Most content management systems (CMS) have no built-in analytics feature to track the statistics of visitors. Ghost is no exception. Haven’t heard about Ghost CMS?
Ghost is a headless CMS designed specifically for blogging. It offers a great blogging experience with a simpler administration. Ghost is designed specifically for professional bloggers aiming at monetizing their blog via paid membership model. Ghost doesn’t support plugin, but it does allow you to integrate your blog with popular third-party services, including Google Analytics.
Google Analytics itself is the most popular tool widely used by bloggers to track the visitors of their blog. There are a number of useful metrics you can monitor in Google Analytics. From the number of visitors (be it daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, to custom period), demography, technologies used by your visitors, and so on.
This post will show you how to install Google Analytics on your Ghost blog.
How to Install Google Analytics in Ghost
Step 1: Get the Tracking Code
The first thing you need to do to install Google Analytics in Ghost is to get the tracking code. If you already have a Google Analytics account, you can create a new property to get the tracking code. To do so, visit the Google Analytics page and login with your account. Click the gear icon on the bottom-left corner to open the admin screen. Click the Create Property button to create a new property.
On the next screen, give your property a name and click the Next button to continue.
On the next screen, you will be asked some questions related to your business. Simply answer the questions and click the Create button to create the property.
On the next screen, you will be asked to create a data stream. Since you want to install Google Analytics on your blog, you can choose the Web option.
Enter the URL of your blog on the Website URL field (without http(s)://) and your blog name on the Stream name field. End by clicking the Create stream button.
On the opening dialog window, open the Global site tag option and copy the code (your Google Analytics tracking code has been included in the code).
What if you have no Google Analytics account yet?
Simply create one. First, visit the Google Analytics page and login with your Google account. Once logged in, click the Start measuring button.
Provide the name for your Google Analytics account and click the Next button.
On the next steps, you will be asked to setup the tracking property, which we have just covered above.
Step 2: Paste the Tracking Code to Ghost
Once you have the tracking code, you can paste it to Ghost. There are two locations where you can place the code: header and footer. Both header and footer are loaded on every Ghost page (be it static pages or blog posts) so you can place your code here.
To place the code, first, login to your Ghost dashboard (yourblog.com/ghost). Once logged in, click the gear icon on the left panel to open the Settings screen. On the Settings screen, click the Code injection menu.
Paste the tracking code you have just copied to either the Site Header or Site Footer field. Click the Save button on the top-right corner to apply the changes.
Please note that it takes time for Google Analytics to gather the data of your site visitors so when you login to Google Analytics right away after you paste the code, you will find no metrics.
The Bottom Line
Google Analytics is the most popular tool used by bloggers and website owners to track the statistics of their website visitors. It provides the necessary metrics related to site improvement and marketing purposes. If you have a Ghost-based blog, you can install Google Analytics to learn how much traffic your blog acquires. Ghost, just like other CMS, has no built-in analytics feature so installing Google Analytics is crucial to learn your blog growth.