We are constantly looking for clever ways to show customers their website statistics. Google Analytics has been one of our mainstays, but there were other tools to gather metrics that predate Google Analytics. Awstats was one of the tools we used to rely on, it is still installed on most websites but most casual admins will not use it. Most serious web developers will rely on Google Analytics for their broadest set of tools.
Well now Google has Site Kit. A WordPress plugin for analytics.
Site Kit is relatively new, but it’s strengths lie in commbining several of Google’s services into one plugin.
- Google Search Console
- Google AdSense
- Google Analytics
- Google PageSpeed Insights
We have been recommending plugins like Google Analytics by Monster Insights, and All In One SEO, even Google XML Sitemap makers. But all of these tools do not provide a cohesive plugin that gives you all of the necessary Google tools.
I would not be surprised if they combine a Google My Business in the future to add functionality to manage and share data with your Google Maps listing.
WordPress Plugins
When you install a WordPress Plugin it is like installing a new piece of software on your computer adding new functionality (e.g. contact form, shopping cart, security, or analytics functions.)
The Google Site Kit plugin looks like it has been around since 2019, so it has at least one year of existence and they are on version 1.25.0 as of today.
The website for the Google Site Kit plugin is here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-site-kit/#developers
Other tools for analytics
CPanel is the modern control panel of choice for your web hosting plan. In it you will find various tools to get insight on how your website is performing.
CPanel is not something you install, it is something that comes with just about every modern hosting plan. Godaddy’s older plans do not come with CPanel.
Inside CPanel you will still find old school tools like Awstats that does not rely on Google Analytics. Awstats will give you the actual website statistics for visitors that came directly to you website.
Some of the other plugins we have recommended in the past for analytics are listed below. You can use some of these other plugins for comparison or if you want other functionality.
More on Google Analytics
One of the mainstays of the Google toolsets for websites is Google Analytics. Analytics gives you insight into the following:
- How many users to your website
- Traffic sources (where users found you or were referred from)
- Inside the Acquisition tab you can view Search Console data (search queries for your site on the Google search engine)
- User behavior
- Real time hits
- Audience demographics
More on Google PageSpeed Insights
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
If you want to see what performance looks like on your website who better to ask than Google. They even have a tool specifically for this that gives you technical details on why your website pages may be slow.
Google Site Kit gives you a report automatically at the bottom of the dashboard so you don’t have to leave your website to get this information.
Interestingly enough, PageSpeed finds stuff that Google slows down on any website. Apparently 20kb of code created a 27ms slowdown.
More on the Google Search Console
The Google Search Console tools used to be called Google Webmaster Tools. This tool essentially allows you to gain more insight into the specifics of searches for your site on the Google search engine. This is different from Google Analytics, where analytics allows you to see what actually transpired with the actual hits on your website and a bit of how they were affected by search.
Wikipedia for Google Search Console
Wikipedia states: Google Search Console is a web service by Google Formerly Google Webmasters which allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites.