Google Analytics Goal Setting Steps

Site Purpose and Goals Go Hand in Hand

The type of goals vary depending on the nature of your website…

Ecommerce Site

For example if you had an ecommerce website you would probably be very interested on your visitor’s most popular path to purchase or the most abandoned pages in your sales process. Either way this information often leads to the best actionable insights into improving your sales process. By configuring goals in an ecommerce site we can find out what our visitors like and dislike about your conversion process and products.

Ecommerce Reports in Google Analytics

Lead Generation Site

On the other hand, if you had a lead generation site you would want to know how efficiently visitors are completing leads. You may have 1 or more pages that lead to your thank you page. Your thank you form usually means your visitor has left you will their contact information, that means you just got a lead. Wouldn’t it be nice to measure that?

You could find out what are the most popular pathways to lead generation. Equally important is learning where people are abandoning and why! In Google Analytics you can do exactly that. It is as simple as entering the page names into your Google Analytics settings when setting up and configuring your account. One of your most interesting areas in Google Analytics will be “All Traffic Sources”.

Traffic Sources Reports in Google Analytics

Brandlift Website

With your brand lift website you would be interested in page views, length of time on pages or top content pages. Identify your key pages and set up a goal or two. Using Content Reports you can really examine your pages by top pages.

Google Analytics Interface Content Section

These are just a few ideas, my main point is—goals and goal values really speak directly to conversion.

Common Types of Goals to Track

Lead Generation
Ecommerce Sales
High value page views
Newsletter sign ups
File downloads
RSS Feed Clicks
Logins

Find Goal Conversion Pages

The first step to creating goals for your website is to identify them. You have already gone through my previous chapter on identifying the site type so now we need to figure out the pathways to goal(s) on your site. Let’s say we have decided the site type is a lead generation website.

This is where the fun starts. Why does this website exist? What are the steps to goal and the conversion page that represents the finish line?

Goal Example

Visit Website and determine goal and conversion page(s). Example- This lead form is a goal. Complete the form and click the submit button. The goal will register in analytics and AdWords once both tracking codes are appropriately placed.

Here is a sign up form that gets filled out by a visitor. When it does, it is a lead that can be acted on. That is considered a goal. In this case the steps to the goal are 2 steps:
1) Sign up page- http://www.examplesite.com/sign-up.html

2) Thank You Page- http://www.examplesite.com/thank-you.html

NOTE: This is the final goal page (finish line). If you are running any Adwords campaigns add the AdWords conversion code on this page. Other PPC programs such as Yahoo or MSN also have conversions codes you can place on this page. Optionally, you can manually tag all destination URLs and track them all in Google Analytics in your “Paid Only” profile.

Open a Notepad file and make note of all the goals you decide are worthy of configuration.

If you ask me, setting goals and tracking conversion for all advertising efforts are the most important parts to actionable analysis. Learn how to view and set up goals or view funnel visualization with this goal introduction/installation step.

Direct Link to Goal Setting

How to Determine Site Goals in Google Analytics

Site Purpose and Goals Go Hand in Hand