Want the best Google Analytics tool and free plugins for your WordPress site? Using Google Analytics helps you track your site visitors and get detailed information about them. So you can make better business decisions for your audience and business. In this article, we’ll compare the best Google Analytics plugins for WordPress and help you choose the best one for your needs.
Free WordPress Google Analytics Plugins
Site Kit by Google
Site Kit is a newly launched official plugin from Google. It helps you connect your WordPress website to six different Google services and transfer data from these services to your WordPress dashboard. Other benefits include Google Search Console, AdSense, PageSpeed Insights, Google Optimize, and Google Tag Manager.
Site Kit doesn’t offer as detailed a feature list as MonsterInsights or ExactMetrics, but it can help you do two things: It can help you add Google Analytics tracking code to your WordPress website. You can view basic statistics for your entire website and specific pages in your WordPress dashboard.
You must take some authorization steps to set up your website with Site Kit. The setup process doesn’t require any code but requires you to click many buttons. You can view the statistics in your WordPress dashboard by going to Site Kit. Dashboard or site suite. Analytics allows you to view general statistics for the entire website, such as Traffic Profiles of your best-performing content.
One good thing is that Site Kit also includes search terms from the Search Console in the main dashboard, so you can see how they match up with your most popular content. You can also use the search box to open statistics for a specific page on your site. Again, the plugin includes a Search Console query for that specific page, which is convenient.
ExactMetrics (GADWP) Free WordPress Google Analytics Plugins
The plugin, formerly Google Analytics Dashboard for WP (GADWP), was acquired by Awesome Motive in 2018 and renamed ExactMetrics.
Even though MonsterInsights is now under the same umbrella, there are still many differences between MonsterInsights and ExactMetrics, which is why it deserves a spot on this list. First, in line with its GADWP roots, ExactMetrics is 100% free. Syed & Awesome Motive has publicly stated that they intend to continue offering the product 100% free.
So, while MonsterInsights hides some features behind the paid version, you never have to pay for ExactMetrics. From a feature perspective, ExactMetrics offers many of the same features you get in MonsterInsights (even some requiring the paid version of MonsterInsights, which is great if you’re on a budget). For example:
- Enhanced Link Attribution
- Real-time stats
- Affiliate link/file tracking
- Custom event tracking
- See traffic by author
However, I think MonsterInsights’ interface is better designed and more user-friendly. Therefore, if you don’t need free access to these premium features, the free version of MonsterInsights may be more suitable.
MonsterInsights Free WordPress Google Analytics Plugins
MonsterInsights is the most common Google Analytics plugin on WordPress.org. It comes from Syed Balkhi and Awesome Motive, probably best known for WPBeginner. Once set up, you will be able to view your website’s statistics in your WordPress dashboard:
In the premium version, MonsterInsights also adds advanced tracking features, such as advanced e-commerce tracking for viewing e-commerce store statistics.
Link attribution to see which specific buttons/links get the most clicks. Easily customize event tracking to create your tracking conditions. It has unique features that help you segment statistics by function in WordPress using custom dimensions. For example:
- Segment logged-in WordPress users vs. non-logged-in users to identify trends.
- See which post types get the most traffic.
- Segment your traffic by focusing keywords in Yoast SEO.
- See the relationship between your traffic and Yoast SEO score. For example, do pages with higher Yoast SEO scores have better metrics.
- See which authors get the most traffic to your site.
If you think you’ll use this type of advanced analysis, it might be worth purchasing the premium version of MonsterInsights. However, if you need something to help add tracking code to your website and display basic statistics, you can stick with the free version (or choose another plugin).
Analytify Free WordPress Google Analytics Plugins
Not only does Analytify help you add the Google Analytics tracking script to your website, but it also allows you to browse detailed statistics without leaving your WordPress site. You can view comprehensive statistics in your WordPress dashboard.
As you browse the site’s front end, you can also view individual posts and page statistics. The latter feature makes it easy to access statistics for a specific page without filters.
While the free version of Analytify on WordPress.org is excellent for creating statistical dashboards on your WordPress site, the premium version offers the best features. First, if you run a WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads store, the paid version will help you set up Google Analytics advanced ecommerce tracking and display this data in your dashboard.
If you’re not familiar with Enhanced Ecommerce tracking, it means that you can see store-specific stats in Google Analytics, like:
- Transactions
- Total revenue and average order value
- How many times people add or remove items from their carts
- Product clicks
- Coupon usage
- Refund tracking
- Individual product performance, like how often a product is purchased or added to shoppers’ carts
Not only can you collect this data, but you can also display it in your WordPress dashboard. MonsterInsights also allows you to set this up, but I like Analytify’s ecommerce dashboard. The Pro version also adds real-time statistics and allows you to send yourself automated email reports.
WP Google Analytics Events
WP Google Analytics Events is not a generic Google Analytics plugin like many other plugins. Instead, the focus is on helping you benefit from a specific feature of Google Analytics: event tracking. If you’re new to Google Analytics event tracking, you can use this feature to set up custom actions to track. For example, you can track how many people there are:
- Click on a specific CTA button.
- Watch the embedded YouTube video.
- Look at a picture.
- Scroll down the page.
With event tracking, you can do all this and more. The downside is that setup can be complicated; this plugin aims to solve that problem. It provides a simple interface to set up event tracking within your WordPress dashboard. This isn’t for everyone. But it’s a great tool to track and analyze specific actions in Google Analytics.
Analytics Cat
Finally, we have Analytics Cat, which is by far the simplest plugin on this list. All it does is help you add the Google Analytics tracking script to your site. You copy your tracking ID from the Google Analytics interface, paste it into a box in the plugin, and you’re ready to go. You can also stop Google Analytics from tracking logged-in users so that you don’t pollute your data.
This is not for you if you want the bells and whistles of something like MonsterInsights. But if you want a lightweight way to add Google Analytics tracking to WordPress, this is the best plugin I’ve found.
