How to: Set up a Google Analytics account

As someone who works in SEO (search engine optimisation) for a living, I live my working day in Google Analytics.  So many times during the #bbloggers chats I'm trying to help others set up their Google Analytics accounts that I thought it would be good to actually write a how to guide!  It's really simple and only takes a few steps.

Why should I set up Google Analytics?
If you're a blogger, and ever want to work with PR agencies, or just want to have an idea on how your posts perform, or how changes you make to your blog impact your stats, then you really need to set one up, they're totally free and as far as I'm concerned, provide invaluable information.  If you're anything like me, you'll get addicted to the real time view :)

This is the first in a 2 part series (second part here).  The next instalment will be about understanding all the stats you will have gathered :)  So, lets get started!

Step 1
Ensure you have a google account (if you have gmail, blogger, youtube accounts then you will).  If not, set one up.  Once you've done that, go to Google Analytics and click on 'sign up' (see pic below)

Step 2

Put your blog name in (1), your blog URL in (2), and your country and and industry category in (3) (for my blog, I picked Media and Entertainment) - scroll down and click next/save etc.

Step 3

It now takes you to the screen below where you can find your tracking ID. (I've blurred my sensitive tracking information).  When you get to this screen, scroll down.

Step 4

After scrolling you'll now see the screen below.  Highlight and copy the tracking code (which is blurred out on here)  :)

Step 5 

Final step!  Open your blogger dashboard, click on Settings > Posts and comments and paste the code in the 'post template field'.  Then hit save, and your done, capiche!

Tip - If there are any pages or posts you want to start tracking immediately, open up the page or post as if you're going to edit it.  Then click on the HTML button up on the left and paste the code at the top of the code.  Otherwise only pages/posts from the day you set this up will start tracking views.

The tracking code can take up to 24 hours to start tracking posts too and can throw up error messages during that time - but hopefully, if you wait the 24 hrs, you'll start getting some stats in :)

I hope that's helped - if you have any questions please do post them below and I'll answer all of them :)