Everything you need to know about Google Analytics

Google Analytics has become the go-to tool for understanding how people behave on your website: where they come from, which pages they visit, how long they stay and whether they end up buying or asking for a quote.

Updated in 2026. When we wrote this article, Universal Analytics, the previous version of the tool, still existed. Google stopped processing its data in July 2023 and today the only version is Google Analytics 4 (GA4). We've rewritten the guide so it works for the tool as it is now.

If you want to learn how to install it and keep it well organized from day one, read on.

How to install Google Analytics on your website

The first step is to create a free Google Analytics account and, inside it, a property for your website. When you set it up, Google gives you a measurement ID in the format G-XXXXXXXXXX. That ID is what connects your website to your account.

Then you need to add the Google tag to every page of your site. There are several ways to do it, from the most technical to the simplest:

• Pasting the code directly into the header of your website. It's the cleanest option, but you need access to the code or help from a developer.
• With Google Tag Manager, which lets you manage Analytics and other tags (Google Ads, social media pixels…) from a single dashboard.
• With your platform's integration: WordPress (for example with the official Site Kit plugin), Shopify, WooCommerce or PrestaShop let you connect it without touching any code.

An important warning if your website is in Spain or anywhere else in the European Union: Analytics uses cookies, so you can only turn it on once the visitor accepts in the cookie notice. If you also run Google Ads campaigns, set up Consent Mode so Google correctly receives each user's choice.

How Google Analytics 4 is organized

GA4 works with a three-level structure. Understanding it will save you a lot of trouble later on.

1. The account

This is the top level and usually corresponds to your company. From here you manage the users who can access the data and their permissions, and you create properties.

If you're an agency, it's best for each client to have their own account, in their own name, with the agency added as a user. That way, if you ever stop working together, the client keeps all their data.

2. The property

The property is the container for your data and reports. In practice, one property per website or business.

In the property settings you decide, among other things:

• The time zone and currency of the reports.
• How long detailed data is kept. By default it's only 2 months; change it to 14 months if you want to compare with the previous year.
• Links to other Google services, such as Google Ads, Search Console or Merchant Center.
• Which actions count as key events, meaning the conversions you care about: a purchase, a form submission, a phone call…

3. Data streams

Inside each property you create data streams: one for your website and, if you have them, one for your iOS app and one for your Android app. That way you can see, in a single report, a customer who visits you on their phone and later buys on the website.

When you create the web stream, leave enhanced measurement switched on. With it, GA4 automatically records, without any coding, page views, scrolling, clicks to other websites, site searches, file downloads and interactions with videos and forms.

What has changed from the previous version

If you're coming from Universal Analytics, these are the most noticeable differences:

• There are no more "views". What you used to do with filtered views is now done with data filters on the property (for example, to exclude your office traffic), with comparisons and with audiences.
• Everything is an event. A page view, a click or a purchase are all events with their own parameters, which gives you much more flexibility.
• "Goals" are now key events. You mark as key any event you want to measure as a conversion.
• Reports and explorations. The standard reports give you the big picture (acquisition, engagement, monetization and retention), and in Explore you can build custom analyses, such as funnels or user journeys.

How to organize it properly: an example

Imagine a business with a website, a blog on that same website and a second online store on another domain. A good setup would be:

• https://spanishcontent.com and its blog https://spanishcontent.com/blog: a single property with one web stream. You don't need another property to analyze the blog separately: just filter or compare by the pages that start with /blog.
• https://contenidoenespañol.com: a different property, because it's another site with its own audience and its own sales.

That way each business has clean reports, with no mixed-up data, and you still have everything to hand in the same account.

Would you like help setting up Analytics and measuring what really matters on your website? Get in touch and we'll look at it together.