The Bludelta Blog

Guide to Goals on Google Analytics

Google analytics is a powerful method of analysing of how well a website is performing. In addition to displaying data on where visitors are coming from and what they are doing on a site, it is possible to track goals.

Goals can be set for each website, so that your own measure of success can be recorded. It might be that on a website you believe that going to the sales page and making a purchase is the ultimate measure of success. Google Analytics will allow you to set this goal into the dashboard, so that you can track how successful your site is in this.

Other goals that you might want to use and record are:

• when a visitor completes an online contact form
• when a visitor requests to download your free ebook
• when a visitor spends more than 3 minutes on a site
• when a visitor displays a ‘thank you for your purchase’ page by having purchased an item

Most sites are set up in a unique way with different forms and information available. So for each site there will be a difference measurement of success.

Another way to set a goal is to use a ‘funnel’. This means that a user would have used a set route to get to the destination on your site. This enables you to measure the success of landing pages for example. Access to this type of information can improve your conversion to sales on your site and this is why SEO experts find it so valuable.

If a particular site has a lot of traffic but a conversion rate of only 0.01 to sales, then with the use of goals, it is possible to tweak and measure the success of changes by understanding where web visitors are going.

How The Experts Use Web Analytics

There can be great tactical and strategic advantage when using web analytics. The value is enormous, but web analytics is hard. Even when you have all the information, you cannot rely on it 100% as information from one tool may be in contrast with information from another tool. It’s difficult to know ‘the truth’ about visitor behaviour.

The best analytics have been found to be delivered from knowing clearly what you want your visitors to do before you start to analyse. You can then be clear about the purpose of it and put in steps to improve your results.

Here are the 3 elements that I have found to be must-haves to getting to the bottom of what the real story is:

Reports – reports can provide plenty of data to look through. In fact, they are essential for web analytics. They can provide you with information such as the top 10 pages, the top 10 keywords and most importantly whether your clients are doing what you want them to.

Analysis – analysis is essential for you to understand what is happening with your visitors. How long are they staying, where are they going, how did they arrive. Piecing information from these factors will give you some answers as to what to improve or change. Again, you can use your analysis to understand whether your visitors are veering off in another direction, away from what you want them to do.

Testing – without testing, your web analytics will not be helping you. Landing pages, ads, text, images, everything needs to be tested to see what is working best for your target market. No target market is the same and each one will react differently so you need to test which ‘style’ is most appropriate for them. Which style will lead them to do what you want them to.

So as long as you have a clear idea of what you want your visitors to do, you can improve your results over time.