We have two versions of our Google Analytics by Yoast plugin: a free and a premium version. We’ve had some questions about the difference between the two. And while we can mention the additional features the premium version offers, this doesn’t explain how those premium features could benefit you.
So in this post I’ll explain the difference between the free and the premium version of our Google Analytics plugin.
Features
Let me first tell you what the difference in features between the free and premium Google Analytics by Yoast plugin is:
Free
Premium
Adds tracking code
Tracking of 404 and search result pages
Dashboards
Specific reports
Custom dimensions
Adsense tracking
24/7 support
You see that Google Analytics by Yoast Premium comes with some extra features compared to the free version. Let me explain what each of these features does.
Adds tracking code
This is really as simple as that: our Google Analytics plugin adds the Google Analytics tracking code, enabling you to start tracking the traffic on your site. This tracking code is also automatically altered when you check certain options within our plugin. So you won’t ever have to look at that tracking code!
Available for: free and premium
Tracking of 404 and search result pages
After you’ve installed our Google Analytics by Yoast plugin, within Google Analytics you’ll be able to find 404 pages that people have visited on your site. Also, if you have a search functionality on your site and you’ve enabled your site search, you’ll be able to see what people have searched for.
Available for: free and premium
Dashboards
This is a relatively new feature. It enables you to see the sessions to your website of the last month, and your site’s bounce rate for the last month. Just to give you an idea, the sessions graph looks like this:
This will give you the ability to get a general overview of how your site’s doing, directly from your WordPress install. You won’t have to go to Google Analytics anymore to see what’s going on.
Available for: free and premium
Specific reports
Next to the dashboards, there are also specific reports that you can take a look at without ever going to Google Analytics. You can see your most important traffic sources, your site’s most popular pages, and countries that get you the most traffic from, all ordered by sessions:
Available for: free and premium
Custom dimensions
Custom dimensions are quite a powerful tool, but also require a pretty lengthy explanation. I’ve written a post about custom dimensions and what you can do with them. We now support 8 different custom dimensions:
Let me take the custom dimension “Author” as an example to explain what it can do. It shows you how much traffic each specific author has generated over the period of time you select. Especially when you have multiple authors it comes in handy to see which one gets you the most traffic.
These custom dimensions can be viewed in Google Analytics, but also within your WordPress install:
Available for: premium
Adsense tracking
To be able to see Adsense reports within your Google Analytics, you need to add a specific tracking code to your site. If you have Google Analytics by Yoast Premium, you can do this by checking a box. If you’re a regular user of Google Adsense, this is something you’ll want (and need).
Available for: premium
24/7 support
Alongside those premium features, the premium version of Google Analytics by Yoast will also give you access to our 24/7 support team. If you have any trouble with your plugin or need help installing it, or anything like that, our support team is always ready to help you out!
Available for: premium
Concluding
Both our free and our premium Google Analytics plugins offer you great tracking and easily accessible insights. If you want to get the most out of your tracking and make money from your website, our premium version is the one for you. If you’re looking for more basic tracking features, the free version will probably be enough.
What about you? What do you use our Google Analytics plugin for? Let me know in the comments!
This post first appeared as Google Analytics by Yoast: Free vs Premium on Yoast. Whoopity Doo!
Source:: SEO
