Google Analytics and Sitemap: Why They're in Our Cheapest Plan Too

There's a common practice in website services: put basic search engine settings behind a higher-tier plan. You have to upgrade just to see visitor stats, generate a sitemap, or write a meta description.

We don't do that. Part of this post is about why, and part of it is about what the settings in your panel actually do.

The decision first: why every plan?

A plan difference should describe something the product genuinely restricts. Connecting your own domain, removing the footer badge, switching between templates — all of these have a real counterpart in the code; upgrading actually unlocks something.

Search engine settings aren't like that. Your site showing up on Google isn't an add-on feature, it's the site doing its job. There's no point paying for a site nobody can see. Restricting these settings would mean crippling the product just to make it upsell better.

Honestly, this post is also a record of a correction: at one point our pricing card listed "Google Analytics and sitemap management" under the Professional plan, even though the feature was already unlocked on every plan. Even a mistake in the "wrong" direction is still a mistake — a customer finds out they already had what they paid for. We moved the line item to the Starter plan.

What do the settings in your panel actually do?

There are six fields under Content → Search Engine (SEO) in the panel.

Browser tab title

The blue clickable line in search results, and the text shown in the browser tab. If you leave it blank, your business name is used. A good title includes your business name + what you do + where you are: "Beyaz Dental Clinic — Nilüfer, Bursa." Titles over 60 characters get truncated in results.

Search result description

The gray text under the title. Google doesn't always use it — it can show a snippet it picks from the page instead — but writing one is better than not. Keep it around 155 characters and write a sentence that earns the click: what you offer and where you are.

Google Analytics measurement ID

The code starting with G (e.g. G-XXXXXXXXXX). You get it from your Analytics account under Admin → Data streams. The moment you paste it in, the measurement code is added to your site — no separate technical setup needed.

What you'll see: how many people visit, which pages they browse, where they come from (search, social media, direct), and what device they use. This data specifically helps you understand: do visitors make it down to the appointment form, or do they get lost on the homepage?

If you leave the field blank, no measurement code is added at all. Measurement never runs in the panel preview — your own visits don't pollute the stats.

Let search engines index the site

With this switch on, your site becomes searchable. Turn it off and a "noindex" tag is added, and robots.txt blocks all crawling entirely.

When would you turn it off? While you're setting up the site. There's no benefit to Google seeing your page while the content is half-finished, placeholder text is still in place, and photos are missing. Turn it on once you're ready — but don't forget to turn it on; this is one of the most common issues we see.

Generate a sitemap (sitemap.xml)

A sitemap is a file that lists your site's pages for search engines in a machine-readable format. Your homepage, blog posts, and any listings are added to it automatically. The address is yoursite.com/sitemap.xml.

For a small site you'd still get crawled without this file, but a sitemap speeds things up — especially getting a newly added blog post or listing noticed. There's a reason to leave it on, and not much of a reason to turn it off.

Sitemap update frequency

A hint given to search engines: how often does your content change? Daily if you post listings or articles frequently, weekly for a typical business site, monthly for a site that rarely changes. Keep in mind this isn't a guarantee — search engines make their own call.

These settings alone aren't enough

An honest caveat: filling out the fields above correctly won't put you at the top of the rankings. They lay the technical groundwork — making sure your site is crawlable, measurable, and properly tagged.

What actually determines ranking lives elsewhere: your content genuinely answering the questions people search for, your Google Business Profile being complete and current, your site loading fast on mobile, and regularly adding new content. The technical groundwork is built on top of those things — it doesn't replace them.

In short

Every setting your site needs to be visible is in your panel, no matter which plan you're on. Spending five minutes filling out the Content → Search Engine section is one of the highest-return tasks you can do after setting up your site.