Quick and easy: How to use Google Analytics with Tumblr

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Even Tumblrs need Analytics love.
Even Tumblrs need Analytics love.

So you got yourself a Tumblr blog, right? Whether you’re a newbie website runner or a veteran Tumblr owner, you’ll need to keep track of your website stats.

The best (and free) system out there to find out who visits your site and why is Google Analytics. The web stats analysis package there is the best in the business, but unless you have some sort of degree in SEO or traffic analysis, it can be pretty overwhelming.

So, for those of you that just want to get into tracking your site stats with a minimum of fuss, here’s how to get Google Analytics installed on your Tumblr blog, and a quick and easy way to set up your Analytics dashboard with the basic info.

sign in

Step 1: Creating an Analytics Account
Head on over to Google Analytics and sign in with your Google account. If you don’t have a Google account, you can click on the Create an Account link and walk through the easy process. Once you’ve signed in to Analytics, you’ll need to click on the Admin link in the upper right, and then click on Create New Account. In the Account Name field, enter your Tumblr’s name, and then type in the web address of your Tumblr blog (usually yourtumblrname.tumblr.com). Fill in the rest of the details, like your country, time zone, and the rest. Read through the Terms of Service, check “I agree,” and then Create Account.

analytics theme mode

Step 2: Connect Analytics to Tumblr
When you’ve completed the step above, you’ll get an account ID and some tracking code. It may look like this:

< script >
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-X', 'tumblr.com');
ga('send', 'pageview');

< /script >

The important thing is to copy all the stuff from the first “script” tag to the second and then head over to your Tumblr Dashboard. Once there, you’ll need to either find the section in your special theme that asks for the Google Analytics code, or edit the Theme from within the Dashboard. The way I did it was to click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of my Dashboard, and then scroll down the page until I found the Edit Theme button. Once there, I scrolled to the bottom of the Theme editor, found the field for Google Analytics Code, and then pasted the code from above there. Hit Save and you’re golden.

import from gallery

Step 3: Add a Google Analytics Dashboard
Here’s where the magic happens. If you’re like me, you really don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel to just roll down the street. There are quite a few basic Dashboards for Analytics that will give you a simple, no frills look at your website stats, right in the main Google Analytics page.

Once you’ve logged into Google Analytics, click on your Tumblr blog “account.” You’ll go to the basic Audience Overview page, but don’t stop there. Over in the left-hand pane, you’ll see Dashboards. Click there, and then click +New Dashboard. The Create Dashboard window will appear, and you’ll want to click Import from Gallery. You can scroll through a ton of useful dashboards here, and click the Import button for those you want to check out. Go wild, enjoy.

One fairly useful basic blog dashboard can be found at the following URL:

https://www.google.com/analytics/web/template?uid=U5zQSLDeQEuheLsVm95BFw

If you click on it while logged in to Google Analytics, you’ll be prompted to choose the Analytics account you want to use it with, and then go right to the Dashboard view. This one has a ton of useful bits of traffic info, like how many people visited your site in the time period chosen in the upper right (usually defaults to the past month), where they came from, and what are the most popular pages in your Tumblr blog.

You can, of course, use these same steps for any website, so have at it.

Via: CowleyWeb

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