Site Kit by Google WordPress plugin

[djbaxter]

Google Releases its Site Kit WordPress Plugin Out of Beta
by Matt Southern, SearchEngineJournal.com
October 31, 2019

Google has released version 1.0 of its Site Kit plugin for WordPress, which means its officially out of beta after 6 months.

In the time since the developer preview of Site Kit was released, Google says it drastically simplified the setup, fixed bugs, and polished the main user flows.

Site Kit allows WordPress users to access data from Google products right from their site’s dashboard. The plugin aggregates data from Google Search Console, Google Analytics, PageSpeed Insights, and AdSense.

With Site Kit there’s no additional code editing required, which makes it easy to set up products like Google Analytics for those without any developer experience.

Anyone can install Site Kit, but Google emphasizes that it’s especially useful for professionals who work on sites for clients. The reasons why include:

Work smarter and boost your PPC performance.

• Clients and other teams can easily access data from Google products by logging into the WordPress dashboard.
• Clients will see performance states and improvement recommendations directly from Google
• Site Kit allows you to set roles and permissions and make sure only relevant people can see the data.

To get the most out of Site Kit by Google, Google recommends reviewing the main dashboard on at least a weekly basis. You can also check the stats of individual pages by navigating to the page and clicking on Site Kit in the admin bar.

With this data, Google recommends comparing the top performing pages and seeing how people found them. This can help you discover trends, such as which topics get the most engagement on Twitter, which get the most engagement on Facebook, and so on.

To get started with Site Kit by Google, simply install it from your WordPress dashboard.

Read more...

See details of the plugin at WordPress.org:

Site Kit by Google – Analytics, Search Console, AdSense, Speed

Site Kit is a one-stop solution for WordPress users to use everything Google has to offer to make them successful on the web.

wordpress.org

 

[Rich Owings]

Is anyone here using this and finding it useful?

 

[Conor Treacy]

I have this enabled on two accounts currently and I like what they've done. I know I had tested it a long time ago and didn't install it on our main account as we use Google Tag Manager. It looks like in the latest release the GTM is now included.

It's a clean interface and tracks without any issue - it's what we'll likely use going forward with WordPress clients rather than using Monster Insights.

The only issue that I have with it is that it tracks EVERYTHING - there's no option to not track logged in users or admins etc.

So for some of our smaller accounts, where the clients never log in to the admin, this is a handy little tool/interface - however for others it will be of no use.

Also, if the client logs in, they too must setup the configuration in order to see the stats etc as it would log it all via our MCC account. So they wouldn't see the stats unless they too link their analytics. Unfortunately, if the user can click the "Reset Site Kit" button, and that would disconnect our viewing, and also remove the Google Analytics code for tracking. There should be a way to prevent that, but it's not an option currenlty.

So, nice little tool, but needs work before it goes into production on an account that we manage.

 

[djbaxter]

I just installed it last night. I didn't know it existed previously. But it works well and looks pretty cool. I haven't had a lot of time to play with it yet but it certainly puts a lot of quick information there in one place.

Edit: Actually it was two nights ago now. I forgot to hit Post Reply

 

[Lanerizz]

Has anyone else tried out Google Site Kit yet? I added to a few sites, some really great features here.

I am running into a problem though, where I am required to add Analytics, but I also want to add Tag Manager. Tag Manager also has the Google Analytics code in it.

I thought surely they would not allow the tag to fire twice. Sure enough I'm seeing signs in my data that the tag is firing twice. Namely my Bounce Rates are suddenly really really good.

So I guess I'm going to remove Analytics from Tag Manager? Which seems not ideal, but better than removing Analytics from Site Kit?

Any hints or ideas on how to manage this I'm open to it. Thank you!

 

[MeganR]

For those here who have installed it for their site or clients, have you noticed any degradation in page speed? My webmaster recently overhauled a site to improve page speed and I always loathe to add additional plugins.

Thoughts/observations?

 

[Conor Treacy]

For those here who have installed it for their site or clients, have you noticed any degradation in page speed?

There was only a slight slowdown on the initial page load when using the plugin rather than hard-coding the analytics code in the header of a WordPress site. If you're using other plugins, you may actually see a little bit of a boost as it doesn't have to load other bloat.

With Plugin:
TTFB: 1.150s
Start Render: 1.8s
Document Complete: 2.762s
Fully Loaded Time: 2.830s

Without Plugin:
TTFB: 0.933s
Start Render: 1.6s
Document Complete: 2.707s
Fully Loaded: 2.775s

So there's a little slow down using the plugin, but it is minimal at best. The tests above were non-CDN, non-cached requests on an HTTPS connection with the Astra Pro WordPress theme.

 

[Blake Denman]

There was only a slight slowdown on the initial page load when using the plugin rather than hard-coding the analytics code in the header of a WordPress site. If you're using other plugins, you may actually see a little bit of a boost as it doesn't have to load other bloat.

With Plugin:
TTFB: 1.150s
Start Render: 1.8s
Document Complete: 2.762s
Fully Loaded Time: 2.830s

Without Plugin:
TTFB: 0.933s
Start Render: 1.6s
Document Complete: 2.707s
Fully Loaded: 2.775s

So there's a little slow down using the plugin, but it is minimal at best. The tests above were non-CDN, non-cached requests on an HTTPS connection with the Astra Pro WordPress theme.

This is the content I came to see in this thread. Minimal impact, good to know. We built out GDS reports and I think we'll just stick to those for now.

 

[MeganR]

This is the content I came to see in this thread. Minimal impact, good to know. We built out GDS reports and I think we'll just stick to those for now.

Blake, thanks, for the stats.

 

[Blake Denman]

Blake, thanks, for the stats.

The real thanks go to @Conor Treacy, he was the one who published the stats!

 

[Lanerizz]

confirming my previous post: if you connect Google Analytics, and then connect Tag Manager with Analytics in it, that does result in Analytics being added twice and messes up your data. I ended up removing it from Tag Manager.

 

[djbaxter]

Also check that you're using the latest version of the plugin. It has been update twice in the past week.

Correction: four times. When I started this thread, it was version 1.00. Now it's 1.04.