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You probably already run Google Analytics on your blog so why not view some of that data inside WordPress?

(If you’re not running Google Analytics, sign up and use it for free. It’s the most common and one of the most powerful web analytics packages you can use.)

Here’s how to install the free Analytics Dashboard plugin which gives you:

  • Blog overview statistics on your WordPress home page
  • Per-post and per-page statistics on those listing pages

Head over to the plugins area:

Then click on “Add New” near the top of the screen:

Then search for the plugin, e.g. “analytics dashboard”:

Find the “Google Analytics Dashboard” entry in the search results (which at the time of this writing is the first result), and click “Install Now”:

This is the confusing part, because although now you have the plugin, it’s not activated yet, which means it’s not actually installed and running. I know! But this is the Way of WordPress. So the next step is to “Activate” the plugin, which makes it live:

Next you have to configure the plugin to be able to access your Google Analytics account. To do that, find the plugin’s admin options link under “Settings”:

There you’re prompted for your Google Analytics username and password. You’ll probably also want to check the “Save my Password” box.

Save, then follow the on-screen instructions.

Now you’re done! You’ll see a nice site overview on your WordPress dashboard and nifty sparklines and statistics on each of your posts and pages.

Enjoy.