If you are running a WordPress website without proper analytics, just remember that everyone can see you are driving with his eyes shuẗeven though somewhere on the map you’d crash soon.
Most business owners thinks they understand how their web is performing by looking at visitor numbers on their hosting dashboard, but that’s just scratching the surface.
Real analytics would let you know who is visiting, what they’re doing where they came from–and most importantly if at all possible: are they taking any actions with the consequences that wants them taking place? That’s where Google SiteKit can help fill in those blanks for you; and as we’ve discovered in our experience working (and learning) together with dozens of Australian businesses to install this handy little plugin, there are some hard facts truths from actual experimentation here – for which most instructions don’t inform users at all.
As we found out developing business after business in Australia to use it and then investigating Site Kit much more in depth than anyone else we know of, the YouTube videos and blog posts give off an air that makes it seem easy to install connect–done. That is incorrect: truly things get even messier real life than they do in those guides! We have seen firms which had utterly perfect Site Kit configurations but were still making life and death decisions on the basis of incomplete or ungenuine data.
The others had beautiful panels full of numbers they didn’t comprehend at all, advised on false strategies that actually harmed their web performance. This pit in between mating and real world utility is where most businesses are caught, and it’s what we’re going to look at right here.
What Google Site Kit Actually Does (And What It Doesn’t)
Before we dive into the nitty-gritty, let’s get one thing straight: Google Site Kit isn’t magic. It’s a WordPress plugin that connects your website to various Google services like Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights. Think of it as a dashboard that brings all your Google tools together in one place.
Google recognizes that 35% of the web is powered by WordPress and a lot of those WordPress webmasters are using Google services, which is precisely why they created Site Kit – to make life easier for the millions of WordPress site owners already using their tools.
But here’s what caught us off guard when we first started recommending it to clients – many business owners expected it to automatically improve their SEO rankings. That’s not how it works. Site Kit is a diagnostic tool, not a cure. It shows you what’s happening with your website’s performance, but you still need to do something with that information.
The Setup Reality Check
The installation process looks straightforward enough. Download the plugin, authenticate with Google, connect your services, and you’re done, right? Wrong.
We’ve seen countless WordPress sites where business owners rushed through the setup only to end up with incomplete or incorrect data. The most common mistake? Not properly configuring Google Analytics goals and events before connecting Site Kit. Once you’ve got months of incomplete data, it’s a real pain to fix.
Here’s a lesson we learnt the hard way: always set up your Analytics goals first, then connect Site Kit. Otherwise, you’ll be flying blind for weeks whilst waiting for meaningful data to accumulate.
The Permission Puzzle
One thing that consistently trips people up is the permission structure. Site Kit requires specific Google account permissions to access your data. We’ve had clients who couldn’t figure out why their dashboard was showing errors, only to discover that the person who set it up had left the company and taken their Google account access with them.
The solution isn’t complicated, but it requires forward thinking. Create a dedicated Google account for your business analytics, or at minimum, make sure multiple team members have the necessary permissions. Trust us – you don’t want to be locked out of your own website data because someone forgot their password.
WordPress SEO Integration: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Site Kit’s relationship with WordPress SEO plugins is complicated. After countless client implementations, we’ve mapped out exactly what you can expect when combining these tools.
The Good
Site Kit plays nicely with most WordPress SEO plugins, but there are some clear advantages worth highlighting. The Search Console integration provides data that Yoast and Rankmath simply can’t access on their own. You can see exactly which search queries are driving traffic to specific pages, something that’s invaluable for content optimisation.
The click-through rate tracking is particularly useful because it reveals pages that are ranking well but aren’t converting those rankings into actual clicks – a goldmine for quick wins. Perhaps most importantly, Site Kit identifies ranking opportunities that traditional SEO plugins miss entirely.
The Bad
However, things can get messy quickly. There’s significant functional overlap between Site Kit and established SEO plugins, which creates confusion about which tool is responsible for what. Your WordPress dashboard can become cluttered when multiple tools are displaying similar metrics in different formats.
We’ve seen clients spend ages trying to figure out why their Yoast readability score looks different from their Site Kit performance data, not realising they’re measuring completely different things. The additional plugin load can also slow down your WordPress admin area, which isn’t ideal if you’re already running multiple SEO tools.
The Ugly
This is where things get problematic. We’ve noticed that clients often become obsessed with daily Search Console fluctuations visible through Site Kit. They’ll make knee-jerk changes to content based on short-term data variations that are actually just normal search engine behaviour.
The misinterpretation of data leads to poor strategic decisions – like rewriting perfectly good content because traffic dropped for two days. The biggest issue is over-reliance on numbers without understanding the context behind them.
Analytics That Actually Matter
The Site Kit analytics dashboard looks impressive with all its graphs and numbers, but here’s what we’ve learnt: most small business owners focus on the wrong metrics. They get excited about pageviews and visitor numbers whilst ignoring conversion tracking and user behaviour.
Real talk: if you can’t answer these questions using your Site Kit data, you’re not using it properly:
- Which pages are driving actual business results?
- Where are people dropping off in your sales funnel?
- What content keeps visitors engaged the longest?
- Which traffic sources convert best?
We’ve worked with clients who had thousands of monthly visitors but weren’t making any sales. The Site Kit data revealed that most of their traffic was landing on blog posts and then leaving without visiting service pages. Simple internal linking fixes doubled their conversion rate.
The Mobile-First Reality
One of Site Kit’s features that astonishes clients time and again is its mobile performance tracking. Although most business owners agree they need to pay attention to mobile site performance, few people realize just how much their search rankings are influenced by it.
If the mobile score given by PageSpeed Insights integration is markedly lower than the desktop one, it just should refocus. Your Google rank will definitely drop. To give an easy example from SEO, we can say that Google now goes by If your site has a mobile version of its content, its ranking is judged on that basis alone.
Never once has a client whose mobile site scored more than 90 out of 100 overall on PageSpeed told us about his problems with mobile site load times. We have one client whose desktop site took just two seconds to load, while his mobile site took over eight. Fixing the poor mobile performance brought a 40 % increase in organic search traffic within three months, thanks to revising them.
Common Implementation Mistakes
After setting up Site Kit for numerous Australian businesses, we’ve identified patterns in what goes wrong. The biggest mistake is treating it like a “set and forget” tool. Site Kit requires ongoing attention to provide value.
Another frequent problem is data interpretation. We’ve seen business owners panic because their bounce rate increased, not realising that they’d recently added a chatbot that was keeping people on pages longer (which actually reduced the bounce rate artificially before).
The solution isn’t to ignore the data – it’s to understand what it actually means. Context matters. A high bounce rate on a contact page might be good (people found what they needed), whilst a high bounce rate on a product page probably isn’t.
Advanced Features Most People Miss
Site Kit has some lesser-known features that can provide serious competitive advantages. The Search Console integration shows not just what keywords you’re ranking for, but which ones you’re “almost” ranking for – typically positions 11-20 in search results.
These near-miss keywords are gold mines. A small amount of optimisation can often push them onto the first page of results. We’ve helped clients identify and target these opportunities, resulting in significant traffic increases with minimal effort.
The AdSense integration (if you use it) also provides insights into which content generates the most revenue. Even if you’re not running ads, this data can inform your content strategy.
Real-World Results From Australian Businesses
Let’s get specific. We worked with a Melbourne-based consulting firm whose Site Kit data revealed that their most popular blog posts weren’t driving any leads. The content was ranking well and getting traffic, but visitors weren’t converting.
Using Site Kit’s audience insights, we discovered that most of their blog traffic was students researching assignments, not potential clients. The solution was to create targeted internal links from educational content to service pages, and to add lead magnets specifically designed for the student audience (like templates and guides).
Another Sydney client used Site Kit data to identify seasonal patterns in their business. Their analytics showed predictable traffic spikes that coincided with industry events. This insight allowed them to plan content calendars and marketing campaigns around these natural peaks.
Integration Challenges and Solutions
We also learned that Site Kit is responsible for managing data from different Google accounts. If you are the owner of a company that uses Google Workspace, which was previously known as G Suite, and each user accesses the same Analytics account. Problems can then erupt over permissions.
Up to 70% of reported problems can be traced back to interactions among multiple extensions, as studies show. For Site Kit implementations to work properly management of individual accounts is crucial. This statistic becomes particularly relevant when you’re dealing with complex permission structures across team members.
The cleanest solution we’ve found is to designate one primary account for Site Kit access whilst giving other team members view-only permissions through Google Analytics directly. This prevents authentication conflicts and ensures data consistency.
We’ve also learnt to be careful about third-party integrations. Some WordPress themes and plugins don’t play nicely with Site Kit’s JavaScript, which can result in tracking errors or slow page loads. Always test thoroughly after installing new plugins.
The Future-Proofing Factor
One of Site Kit’s biggest advantages is that it keeps your website connected to Google’s ecosystem as things change. When Google announces new features or changes to existing services, Site Kit usually updates automatically to accommodate them.
This is particularly relevant for Australian businesses dealing with privacy legislation. As data protection laws evolve, Site Kit’s direct integration with Google services means you’re less likely to face compliance issues than if you were using third-party analytics solutions.
Making Site Kit Work for Your Business
The key to getting value from Google Site Kit isn’t installing it – it’s developing a routine for reviewing and acting on the data. We recommend weekly data reviews for most clients, focusing on:
- Traffic trends and anomalies
- Top-performing content
- Technical issues flagged by PageSpeed Insights
- Search Console opportunities
- Goal completion rates
Don’t try to analyse everything at once. Pick two or three metrics that directly relate to your business goals and focus on those first. Once you’ve developed good habits around basic reporting, you can expand to more advanced features.
The bottom line is this: Google Site Kit is a powerful tool, but it’s only as valuable as the insights you extract from it and the actions you take based on those insights.
Used poorly, it’s just another dashboard full of numbers that don’t mean anything.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the data or aren’t sure how to translate insights into action, that’s exactly where SLINKY DIGITAL can help bridge the gap between information and results.
Want to talk about boosting your website’s performance? Contact our team today.
