when does the analytics tracking code send a pageview hit to google analytics?
When Does the Analytics Tracking Code Send a Pageview Hit to Google Analytics?
Here are the answers:
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- Every time a user loads a webpage with embedded tracking code (correct answer)
- Every time a user adds an item to an online shopping cart (wrong)
- Every time a user clicks a video on a website (wrong)
- Every time a user searches on a website (wrong)
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“Every time a user loads a webpage with embedded tracking code”, the analytics tracking code send a pageview hit to Google Analytics.
A pageview is a metric that’s defined by how many times a webpage is loaded and reloaded.
Every time someone lands on your webpage, the analytics tracking code sends a pageview hit to Google analytics. Therefore, even if someone visits your website 100 times, you’ll know it.
Let’s take the example of this page named: “When does the analytics tracking code send a pageview hit to Google Analytics?”
There are many people who visit it more than once. So, there are more page views than unique visitors.
The pageview metric counts the pageviews irrespective of the number of unique users landing on that page.
What is Google Analytics Tracking Code?
Google Analytics tracking code is an ID that you have to put into the pages of your website to let the analytics tool track activities on it.
This tracking code is used to track your website’s traffic, understand the behavior of visitors, improve SEO, find your desired audience, and more.
Let’s see how you can find the tracking code for your website in Google analytics.
After logging into your Google analytics, click on the “Admin” option at the bottom left corner of the dashboard.
You’ll be redirected to a page with admin and user tabs. Under the “Admin” tab, click on the “tracking info” option.
A menu will appear with different choices under the “tracking info” option. Click on “tracking code”.
You’ll see a screen with the tracking code that you can put on your site to let Google Analytics track your website visitors.
Ways to Embed Code in WordPress Websites (manual/plugin)
Adding the Google Analytics tracking code to your site lets you have in-depth insight into your audience, making marketing decisions easier.
You can either insert a tracking code in your WordPress website manually, which is not that straightforward, or you can use a plugin like MonsterInsights to do the job for you.
Let’s first discuss how you can add a tracking code to your website manually without using a plugin.
Embedding Tracking Code Manually
To manually insert the code, you need to go to your Google Analytics account and follow the steps described previously to find the tracking code for your website.
On the tracking code page, you’ll see a JavaScript code. Copy it.
Now, go to your website’s “theme editor” in WordPress.
Click on “header.php” on the right.
Now, add the code you copied from Google analytics before the ending header tag i.e. </head>
Update the file. That’s it!
However, there is a small warning here. Placing the code with this method is completely fine if you want to use only one theme on your WordPress website. But, if you ever change your theme in the future, you’ll have to add the tracking code again.
Embedding Tracking Code with a WordPress Plugin
Unlike the manual method, using a tool to install Google analytics is far more convenient. You don’t have to add the tracking code ever again, unless you uninstall the plugin, of course.
I would recommend using the MonsterInsights plugin. It’s easy to use and does the job efficiently. You’ll be able to connect your Google Analytics account with your website within a few minutes, even if you are a novice.
The good thing is, it’s free.
First, go to the “Add plugin” option on your WordPress dashboard and search for MonsterInsights in the search bar.
Click “install now” and then “active”. You’ll be redirected to the following page.
Click “Launch the Wizard”. Above are some features the plugin offers.
Select the type of your website and click “Save and Continue”.
Click “Connect MonsterInsights”. You’ll be redirected to your Google account where you’ll have to grant permission to the plugin.
Finally, select the website you have just installed MonsterInsights on.
Unless you don’t uninstall this plugin, you won’t have to add the tracking code yourself.
How to Embed Code in a WIX Website?
After copying your Google analytics tracking code, go to “Marketing integrations” in WIX. Click “Google analytics” and then “connect”.
Paste the Google analytics ID there. Check the “IP Anonymization” box. Your WIX website is now connected to your Google Analytics account.
Benefits of the Tracking ID
Monitoring and AnalyzingWebsite Traffic
When you place the Google Analytics tracking code into your website, there are a number of things that Google can track and give you insights into your audience.
For instance, Google Analytics can tell you where your traffic comes from. It tells you the sources your website visitors originate from. So, you’ll know when someone lands on your website from a Facebook ad or by searching a particular keyword in Google search.
Once you know where your traffic comes from, you can craft a marketing strategy better.
Other sources of traffic may include:
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- Direct
- Affiliate
- Search
- Social
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Plus, you can also know the traffic origin. For example, the analytics data tells you if people from a specific country come from social media or organic search. Knowing this, you can optimize your marketing efforts for those countries in the future.
User Behavior
Knowing the source of your website traffic isn’t the only metric you would want to measure. The actions those visitors take on your landing page tell you a lot as well.
Behavioral data helps you understand your audience and create a marketing strategy according to these data. For instance, if someone visited your landing page and bounced within 3 or 5 seconds, there is something missing on your landing page. You would need to make tweaks to your landing page to not let the user bounce back.
Other behavioral data may include:
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- Pageviews
- Unique pageviews
- Sessions
- Session durations
- Conversions
- Site search
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Behavioral data mainly tells you which of your website’s pages are driving the most engagement.
For instance, Google Analytics can track the data of new as well as returning visitors. This way, you can know how many people are returning back to your website.
The behavioral data enables you to retarget customers in a better way, helping you drive more conversions.
Other benefits of adding Google Analytics tracking code to your website include:
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- Ecommerce performance
- New business ideas
- Improved search engine optimization
- Improved content marketing
- Better advertising with data
- Customization
- Data reports
- Conversion tracking
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Pageviews And Other Metrics You Should Know About
While a high number of pageviews certainly indicates that you are getting a lot of visitors, but you can’t be sure that these visitors are unique.
Your analysis of pageviews should take into account the fact that pageviews are independent of the number of visitors.
And, does a high pageview count indicates that your visitors like your content, or are they having trouble finding the right information?
Being critical about your metrics can be good because one metric isn’t enough to get to a conclusion.
So, what are the other metrics, you ask? Let’s discuss.
Sessions
A session is a duration of time in which a visitor interacts with your website. For instance, a session may include pageview, social interaction, and events.
User
A user is your website’s visitor. Google Analytics identifies whether the visitor is new or returning by placing a cookie in their browser.
You may ask why can’t I see pageviews, users, and sessions in combinations? It’s because Google analytics collects data separately, based on “scopes”.
Unique Pageview
If a visitor lands on a page of your website during a single session at least once, it’s called a unique pageview.
But, that needs a little clarification. Let’s take an example.
Let’s say someone visited the article “Future Of Blogging” on your website, redirects to another article “what’s SEO”, and comes back to “Future Of Blogging”.
The visitor lands on the first page twice in one session. In such a case, only one “unique pageview” will be added. However, “pageviews” remain two.
In other words, when you want to see the number of sessions for a webpage, you can look at the unique pageviews; these two are essentially the same.
Final Thoughts
When Does the Analytics Tracking Code Send a Pageview Hit to Google Analytics?
Here are the answers:
-
-
- Every time a user loads a webpage with embedded tracking code (correct answer)
- Every time a user adds an item to an online shopping cart (wrong)
- Every time a user clicks a video on a website (wrong)
- Every time a user searches on a website (wrong)
-
For example, if someone loads a page 3 times, with the tracking code embedded in the website, Google analytics will show 3 pageviews.
However, a “unique” pageview is different; when a visitor loads a webpage 3 times during a session, Google analytics will show 1 unique pageview.
You can either embed the Google tracking code manually or you can let a plugin take care of that. MonsterInsights is a popular plugin that connects your site to Google analytics quickly.
The tracking code lets you measure a variety of metrics in your Google Analytics account, allowing you to optimize your marketing strategy for the best results.
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