No matter what industry you’re in or what type of website you have, you should always have a goal conversion in mind. This can range from an online purchase, a simple enquiry from an enquiry form or even just a view on a particular page. It may be the case that you don’t quite have a goal conversion in mind yet for your website and if this is the case you need to start getting your thinking hat on. A goal conversion can help give your website more focus and purpose.
In this article, I will be discussing how you can set up a goal conversion in Google Analytics and why it can be so important for your business. If you have any questions about this please feel free to contact us.
Let’s get started…
Setting up goal conversions
Setting up goal conversions within Google Analytics is very simple and easy. The first step is to make sure you have Google Analytics installed on your website, if this isn’t the case then simply follow these steps provided by Google - Get started with Analytics. If you already have Google Analytics installed on your website we can now go into how you set up goal conversions.
You first need to navigate to the ‘Conversions’ section in Analytics, which is located towards the bottom left hand side of Google Analytics. You then need to click into Goals and then Overview. Google will give you some information about what goals are, why set up goals and also an example. You just need to select Set up goal. Once loaded, you then need to click + New Goal.
You will then be taken to a page where you will set your goal up. You will need to select the relevant settings for you goal. Once all the settings are correct for you goal, Google will give you some code to place on the page which is where your goal will take place. So if your goal is a form completion, you will need to put the tracking code on the final thank you page. If your goal is a simple view on a particular page, you would just add the tacking code to that page. It’s that simple to set up a goal conversion.
Now let’s look into why you should set up goal conversions within Google Analytics and what it could potentially mean for your business.
Helps keep a target in mind
The first reason to have Goal Conversions set up is to help you to keep targets at the front of your mind. Sometimes it’s the case that you set a target but then, over time, forget about this and focus your attention on other things. If you have an achievable goal conversion set up and you’re regularly checking this, it means you can put more of your focus on achieving it. You’re able to take action straight-away at any given time to help achieve the most from your conversion. It’s always good to have multiple targets for your business and website but it’s even more important to track them.
Shows progression
Having a Goal Conversion set up can show progression over a certain amount of time. If you aren’t properly tracking conversions then you never truly know what is and isn’t working for your business and website. If you’ve got correct goal conversions set up throughout your website then it means you can measure how well each aspect of your site is doing. This means that over a specific time period you will be able to see if goal conversions have increased or decreased. If they’ve increased then great, move onto the next conversion and improve that, but if it’s decreased then you need to spend time reviewing data to fix what happened and when. The only way you can improve your website is to review and analyse the data you collect. The more data you have the better you will be at this.
Eye Opener
Having a Goal Conversion set up can be a real eye opener. By this I mean what you may think is a great offer or goal, is in fact not the best for your business. If you’re not monitoring how well something is doing then you will never truly realise the true value of that thing. Let’s say, for example, that you have a page on your website that offers the user a chance to sign up to your service.
You may think it’s a simple page to navigate and that it works every time a user goes onto the page, but the true fact could be that it gets zero interest. If you have goal conversions set up you can see the figures and statistics right in front of your eyes.If you can see that this page has been running 6 months and you’ve only had 1 person sign up for it, then something is wrong and needs fixing.
If you take goal conversion data and the analytics data for your website you will be able to pinpoint exactly what is going wrong with your website. It could be the case you aren’t getting enough traffic, so to fix that you need to look at ways of increasing traffic. It could be that after a certain action on your site user numbers completely drop, meaning there is something broken on your site and needs fixing. No matter what it is or where it happens, you will be able to find it and fix it if you have goal conversions installed, which means in the long run you’re only ever going to benefit.
Final thoughts
No matter what your target is for your business and website it’s so important that you track that target. Not only do you need to track it but you also need to review it to make sure you’re on track to achieve your goal. Goal conversions in Google Analytics can help you do this in an easy and simple way. The great thing with Google Analytics is that it’s simple to read and review data, meaning you’re always in the know about your website. If you have any questions about Google Analytics here is another article we posted on the subject - How To Use Google Analytics in 5 Easy Steps to Improve B2B Website Sales.
