Google has been evolving Google Analytics for as long as it’s existed. Taking full advantage of these analytics and reports involves two steps – setting up both Google Analytics and Google My Business.

With both of these tools set up and interacting with each other, businesses can take advantage of a wide range of demographic tracking to pinpoint campaign effectiveness, web conversions, and more.

Learn how to set up Google Analytics for local business with the tips below.

Login to Google Analytics

Login at Google.com/analytics, and follow the directions to create an account. At this point, you can generate either HTML code or a site key to paste into your site to verify ownership before Google sends its search bots toward your URL.

Specific instructions depend on your webhost and platform. Add Google Analytics to WordPress, Blogger, or Joomla by clicking the appropriate link in this sentence.

Register with Google Plus

Google+ is another essential tool to enable when using Analytics and My Business. Google+ tracks your brand presence across all websites and tracks guest posts without even needing an anchor link. It’s also a required step for signing up with Google My Business.

Create a business page on Google Plus – this information will be shared with Google My Business to ensure a seamless integration of all Google services.

Sign Up for Google My Business

Next, sign up for Google My Business by logging in to google.com/business. This registers your business’s physical address on Google Maps. Registering with Google My Business is an important step in being listed in local search results.

When a user in Minnesota searches for “plumber,” they’re not likely to be interested in a plumber in Florida. Google integrates physical location for a variety of business-related search terms determined on a contextual basis. Without registering on Google My Business, your website won’t be favored in local searches.

Add Google Analytics to Google My Business

Verify the web address was entered the same way (with or without www., etc.) in each of the services above. So long as they all match, the URL you’re looking to track will show up on Google My Business, providing a quick geographic-based view of traffic.

This allows for a visual quantification of results for any PPC, AdWords, or other local marketing campaigns.

Google Analytics is one of the most powerful web analytics tools available for businesses and webmasters. Understanding how to set up and utilize data reporting will make your business run more efficiently and allow for expert data analytics.

Check back throughout the month of October for more in-depth guides to Google Analytics.

Brian Penny is an expert in Google Analytics, as well as a frequent contributor to the Connectivity blog.