Photo courtesy of Scott Graham.
It’s extremely important to know the ins and outs of traffic regarding your website. It helps you become more aware of what your consumers are seeking. It will also determine how you market your website and what you might focus on when creating a marketing plan. How can Google Analytics help you when setting up your goals? This article will explore a few ways to set up your goals with Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a tool that Google offers so that you can track the foot traffic of your website. It was first offered by Google in November 2005 and used under their marketing platforms. Many online businesses rely on this platform because it’s very user-friendly. It collects data and measures it for you, and within Google Analytics it creates visible and user-friendly data for you to see. It becomes an amazing tool for your marketing strategy.
Another important aspect of Google Analytics and why it can be essential for your business is its marketing aspect of it. Random effort can cause foot traffic to slow down or come to a halt altogether. Google Analytics can consolidate and make it easier for you to use data when marketing. Google’s recent Helpful Content has different types of guided questions to assist with authority and focus. It can also help you pinpoint important keywords and phrases. It can also help you plan content as well. Overall, there are so many great aspects that accompany the use of Google Analytics, and when you are able to focus your goals for your business, it’ll become an essential part of running your business.
If you want your business to succeed and achieve, setting the right goals is crucial to your business's success. These goals will be tailored to your business, but usually fall under four general categories.
Destinations are straightforward within Google Analytics. It really just means where the user is being directed to. If you have different tabs within your website, for example, a contact tab, that is considered a destination within your website.
Duration refers to how long a user is visiting a specific destination. This data can be critical when coming up with goals.
Pages per visit are the number of times a user has clicked on different destinations. For example, they could have clicked on five links that lead them to different pages within your website.
Behavioral data points can give you a better understanding of website usage. For example, adding videos, sliders, or sharing buttons. It keeps track of how often they are used.
The first step to setting a goal in Google Analytics is understanding how to physically set goals within the program.
The four types of goals that are offered by Google Analytics each have unique qualities. Once you are able to choose “new goal” it gives you the option to customize your goal. Click this and it’ll take you to where you can name your goal and choose from the four goals listed above.
While setting up your destination goals, keep in mind that these are the different destinations your user will have access to via your website. Destination goals are mainly used in tracking the following:
This goal is simple and takes a shorter amount of time to set up. It allows you to see how much time a user is spending on your website. This allows you to work through ways where you can get users to stay on your site longer. A great tip is to select a specific time duration you want your users to spend, but keep in mind if you choose a number that is already close to what people are spending on there, the goal has no value.
This goal is great because you are able to see how many pages your user clicked on before leaving your website. If you want your users to be more engaged with your page, study how many pages your users go through before leaving and set your goals accordingly.
Out of all the goals, behavioral data points are a bit more complicated. This goal is also sometimes called an “event goa. Before you begin tracking your event goals, it’s important that you set up actual events or interactive buttons and pages e.g.: a contact form, or an online purchase page.
Setting up these goals will most likely have you use something like JavaScript to code those specific elements. This is probably one of the most appealing factors to a user when visiting a website. Inviting your users to interact with your website usually adds to an overall pleasant experience.
The main benefit of Google Analytics is how you use the information and data from the program. All of the goals listed are intentional and help you become a better business owner who is aware of their users’ experience. Without a certain purpose or goal, there is no use for all of the data and numbers you receive from Google Analytics. Remember that there is no sense in taking your data and then not applying it, analyze your data and you’ve got an amazing marketing skill on your hands!
Setting up these goals really is to see the growth and improvement of your business via your website. The purpose of setting these goals is to create a more user-friendly site, which will result in more traffic through your website. Not only will it help you really create a solid basis for your website, but it also helps you learn and grow as a business owner. Using data correctly is an essential way to grow your business and Google Analytics is definitely a key part of helping you achieve that.
Google Analytics and setting goals become an essential part of your business and it can jumpstart other projects you would want to work on as well. The bottom line is: these goals are to help you in the long run. Make these goals intentional and you will surely see results. What tips helped you set your goals for your business and what are some other tips that you incorporated yourself?
