You have built your website, branded it with your logo and tagline. You have set up each of your social media profiles, and even connected them to your website’s menus. Maybe you have even set up your Google Analytics tracking code and Search Console and submitted your XML sitemap for indexing, but are you forgetting something?
Careful planning is the first step toward success for any business, whether its local, national, or international, but one of the most overlooked aspects of online marketing is using Google Analytics to its full potential.
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With Google Analytics, you have the ability to set a number of different types of goals, which can help you identify areas of weakness, popular services or products, and plan for the year ahead. If you have setup Google Analytics, congrats, now take the extra step and utilize this power free tool to its fullest.
Types of Google Analytics Goals
In short, there are four major types of Google Analytics goals, and it is very likely you will want to set up more than one.
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Destination Goals
Destination goals count a conversion whenever a user visits a specific page of your site. Odds are, your homepage will be the most visited page, and setting up destination goals (along with other features, like page path) can help you identify how often users identify with a certain page of your site.
The destination goal in Google Analytics can be especially beneficial if you are trying to track how many visitors are visiting the product or service that you offer that provides you with the best return. If few visitors are entering this page, you can tell that you need to adjust your site to help users find this page easier, and more quickly.
Duration Goals
User engagement is an essential part of any website, and duration goals help you identify how engaged users are with the services or products on your site. With this, you are able to set a goal conversion to be counted once a visitor remains on your site, or a certain page of your site, for a specific amount of time.
Duration goals can help any business improve their user engagement, but this can be especially handy if you have noticed a significant drop off in your overall traffic view.
Pages per Visit Goals
Session duration isn’t the only way to track user engagement, of course, and pager per visit goals can help paint the picture a little bit more. Much like duration goals, you can set a pages per visit Google Analytics goal to a certain number of pages you want a user to visit per session.
Pages per visit goals are especially important for blogs and resource sites where you want a visitor to view as many pages as possible, while locksmiths or roadside assistance services want a visitor to call as soon as possible, rather than pursue their website for information.
Event Tracking in Google Analytics
- Similar to Google Analytics goals, event tracking can help set up more specific goal types such as:
- Online form submissions
- Outward link clicks
- Click to call phone numbers
- Onsite Downloads (such as PDFs)
- Video Watchtime
Event tracking is a bit more complex than the preset goal types mentioned above, but can provide significant information that can have a better impact on your bottom line.
Taking Full Advantage of Goal Tracking in Google Analytics
This might seem complex, but luckily, Google provides detailed information and resources to help make setting up goals as easy as possible. You can even become certified in Google Analytics for free and be able to utilize every feature of their free tracking tools to its fullest potential.
Of course, if you have any questions about setting up Google Analytics goals, events, or just need help putting the pieces of your online marketing puzzle together, I am just a call away.
You can also reach out me through my contact page form. And if you do, it will count as a conversion!
Bonus: A Local Case Study
One of our customers, The New Granbury Live in downtown Granbury, TX, takes full advantage of the Google Analytics dashboard and reporting to help grow ticket sales and increase conversions.
Over the past year and a half I have worked closely with Granbury Live to setup goals and track their website’s usage through Google Analytics. In our monthly strategy meetings we go over reports and track all the key measurables we’ve assigned to their analytics reports.
Through careful planning and constant tweaking, we have a proven timeline of the growth during that time. This allows us to implement new strategies with the confidence that we can track and measure each facet to ensure a favorable return on investment. This type of strategy helps businesses like Granbury Live make smarter decisions with ever marketing dollar.
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