0The WordPress Guide

1.3 Statistics & Site Data

Col­lect and mon­it­or vis­it­or inform­a­tion to inform your site development.

1.3.1 Use Google Analytics

Google ana­lyt­ics provides free and very detailed stats which can help you optim­ise your site. Sign up for free and either embed the required code from your ana­lyt­ics page into your header.php, or use the google ana­lyt­ics for word­press plu­gin by yoast. The lat­ter is recom­men­ded as it’s easi­er and more powerful.

1.3.2 Use Google Page Speed

Google page speed provides detailed feed­back on the load­ing speed of your page. Both your vis­it­ors, and your search engine rank­ing will reward you for hav­ing a fast and respons­ive site. Like most oth­er google ser­vices, page speed is free. You can just use the page dir­ectly online, or you can sign up for an API key and use it with W3 Total Cache which presents the data as a dash­board wid­get. To get an API key fol­low the W3 Total Cache instruc­tions: go to the API’s Con­sole, Go to the Pro­ject Home tab, activ­ate the Page Speed Online API, and accept the Terms of Ser­vice. Then go to the API Access tab. The API key is in the Simple API Access section.
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1.3.3 Use Google Web Master Tools

These provide inform­a­tion about how vis­ible your page is on google. Again, access is free. Sign up by going to the web­mas­ter tools page. You can also get an API key which you can use with the Yoast SEO plu­gin — this is highly recommended.