How to Add New Website to Google Analytics

Adding your website to Google Analytics is the first step toward understanding how visitors find and interact with your site. This guide will walk you through setting up a new Google Analytics 4 property and connecting it to your website so you can start collecting valuable data. We'll cover everything from account creation to verifying that your tracking code is working correctly.

Understanding Google Analytics 4

Before getting started, it's helpful to know you'll be using Google Analytics 4, or GA4. This is the latest version of Google Analytics and the current standard for tracking website performance. If you've used Google's previous version (Universal Analytics), you'll notice GA4 is quite different.

The main shift is from a model based on "sessions" and "pageviews" to one based on "events." An event can be anything from a page view to a button click, a form submission, or a user scrolling down the page. This event-based approach offers a more flexible and comprehensive way to measure user engagement across your website and apps. While it's a change, setting it up for a new site is straightforward, and we'll guide you through every step.

Before You Start: What You’ll Need

The setup process is simple, but having these items ready will make it even smoother. Make sure you have:

• A Google Account: You'll need a Google account (like a Gmail address) to create and access your Google Analytics profile.
• Website Access: You must have administrative access to your website's backend. This allows you to either install a plugin or add the necessary tracking code to your site's header files.

Step-by-Step Guide: Creating Your Google Analytics 4 Account

First, you need to create an "Account" and a "Property" within Google Analytics. Think of the Account as the overarching container for your business and the Property as the specific website you want to track.

Step 1: Sign in and Start Setup

Head over to the Google Analytics website. Sign in with your Google account. If you've never created a Google Analytics account before, you'll be taken directly to the setup screen. If you already have an account, navigate to the Admin section (look for the gear icon in the bottom-left corner) and click Create Account.

Step 2: Configure Your Account

On the "Account creation" screen, you'll start with the basics.

• Account name: Enter your business name here. For example, "Sarah's Flower Shop." This is just for your own organization.
• Account Data Sharing Settings: Review the data sharing options. These settings control how your data is shared with Google for things like technical support and benchmarking. It is generally safe to leave these checked.

Click "Next" to continue.

Step 3: Create Your Property

Now, you will create the Property for the website you're adding.

• Property name: Enter the name of your website. Something simple like "sarahsflowers.com" works well.
• Reporting time zone: Select the time zone you typically work in. This ensures your reports reflect your business's day-to-day schedule and makes it easier to compare data over time.
• Currency: Choose the currency your business operates in. This is especially important if you run an e-commerce store and plan on tracking revenue.

Click "Next" once you’ve filled this out.

Step 4: Answer a Few Business Questions

In this step, Google asks for some optional details about your business. Select your industry category and business size. Providing this information helps Google provide you with relevant benchmark data from similar companies so you can see how you stack up against the competition. After making your selections, click "Next."

Step 5: Choose Your Business Objectives

Finally, Google asks about your goals. Are you trying to generate leads, drive online sales, or raise brand awareness? Select the objectives that best match what you want to achieve with your website. Your choices here will help GA4 customize the types of reports and dashboards it shows you by default. You can change these later, so don't worry about getting it perfect. After selecting your objectives, click Create and accept the Google Analytics Terms of Service Agreement.

Connecting GA4 to Your Website: The Data Stream Setup

With your account and property created, it's time to create a "Data Stream." This is what actually connects Google Analytics to your website and enables it to start collecting data.

1. Choose a platform: Since you're tracking a website, select Web.
2. Set up your web stream: Enter your website’s URL (e.g., sarahsflowers.com) and give the stream a name (e.g., "[Your Website Name] Web Stream").
3. Enable Enhanced measurement: Make sure this is turned on. Enhanced measurement is a fantastic feature in GA4 that automatically tracks key user interactions without any extra setup. It includes page views, scrolls, outbound link clicks, site search, and file downloads.

After you click Create stream, a screen will appear with your "Web stream details." The most important piece of information here is your Measurement ID, which looks like "G-XXXXXXXXXX." This is the unique identifier for your stream.

Installing the GA4 Tracking Tag on Your Website

Next, you need to add the Google Analytics tracking tag to your website. This is what allows GA4 to receive data from your site. There are several ways to do this, ranging from very simple to slightly more technical.

Method 1: Using a Website Builder or CMS Integration (The Easiest Way)

Most modern website platforms like WordPress, Shopify, and Squarespace have simple built-in integrations for Google Analytics.

• For WordPress: The simplest method is to use a plugin. The official Google Site Kit plugin is excellent because it helps you set up Analytics, Search Console, and other Google Tools seamlessly. Alternatively, an SEO or analytics-focused plugin might have a dedicated field for your Measurement ID. Just install the plugin, follow its setup wizard, and it will ask you to log in to your Google account to connect everything automatically.
• For Shopify: In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Preferences. You should see a section for Google Analytics. Simply paste your Measurement ID ("G-XXXXXXXXXX") into the field and save. Shopify has native GA4 support, making this process incredibly easy.
• For Squarespace or Wix: These platforms also have a dedicated spot for your tracking ID. You can usually find it under Settings > Marketing > Marketing Integrations or a similar section. Look for the Google Analytics field, paste your Measurement ID, and you're done.

Method 2: Manually Adding the Google Tag to Your Code

If you have a custom-built website or your platform doesn't have an integration, you'll need to add the tracking code directly to your site. This is a bit more hands-on but still very doable.

From your "Web stream details" page in Google Analytics, look for the "Google tag" section and click on View tag instructions. Under the Install manually tab, you'll see a JavaScript snippet. It will look something like this:

<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-YOUR_MEASUREMENT_ID"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [],
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments),}
  gtag('js', new Date()),

  gtag('config', 'G-YOUR_MEASUREMENT_ID'),
</script>

You need to copy this entire code snippet and paste it into the <head> section of every page on your website. If your website uses a common header template file (like header.php in a WordPress theme), you can simply paste the code there once, and it will appear on all your pages.

Note: For users who want more advanced tracking, Google Tag Manager (GTM) is the recommended tool for managing all your marketing and analytics tags. However, for a basic GA4 setup, the method above is sufficient.

Verifying Your GA4 Installation

So, is it working? It can take up to 48 hours for data to start populating in your standard reports, but you can check if the connection is successful almost immediately using the Realtime report.

1. Navigate back to your Google Analytics dashboard.
2. In the left-hand menu, go to Reports > Realtime.
3. In a new browser tab or on your phone, open your website.

You should see your visit appear on the map and in the "Users in Last 30 Minutes" card within a minute or two. Seeing this activity means your tracking code is installed correctly, and Google Analytics is receiving data. Congratulations!

Final Thoughts

You've successfully added a new website to Google Analytics and can now track visitor behavior, traffic sources, and key user engagements. Give your reports about 24 to 48 hours to start collecting meaningful data, then begin exploring different reports like Acquisition and Engagement to uncover insights about your audience.

Now that your data sources are running, the real work of analysis begins. Manually building reports can be incredibly time-consuming, especially when your data lives across Google Analytics, your ad platforms, and your CRM. We built Graphed to solve this problem by connecting to all your tools and letting you build dashboards in real-time using simple, natural language. It's like having a data analyst on your team who can turn hours of manual analysis into seconds of conversation.