Welcome to Part 5 where we’ll look at the Google Analytics profile settings. You can find the previous chapters of the guide here:

1. Google Tag Manager
2. Tracking code
3. Check the implementation
4. Profiles and filters

5. Settings

So you have your code up and running, now it’s time to look at the settings. It’s important to note that they’re set by profile (see chapter 4).

Recently Google Analytics and Google AdWords streamlined the process of connecting the two services, replacing the old, tedious process. Now all you have to do is:

1. Login to your Google AdWords account and go to Tools & Analysis -> Google Analytics.
2. Navigate to your site property and click Admin. Then select Data Source and click on the button Link Accounts.
3. All you have to do next is to auto-tag your links and select the GA profiles you want to connect to AdWords.

Connecting Google Analytics and Google AdWords

Auto-tag your links

The next integration we’ll look at is between Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. You need to be assigned as site owner in Google Webmaster Tools. Login to Google Analytics and go to Traffic Sources -> Search Engine Optimization -> Queries. Then click on the button Set up Webmaster Tools data sharing.

Google Webmaster Tools integration

This will take you to the property setting of the account in GA Admin. From the section Webmaster Tools Settings click Edit. On the next screen you’ll see a list of all sites in your Google Webmaster Tools account. Select the site you want to associate and click Save. Confirm the association and from this moment forward the Search Engine Optimization section in your Google Analytics profile will start to gather data.

Next we’ll look at how to enable site search tracking in Google Analytics. If you have internal site search at your website this feature is very handy for better understanding what your site visitors are looking for, evaluating your pages user experience and get better information since a big part of the organic keywords are now hidden as “not provided”.

1. Go to the Admin tab and select the profile you want to setup site search for.
2. Click on Profile Settings tab and under Site Search Settings, select Do Track Site Search.
3. You need to fill the Query Parameter field by entering the word that designates an internal query parameter. It’s very easy to check your search parameter – just go to your website and perform an internal search, e.g. http://www.ganotes.com/?s=analytics – in this case “s” is my query parameter. You can enter up to five parameters, separated by commas.
4. That’s it! From this moment forward your Site Search reports in the Content section will start gathering data.

Google Analytics internal site search settings

Our next setting will be ecommerce tracking. The easy part here is to enable ecommerce tracking from the same Profile Settings window in the Admin section by choosing Yes, an Ecommerce Site (see the screenshot above). The more complex part is to add the special ecommerce tracking script to your order confirmation page. It really depends if you’re using a custom shopping cart or a third-party provider. In most cases the third party shopping carts have easy to setup settings for GA ecommerce tracking. If your site is running a custom shopping cart though, you should refer to Google Analytics documentation page for all details.

Go to the next chapters of the guide:

6. Goals setup
7. Virtual pageviews and events
8. Campaign tracking
9. Advanced segments and custom reports. Dashboards.
10. Custom alerts

Or jump to the whole thing: Google Analytics Implementation Guide.

Still have questions? You can ask them as comments below and I’ll try to answer.

Margarita Evtimova

Margarita Evtimova is a Google Analytics fan, who also loves SEO, conversion optimization, online marketing and social media. You can follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.