Why Should Website Developers Install Google Analytics?

Many website agencies do not add Google Analytics to their customers, which can be a problem.

Video Transcript:

Tricia: My mind is blown when I talk to website developers, and so many of them aren’t installing Google Analytics at all, much less having gotten GA4. So, that’s just an interesting thing that I have come across, and I don’t know if you all do as well or if it was just me.

David: Yeah, I find a lot of developers think it’s not their problem and don’t do it because they think it takes a lot of time and effort to add it, and they just don’t want to scope it, and also, sometimes developers will say that the client doesn’t even want it. And they think they’re just not adding it because the client didn’t ask for it. They want to do as little as possible. It is probably because the more they keep adding, the more time it takes, and the less profitable it is. Yeah, but I’ve been arguing that I think every developer should add it, whether the client asks for it or not.

Tricia: And just build it into the cost of the website.

David: It should be. Yeah. Your clients. First of all, it shows the value of what you built. Right? Second of all, if they don’t want it now, they might want it later.

Tricia: And then they’re going to just assume, oh, well, so this is what we just did this month, but what about two months ago? When we ran out of blah, blah, blah. Well, obviously, you can get that. No, not if you don’t have it installed. And some of them don’t really realize that. You know, I guess I think it’s more our job to educate them on how it works and tell them that it’s not an option. That’s kind of like with me, when I get clients to manage the monthly Google Business Profile, I do my reports on Google Analytics, and I want access to Google Search Console. And my thing is, if you don’t have it, we’re going to add it. And that’s not optional because I can’t tell you how we’re really performing without it.

David: Dave, do you add Google Analytics to websites that go out the door?

Dave: Always, always. Even when we do some Duda sites, and they have analytics, I still go back and add it in. It just doesn’t feel right not to.

Tricia: Yeah.

Dave: Because the last thing that I’d want somebody to say is, hey, we’re going to start running some ads, and then they don’t have that stuff.

Bryan: I was going to say that I think it’s not just in the web developer. I’ve seen it in social media people as well. I know their scope is only supposed to be social media, but I know a lot of people who don’t really care if the client’s website doesn’t have analytics. So, the only analytics that they measure are on Facebook. But it’s just my opinion that how do you know if you’re getting traffic to the website?

Tricia: Yeah. You can show what Facebook is showing is going out, but then okay, so they hit your website, then what? Did they leave? Did they do your call to action? Did they go to a specific page? You have no idea what’s going on with your social media. You simply know that they’re clicking things. Well, then what?

David: Yeah, you’re letting Facebook tell you how successful their platform is.

Tricia: Exactly.

David: With metrics designed to make Facebook look good.

Tricia: Yeah.

David: Like impressions. Like really. Wow. Okay. Great. You know? I want to know did that produce anything for me? And yeah, I mean, I would hope even an SEO company would do it because I have seen SEO campaigns managed through SEMrush as the analytics from very large Fortune 100 companies.

Tricia: Yeah.

David: In that case, they were not allowed to add Google Analytics to the site. But they used it to suggest how much traffic they might be getting. And you know, the nebulous rank as a metric is always problematic, but they had no idea if they were getting customers from it because SEMrush has no idea about that.

Tricia: Yeah. I mean, so how do you even quantify what you’re providing?

David: Or how do you know which marketing is working? Is it your Facebook? Is it your Google organic? Your local? What marketing channels are working? SEMrush just reports traffic. Root traffic.