Introduction to Google Analytics

by Bill H.

Driving traffic to your website is essential to getting your business off the ground and up and running.  Successfully converting that traffic Introduction to Google Analytics into sales, however,  might just be the most critical element of success. Making your site convert better by analyzing user behavior, conversion data and bounce rates (among other things) can provide you with a huge competitive advantage.  In this post, we’ve provided just a little bit of basic information and an introduction on a web analytics program that can help you do this – Google Analytics.

Setting up a Google Analytics account and installing the analytics code on each page of your website is actually much easier than it might sound.  After setting up your account (which is free, by the way), you simply install the small piece of code at the foot of each page within closing body tag in the HTML source code on your site.

The information that you can gain access to by using a web analytics program will help you improve your understanding of  your site’s users , identify what their most often looking for, and how you can deliver that in a more efficient, streamlined manner.  Most importantly, you can figure out how to better convert those prospective customers into buyers of your products and services.

After signing up and installing the code, it might take some time to gather sufficient enough data that you canuse to improve your site.  Depending on how much traffic your site gets, it could take several weeks to gather enough information that will be sufficient enough to actually act upon.

Tracking Visitor Behavior

  • Assuming you’ve already installed the code and have gathered at least a few weeks worth of traffic data, you should start by first examining the most frequented entry and exit points on your website.  After logging into your account, check out these 2 data points
    • Content > Top Landing Pages
    • Content > Top Exit Pages
    • Reviewing both of these reports, you just might be shocked to find out what the most frequently visited landing pages on your site are as well as what the most frequently exited pages are. These 2 reports are a good starting point to start analyzing what’s working on your site and what’s not.
  • Your next step will be to visit your Profile Settings to find the Conversion Goal and Funnel section. (Note: In order to access this edit function in your settings, you must be logging in as the administrator of your account.) Identify your goal page, which for an e-commerce site is usually the “Thank You” page that the buyer lands on after having placed and completed their order. Double check, using Google’s tips, to ensure you have set up the URL for the goal page in the proper manner.
  • The “funnels” are the steps throughout the check out process that eventually take the customer to the goal page. You will want to isolate each funnel page within the checkout path to identify potential spots for improvement in conversion. Many e-commerce businesses have a two part checkout process that involves the summary of one’s order and then a separate information page for the customer to print of their order. Each one of these pieces in the checkout process are separate pieces of the funnel and have to be identified as such.
  • After reviewing your goal page and funnels pages, you should go back and test the Google Analytics tracking code to make sure it’s working properly. Testing the pages involves entering the site through a search engine query, navigating to your site and then starting down the checkout path through your funnels to the goal page.. Follow up the next day and be sure that the order you placed is tracked in the analytics data. Essentially, you want to accurately reconcile the amount of orders you are receiving is the same as the number of successfully completed “goals” as reported by Google Analytics.
  • When you are sure the tracking is working, you need to revisit your funnels and goals to get as much information as you can about how you are losing site visitors. Isolate and understand where the weak spots are in your checkout process. Funnels and goals are great for improving your shopping cart path.  You can track your goals using Google Analytics > Goals > Funnel Visualization. Having a funnel set for the process of your site’s checkout process will allow you to understand how potential customers react to the path you’ve created.

This information will take time to build and you can’t expect results or changes overnight. However, as time goes on and you gather more data from your customers visits, you can systematically take steps to improve your checkout path and you can improve your overall conversion rates dramatically.

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Tagged as: analytics, checkout, conversion, e-commerce, exit page, funnel, shopping cart

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

How I Make $300 a Day Online June 17, 2009 at 10:54 pm

Hey, nice post, very well written. You should write more about this.

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