How to set up the Google Site Kit WordPress plugin

Business owners and marketers alike have been able to take advantage of Google’s data analysis tools for some time. Gaining valuable audience information, traffic counts, keyword insights, and more about your website is easy – if you know how to navigate all the options.

When Google launched its Site Kit plugin for WordPress last fall, WordPress users—particularly those who rely on their websites to drive revenue—rejoiced. The plugin effectively brings multiple Google services—including Analytics, AdSense, PageSpeed Insights, and Search Console—under one roof

Table of Contents

What is Google Site Kit?
Step one : Start Setup
Step two : Access Site Kit to Your Site
Step three: Grant Site Kit Permission
Step Four: Go To My Dashboard
Step Five: Setup Analytics, AdSense and PageSpeed insights
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What is Google Site Kit?

Google Site Kit is an official plugin for WordPress users:

Created by Google, this solution is streamlined to work seamlessly with the platform’s most insightful tools. This can help you create a one-stop-shop in your dashboard, for immediate access to the data that matters most.

Connecting Google Tools and Services to WordPress

Google’s suite of webmaster tools covers everything from online advertising to website speed and optimization. While they all fall under the Google umbrella, connecting each of them to your site can take time.

Let’s take a look at how the Site Kit plugin helps you combine all of these tools, and what kind of information you can gather from each service.

Although it may not be ideal for formal data reporting, it is a helpful dashboard to stay on top of site performance metrics.

On Oct. 31, Google announced the launch of its Site Kit WordPress plugin that, “enables you to set up and configure key Google services, get insights on how people find and use your site, learn how to improve, and easily monetize your content.”

This plugin allows you to easily connect the following Google Services in a dashboard format within your WordPress backend:

Google Search Console
Google Analytics
Goolge PageSpeed Insights
Google AdSense
Google Optimize
Google Tag Manager

It brings the convenience of accessing your site’s performance data while logged into the back-end of the site. This is great for webmasters, developers and agencies who are often an admin for their own site or a client’s WordPress site. However, it does not offer the robust and dynamic capabilities of a Google Data Studio report or dashboard to sort data so it may not be ideal for a digital marketing manager or CMO.

With that said, it wouldn’t hurt to implement this plugin as it’s actually a nifty tool that can help you stay on top of your site’s performance metrics. It’s also another way to give Google more access to your site which can have some in-direct benefits organically.

Here is what the Google Site Kit plugin looks like within the WordPress plugin directory.

Installing and setting up Google Site Kit

To utilize the plugin, simply click install and activate as you would any other WordPress plugin. You will then be prompted to complete the set up.

Step 1: Start Setup

Click on the “Start Setup” button.

Step 2: Access Site Kit to Your Site

You will be prompted to give access to your site’s Google Search Console profile, which means you need to sign in to the Gmail account that has access to your site’s Search Console profile.

Step 3: Grant Site Kit Permission

Once logged in you need to grant permissions for Google to access the data in your Search Console profile.

Step 4: Go To My Dashboard

Once you’ve granted all the respective permissions, you will get a completion notification and can then click on “Go to my Dashboard.”

Step 5: Setup Analytics, AdSense and PageSpeed insights

Once you’re in the Dashboard you will see options to connect other services such as Analytics, AdSense and PageSpeed insights. You can now choose to connect these services if you like. If you go to the settings of the plugin you will see additional connection options for Optimize and Tag Manager.

Here is what the dashboard looks like with Search Console, analytics and PageSpeed Insights enabled. You can see a clear breakdown of the respective metrics.

The plugin allows you to dive into each reporting respectively with navigation options on the left to drill down into Search Console and analytics.

In summary, this is a great plugin by Google but keep in mind it’s just version 1.0. I’m excited to see what features and integrations the later versions will have!