never reaches your site, so Analytics knows nothing about them. Those taps are counted in your Google Business Profile performance report, which records calls, direction requests, website clicks and the searches people used. For many trades that profile produces more calls than the website, so Analytics alone badly understates what your online presence is doing.
The history is shorter than you think. On a standard property, user and event level retention is 2 months by default and 14 months at most. Set it to 14 months on day one, in Admin → Data collection and modification → Data retention. Aggregated standard reports are unaffected by the setting, but year-on-year analysis in Explorations is not. Sampling, by contrast, you will never meet: the standard quota is 10 million events per query, against 1 billion on Analytics 360.
How is Google Analytics different from Google Search Console?
Search Console covers what happens before the click; Analytics covers what happens after. They are not alternatives, and the figures will never match.
| Google Search Console | Google Analytics 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Answers | Which searches showed your site, where you ranked, who clicked | How many arrived, from where, what they did next |
| Covers | Google search results only | Every source — search, social, links, direct |
| Needs | Site verification. No cookies, no banner | A tag on every page, and consent first |
| History | Up to 16 months, backdated from verification | Starts empty on install day |
| Blocked by ad blockers | No — data comes from Google's own logs | Often |
If you only do one, do Search Console: no consent banner, it backdates, and it tells you what people actually searched for. Once both exist, link them — Admin → Product links → Search Console links → Link. Convenient rather than essential. Worth adding as a third: Bing Webmaster Tools, free, minutes to set up, and the only place to see whether AI assistants built on Bing's index cite your site.
Common questions
- Is Google Analytics free, and how much does it cost to set up?
- The standard version is free, and it is the one every small business uses. The paid tier, Analytics 360, is sold to large organisations and raises the limits — the sampling quota goes from 10 million events per query to 1 billion. Doing the setup yourself costs only your time. Freelancers and agencies do sell GA4 setup as a job, and rates vary widely, so get the scope in writing first.
- How long does it take to set up Google Analytics?
- About 30 minutes for the account, property, data stream and tag, on a platform with a built-in Analytics field. Google says it may take up to 30 minutes after that for collection to start, so check Realtime first rather than the standard reports. Those settle within a day or two, and you want two to four weeks before any trend means anything.
- How do I find my Google Analytics Measurement ID?
- Click Admin, then under Data collection and modification click Data streams, then the name of your web stream. The Measurement ID sits in the stream details panel and starts with G- followed by letters and numbers. If you find a code starting UA- instead, that is a Universal Analytics ID, and it stopped working when standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing data on 1 July 2023.
- How do I add Google Analytics to WordPress without a plugin?
- Paste the Google tag snippet immediately after the opening head tag in your theme, via Appearance then Theme File Editor, or a child theme's functions file. The catch is that a theme update can wipe it, so use a child theme if you go this route. Many themes and most SEO plugins also have a Measurement ID field, which survives updates and is safer.
- Why is my Google Analytics not showing any data?
- Four usual causes: the tag is not on the page, the Measurement ID has a typo or belongs to another property, your cookie banner is blocking it until someone consents, or your own ad blocker is stopping the request. Check the page source for your G- ID, then load the site on a phone on mobile data with the banner accepted.
- Do I need a cookie banner if I use Google Analytics?
- Yes, on a UK site. Analytics reads and writes first-party cookies, and the ICO's guidance on the use of storage and access technologies says you still must obtain consent for all analytics purposes, as they cannot be considered strictly necessary for the provision of the service. So you tell people, explain what the cookies do, and get consent before the tag runs. General information, not legal advice.
- Can I see data from before I set up Google Analytics?
- No. Analytics only records what happens after the tag goes live, and there is no way to backfill it. Google Search Console is the partial exception: it holds up to 16 months of search performance data and will show you that history from the day you verify the site, because Google collected it whether you were watching or not.
- What is the difference between Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager?
- Analytics is the reporting tool. Tag Manager is a free container sitting between your website and Analytics, so you can change tracking without touching the site again. You do not need it to set Analytics up, and on most small sites it is one more thing to learn for no gain. It earns its place when you want to track phone taps and email clicks.
Related guides
Sources, all checked 15 September 2026. Google Analytics Help: "Set up Analytics for a website and/or app" (answer/9304153) for the account, property and data stream steps, the Measurement ID location, the gtag.js snippet after the opening head tag and supported builders; "Set up Google Analytics 4 on Shopify" (answer/10447272) for the up-to-30-minutes wait before collection starts; "About key events" (answer/9267568) and "Conversions vs. key events" (answer/13965727) for the key events wording and the event → key event → conversion chain — Google dates the rename on neither page, so no date is given here; "Universal Analytics has been sunset" (answer/11583528) for 1 July 2023 and the week of 1 July 2024; "Behavioural modelling for consent mode" (answer/11161109) for the modelling thresholds; "Consent mode" (answer/9976101) for analytics_storage denied meaning no first-party analytics cookies and cookieless pings for modelling; "Data retention" (answer/7667196) for 2 months default, 14 months maximum on standard properties, 26 on 360, 2 months always applied to age, gender and interest data, aggregated reports unaffected; "About data sampling" (answer/13331292) for 10 million events per query against 1 billion on 360. Google Business Profile Help, "Performance" (business/answer/9918094) for calls, directions, website clicks and search terms. ICO, "Guidance on the use of storage and access technologies", last updated 29 April 2026: "You still must obtain consent for all analytics purposes, as they cannot be considered strictly necessary for the provision of the service," plus the PECR duty to tell, explain and obtain prior consent. Shopify Help Centre, "Setting up Google Analytics 4", for installing the Google & YouTube sales channel. Question phrasings validated against Google UK autocomplete on 15 September 2026: 252 distinct returned phrases across five seeds with alphabet and modifier expansion. One figure I could not source: there is no reliable published percentage for how many UK small-business visitors block or decline analytics tracking, so this guide gives none.