In Google Analytics, we can define a web property as an online asset, owned by a business, on the internet.
A web property is typically a website, but it can refer to a blog, a social media profile, or an online forum. A mobile application can also be a web property.
In short, any online presence can be a web property, and it involves tasks as design, development, content creation, marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and regular updates to ensure an engaging experience for the visitors.
Web properties are typically associated with a unique domain name, and they can vary in size from a simple personal blog, to a large scale e-commerce website.
Why it's important to gather data from your online property
Gathering and analyzing data from a web property is crucial for several reasons, but the most important is to understand user behavior.
Collecting data allows you to gain insights into how users interact with your web property and lets you track metrics like page views, time spent on pages, and conversion rates.
This, in turn, allows you to make data-based decisions on how to structure your property, what type of content creation strategy works better, and improve overall conversions.
It's very important that you make these kind of decisions based on actual data from your own property, not on generic industry trends you may have read about, or based on what you might think is going to work. Yes, your gut instinct may be right at times, but what works for the average business, may not necessarily also work for your own specific businesses.
If you don't make decisions based on the actual data you collect, you run the risk of wasting time and money implementing an online strategy that doesn't bring in real results.
How to set up a Google Analytics property for the first time
When you create a new website, or online property, one of the first things to do is set up the property in your Google Analytics account so it can start collecting tracking data.
Here are the steps involved.
If you already have a Google Analytics account, you can just add the property to it.
If you don't already have a Google Analytics account, you can create a new account for the purpose of adding the new property to it.
After logging into the your account, go to the Admin page by clicking on the gear
icon at the bottom left of the screen, and click on Create Property in the
second column.
You will be asked to fill in a property name. An appropriate name would be your website name. You will also need to select a time zone and currency. Choose time zone and currency appropriate for your location.
In the next screen you will be asked to choose your business objectives, so Google can create some default reports for you. Depending of what you choose here, your different types of reports will be initially set up automatically by Google for your property.
A good default choice is Get baseline reports
If you find later that some report you need is not generated, you can always add
it.
Finally, click on the Create button and the property will be set up and ready
to go.
The next step is to create a data stream for for your property.
In Google Analytics, a data stream represents a data source that is collected from an online property and sent to Google Analytics for analysis. It's like a river of data that flows into your analytics account.
We will learn how to set up a data stream in future articles.
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