I decided that I wanted a little more insight into who was accessing my WordPress.com blog. WordPress.com Analytics are decent but don’t present the entire picture. So like usual, I created a new Google Analytics account, copied the tracking code, and was on my way to find where to place it. I know that you cannot alter code on a WordPress.com blog, but I figured they would have an area for you to insert the code… Nope! After some investigation with my old friend, Google. I found this article here:https://en.support.wordpress.com/google-analytics/#enabling-google-analytics-on-wordpress-com.
Long story short, you need a WordPress.com Business Plan upgrade for the usage of Google Analytics.
After finding that out, I began weighing my options, questioning if Google Analytics was worth the WordPress.com Business Plan price. Before admitting defeat, I came across this excellent article on CloudFlare’s blog:https://blog.cloudflare.com/61118769/.
You can set up CloudFlare easily and then use their Google Analytics App.
CloudFlare is very easy to setup and has many perks for any website out there! To read the perks, click here.
Here is how simple CloudFlare is to set up:
1.) Signup for CloudFlare and start the process.
2.) CloudFlare will scan your DNS records and ask you to verify that they are correct.
3.) Select your CloudFlare plan! I chose the “Free” one and it works fine.
4.) Change your nameservers to the ones the they provide. There are also directions on this page that will help you do this.
5.) Once you are done you can click on “Apps” in the menu and find the Google Analytics app to put your tracking code in.
It may take up to 72 hours to populate, but mine took about 10 minutes. Now I have Google Analytics on my website and I am happy I don’t have to leave WordPress.com or switch to Business Plan.
There may be other ways but this did the job for me
Thanks for reading!