Google Site Kit Setup in WordPress

Google Site Kit is a new plugin for WordPress that has been developed by Google. It is an SEO/analytics plugin that allows you to connect and monitor your site across various Google online marketing services, including Google Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, Google AdSense, Google Optimize, and Google Tag Manager. The best part is that you can do all of this directly from your WordPress site.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install and configure Google Site Kit in WordPress and connect the two most popular Google services, i.e., Google Search Console and Google Analytics, to your WordPress dashboard. We will also show you how to activate PageSpeed Insights in Google Site Kit.

Overview of Google Site Kit in WordPress

One of the most useful features of Google Site Kit is its ability to display your site’s data at an overview or aggregate level, as well as at an individual level for posts and pages. This feature is super helpful in gaining post/page-level insights across multiple Google properties, directly in your WordPress dashboard, saving you loads of new tabs, clicks, and most importantly, time.

Prerequisite for the Tutorial

We assume that you have already configured Search Console and Google Analytics in your WordPress site. If not, then we recommend you first set up both Google Analytics and Search Console before installing Google Site Kit.

Here’s why:

We believe that setting up Search Console and/or Google Analytics in the manual method gives you a much better understanding of each tool and marketing analytics in general. While Google Site Kit can configure a new account for your WordPress site in each of its services, we think that you should refrain from doing so.

Let’s get started with the tutorial!

How to Install & Configure the Google Site Kit WordPress Plugin

Google announced Site Kit for WordPress in WordCamp US 2018, and a year later, they released the developer preview on June 2019. Fast forward to 2021, the plugin is active in over 900,000+ sites.

How to Install the Google Site Kit Plugin in WordPress

Installing the plugin is a pretty standard process:

Step 1: Login to your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins → Add New and in the search box, type “Google Site Kit”. Install and activate the plugin.

Step 2: Once you activate the plugin, you’ll be prompted to start its setup process. Click on Start Setup to begin the setup process of the Google Site Kit plugin.

How to Setup and Configure the Google Site Kit Plugin in WordPress

Step 3: When you click on the Start Setup button in the previous step, a new tab opens, loading the Google Site Kit configuration page. Click on Sign in with Google to continue.

Note: Remember to use the Google account in which all your site’s properties such as Search Console or Analytics are linked. If you use a different email, Site Kit won’t be able to find the relevant properties and create new ones for your WordPress site. You’ll end up having a broken configuration with duplicate data.

Step 4: Sign in with the relevant Google account. If you closely notice the screenshot above, you’ll see that I’ve used my personal email to sign it (which is the master account for all my Google properties).

Step 5: Site Kit will ask for various permissions to access your connected Google services such as Search Console, etc. Click on Allow to proceed to the next step.

Step 6: Upon successful configuration, you’ll see a screen similar to the one shown above. This confirms that:

You’re the proper owner of your site’s domain and that your domain is configured in Search Console.

Site Kit can access your general Google Account data and your Search Console data. It does not have access to data from other properties such as Google Analytics, etc. This means that you’ll have to give individual permissions for each property that you want to link.

Click on Go to my Dashboard to return to your WordPress dashboard.

Step 7: At this stage, only the Google Search console data is linked, as shown in the screenshot above.

Step 8: You can view your site’s detailed Search Console data in the Site Kit → Search Console page.

How to Setup Google Analytics in Site Kit

In this section, we’ll show you how to link Google Analytics in Site Kit.

Step 1: Click on the Connect Service button as shown in the screenshot above.

Step 2: Sign in with the same Google account which you used in the last step.

Step 3: Click on Allow to grant Site Kit access to your Google Analytics data.

Step 4: You’ll be returned to your WordPress dashboard. Make sure that the correct Google Analytics property is selected and click on Configure Analytics to complete the connection.

Step 5: Google Analytics is now linked to Google Site Kit. Go to Site Kit → Analytics to view your site’s Google Analytics data in your WordPress dashboard.

How to Setup PageSpeed Insights in Site Kit

You can connect other Google Services either from the Site Kit dashboard or the Site Kit settings as we’ll see later.

For instance, you can enable PageSpeed Insights by clicking on the Connect Service button from the Site Kit dashboard.

Once PageSpeed Insights is linked to Site Kit, you’ll be able to view your WordPress site’s overall PageSpeed performance data directly from Site Kit’s dashboard in WordPress.

The screenshot above is Site Kit’s default dashboard with active three services, including Search Console, Analytics, and PageSpeed Insights. Incidentally, this is the same screenshot that you saw in the beginning of the tutorial.

How to Connect Individual Google Services in Site Kit

You can connect or disconnect individual Google services to Site Kit by accessing the plugin’s settings. As of January 2021, Site Kit supports six Google services including:

Google Search Console

Google Analytics

PageSpeed Insights

Google AdSense

Google Optimize

Google Tag Manager

You can view your active connections under the Connected Services under Site Kit → Settings.

To connect more new Google services, go to the Connect More Services tab and select the service you want to connect.

The Admin Settings gives you an overview of the Site Kit plugin’s status and the ability to reset the plugin’s settings.

You can also choose to share anonymous plugin usage stats with Google to improve the development of the plugin. The option is disabled by default. I have chosen to data with the plugin’s developers.

How to view Individual Post/Page data in Google Site Kit

As we’ve seen earlier, one of the most useful features of Google Site Kit is its ability to view data from multiple Google services (such as Analytics and PageSpeed Insights) for individual posts and pages.

To view this data, open the post or page in a new tab, while you’re logged into WordPress. Hover over the Site Kit button, and a new tab will appear with page-level data. Click on More details to access the detailed data for that individual page.

The screenshot above shows the detailed page-level data, for that particular page, across three Google services, including Search Console, Analytics, and PageSpeed Insights.

Wrapping Up

WordPress’ ubiquity and market dominance have made goliaths like Google release official plugins for the CMS. Today we’re looking at a more open, more inclusive integration of a variety of third-party services within WordPress, which ultimately benefits the end-user.

Google’s Site Kit is a brilliant example of this inclusive integration. Going forward, it’d be great to see deeper integrations with YouTube Analytics and Google Ads since a lot of online businesses spend considerable amounts of money on ads for paid content marketing and promotion.

What do you think about Google Site Kit? Would you use it on your site? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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