Google Analytics Goal/Event/SOMETHING to show only Wordpress "Posts", not pages, etc

[3DR]

Hi all,

Our site is build on Wordpress and formerly the post URL's had the typical date format at the beginning. This made it easy for me to look at, for example, all search traffic to the blog. I would just view URL's containing /2014/ and /2015/ and boom.

We have since removed the dates from the URL's with proper redirects etc, which is great, but now I can't figure out a way to look at ONLY the blog in GA. I like to track a KPI of 'search visits to blog posts' and I can't figure out how to now.

Can I set up a GA event that only fires when the post type template for blog posts loads? Some other solution? I'm lost here, and there's gotta be a good way to do it...

[3DR]

This is exactly what I was hoping would be possible. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[KaneJamison]

There's a couple of approaches, but I think the content grouping feature is your best bet. Here's the official overview page: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2853423?hl=en

Essentially, you'll be firing code on that page template that tells GA to add the page to a specific content grouping OR you can tell GA to dynamically assign content grouping based upon a full or partial URL, or page title. In this scenario, I think the first option is more likely. The full instructions are here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2853546?hl=en. Essentially, on blog pages, you'd want to fire your normal GA script, with the bold line below added:

This is going to be easier with Google Tag Manager if you're able to do that, but if not, hard-coding into the site will work as well - you'll probably have to create a header-blog.php file in your theme and use that header in your blog instead of your normal one. To my knowledge, Yoast GA doesn't support this yet, but there is a ticket for it at https://github.com/Yoast/google-analytics-for-wordpress/issues/26.

Content groupings aren't historical, so you'll also want to set up a "Blog" segment that includes any of your old parameters (eg 2015 in the URL), as well as the new parameters (content grouping = blog). This should make historical analysis easier.

I don't want to drone on for 10 more paragraphs, so check out those resources and let me know if you have more questions on implementation.

[irapasternack]

I was thinking about this some more after I posted last night. If your site is organized into sections with subpages, then you don't have to create a filter for every one. For example, if you exclude pages containing http://mysite.com/services/, then you would get rid of not only that page, but http://mysite.com/services/service1, http://mysite.com/services/service2, etc.

(And if your site is not organized in that fashion, you might want to look into adjusting it, as such a structure would likely help your SEO.)

[3DR]

Have a ton of pages, but this could be the answer if there's not a better way. Thanks for the response.

[irapasternack]

One idea, which would only work if you don't have an overwhelming number of pages, would be to make a series of Exclude Filters in the pages report. (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1034832?hl=en)  You could then save the set of filters with the "Add to dashboard" feature (http://www.blastam.com/blog/index.php/2010/09/google-analytics-tips-save-filtered-reports).

Hope that helps,

Ira