I got it!

I couldn’t be more proud of myself because I finally got Google Analytics added to my blog. I am very familiar with GA because I create many reports for my clients. However, the funny thing is I didn’t know how to set it up on a blog. After visiting many sites and blogs over the past few days and took a little detour, I found my answer:).

My goal is to get a free blog accepting GA so that I could track site traffic. I took a wrong turn at first by creating a blog on wordpress.com because I read from many sources that GA can be installed easily to WordPress. I just have to download the plug-in, open WordPress Dashboard and browse to PRESENTATION > THEME EDITOR > FOOTER.PHP and paste GA code into FOOTER.PHP file in WordPress. Sounds very simple, doesn’t it? Oh..well, the problem was I couldn’t find ‘THEME EDITOR’ anywhere on my Dashboard. After searching some more, I found the instruction I got is for someone who installs WordPress site on their own domain, NOT for WordPress.com website. OK, now it makes sense! That’s why I didn't see the darn thing on my dashboard...:-)

I wondered if I could find the free blog to play with without purchasing a domain. The answer is YES, fortunately. (Btw, I am really thankful to have the internet. It’s the best way to search any information I need quickly. I don’t know what to do without it.) I found out that www.blogspot.com (free weblog publishing tool from Google) was the solution. I was able to insert the code easily by going to the LAYOUT TAB and clicking on EDIT HTML. After that, added the tracking code just before the body tag, (body), saved and waited for the result on the next day. Simple and sweet! Love it!