When you’re first starting to dig into Google Analytics, the wealth of information available can get a bit overwhelming. You know that the information is useful, but maybe you just don’t know how to put it together into something that makes sense to you. If this feeling is familiar to you, you’re not alone! Many other business owners face this problem too. Google Analytics makes it easy to arrange the data it gives you into goals that you can then analyze to see if your website is hitting the benchmarks you’ve set for it.
Today, our search engine optimization experts at Big Red SEO will teach you how to set up goal tracking in Google Analytics so you can keep track of how your website is performing. Remember, you can’t make your website better if you don’t measure its performance!
In Order to Measure, You Need a Goal
Google Analytics keeps track of many of the key metrics you need to understand and gives insight on if your business website is performing the way you’d like. In order to see these statistics in a way that’s meaningful to you, first you have to define what goals are important to your business. This starts with understanding what kind of website you have, and what people are supposed to do when they visit it. Are they supposed to search for things? Make a purchase on your website? Visit your contact page and submit their contact information? Once you know what you want visitors to do while they’re on your website, you can determine which metrics you want to measure to reach your goals.
How to Setup Your Goals in Google Analytics
Google Analytics makes it easy to set up goals with a step-by-step process that you can save at any time and pick up where you left off later.
After logging in to Google Analytics, select Admin, then choose the account and property you want to set up goals for, and then click a view. From there, select Goals, then Create a Goal.
There are different templates that you can use to set up goals for common business objectives, or you can configure custom goals from the ground up. The templates fall into 4 categories–Revenue, Inquiry, Engagement, and Acquisition–that cover the reasons that businesses generally measure their site metrics. In other words, an Engagement goal will measure the level of engagement your content has with site visitors, while an Acquisition goal will measure how successful your content is at converting visitors into customers.
Once you have a category established for your goal, you also need to set it to “Active” and configure your goal type. There are 4 types of goals to choose from:
Destination: This goal type measures how often visitors land on a certain URL you specify. You can configure a destination goal for your contact page to see how many visitors are landing there after viewing your site to request your services.
Duration: This goal type measures how many sessions last a specific amount of time you specify. For instance, you can use a duration goal to track how many visitors spend 10 minutes or more reading your blog.
Pages/Screens per Session: Use this goal type to measure how many pages users visit during a particular session. Setting a goal of 5 pages will show you what percentage of visitors are staying on your site to view multiple pages.
Event: This goal type tracks how many times visitors complete a certain action that you designate as an “event.” You can designate any action a visitor can take on your site as an event, such as playing a video, submitting a contact form, or clicking your social media buttons.
Setting Up a Goal Funnel
Now that you’ve set up goals for what you want visitors to do on your site, Google Analytics also lets you track how visitors are arriving at those goals. After you’ve decided on a category, type, and ultimate URL for your goal, click “Use funnel” under Goal Details to set up the series of pages by which customers could arrive at your goal URL. By setting up this funnel, you can see what percentage of visitors actually follow the track that you’ve set up that leads to your desired goal.
You can also see where visitors enter and exit your goal funnel without completing the actions you want them to. This shows you potential problem areas in the flow of your website’s sales funnel and give you insight for improving it.
Contact Big Red SEO at (402) 522-6468 Today!
Setting up goals in Google Analytics is a relatively simple process that gives you access to a wealth of information about how visitors interact with your business website. In order to improve your website’s sales process and make things easier for your potential customers to take the actions you want them to take, you have to be able to track where snags in the process are happening. Our team at Big Red SEO has years of experience setting up goals and analyzing Google Analytics data for our clients, so give us a call today at (402) 522-6468. Our SEO professionals help your business website rise to the top of the search engine rankings!