Since the beginning of the Internet, page views have been used to figure out how many people have viewed your website. Since that time, newer and better systems have been developed to give us a more detailed insight into website visitors.

In June of 2009, Google unveiled Google Analytics Event Tracking. The system is designed to make it possible to garnish an insight into what website viewers and customers are doing on each page of a website. Tracking is everything. Without understanding how a website is being used, it’s impossible to optimise conversions. Event Tracking makes this possible, with ease.

An example of this could be a website that allows file downloads. Event Tracking would allow you to record the number of people who have downloaded specific files (it also collects detailed statistics on these people). A website that allows people to play videos would be able to track the number of times a video has been played, if the video is paused, restarted etc. Using this technology it’s very easy to see that if a web page receives 100 views and the video is played only once, there’s a good chance something on the page is putting people off playing it – perhaps it’s time to switch the colour scheme or placement of the video box.

Utilising Google Analytics Event Tracking can take web pages to the next level. Instead of relying on relatively obscure metrics, it’s now possible to track specific actions performed on specific web pages and to optimise these to their fullest.