The fundamental notion behind the
use of Google Analytics is that the suite provides statistical information
designed to help an individual or an organization meter their website with the
end goal of affecting a positive change in its overall web traffic. Likewise, the service provides a wealth of
insight into the many ways casual, first-time web visitors can be converted
into returning visitors or long-term customers.
While understanding the myriad ways in which visitors can and do enter a
website is paramount to increasing its visibility online, it is equally
important to dissect that traffic once it has arrived in order to direct the
flow to the most important content within.
This traffic can be better guided through the use of goals, an
understanding of funnels, and the addition of filters to more accurately
disseminate these visits. The use of
this trifecta of tools can provide content owners with the ability to advance
their conversion efforts whether they operate an ecommerce store, a general interest
blog, or any other type of web property.
To begin, a conversion is a web
visitor that has moved from one point to another within the website along an
expected route and has performed some series of pre-determined actions to get
them there. While a classic ecommerce
website might set the completion of an online sale as their primary conversion
objective, other websites like personal blogs and corporate-owned entities can
set their own unique goals based on their personal or business needs. Such goals can include completing an online
contact form and reaching a confirmation page, or a search for some information
within the site itself ending in the display of a search results page. In such cases, a visitor reaching a certain
web page after they have performed some action can be considered a qualified
goal. While they differ in nature from
one organization to another, conversions simply represent the attainment of
those goals. And with important
information being spread throughout a typical website, it is often times
important for the site’s owner to guide visitors to their goals via a funnel. A funnel in GA is the literal representation
of the path one must follow to get to a different point and complete a goal. Yet all of the information GA collects is not
equal, and some is even unnecessary. For
the purpose of generating reports, some visits deemed irrelevant to the goals
can be left out. One interesting feature
of GA is the ability to create filters to remove this unwanted information
before reporting. These filters allow
one to include or exclude traffic from certain domains, certain IP addresses,
and certain subdirectories.
From both a design and business
perspective, each of these individual tools allows for a culling of clear data
so desperately needed for making good decisions, and for implementing
efficiencies needed to get a visitor from one point to another. While it would be logical to assume that the
majority of visitors arriving to a website do so via the site’s homepage, this
is not always the case, especially considering the traffic that modern search
engines provide. This fact alone adds an
unparalleled level of importance to creating and monitoring goal pages,
visualizing exits and abandonment of a funnel, and separating that traffic into
important categories.
Goals
To assist in the realization of
goals, it is important to include key elements in each page, possibly through a
template, to entice visitors to look further into a website. These elements, which might take the form of
a site wide navigational menu or an always up to date news ticker, should lead
to goal pages in order to track their success, and the goal pages should be
part of the funnel that web traffic is expected to follow. According to Google, these goals “…are a
versatile way to measure how well your site or app fulfills your objectives”
(Set up Goals). Businesses can use these
goals in order to determine the overall effectiveness of their website. A very low conversion rate through these goal
pages allows for a unique visualization of what “breakdowns” might exist in the
system and the ways in which web managers can take action to increase the
likelihood that goals will eventually be achieved.
Funnels
Funnel visualizations can be helpful
with a number of different types of websites, but are uniquely useful on
ecommerce properties. In particular, it
is often times important to understand whether visitors are exiting the funnel
and leaving a business’ website altogether, or are exiting but staying within
the same domain. As stated by Dave
Sparks of sixrevisions.com, “You can then look and see where people are
dropping out and this can easily highlight problematic or broken forms and
links or long-winded pages that people simply give up on” (2010). Armed with this information, a company can
set out to increase their sales conversion rate by making the process as easy
as possible for client to move through.
Filters
As previously mentioned, some
traffic to a website should not be counted as it does not accurately represent
true visitors or customers. A unique
example of this is a corporation that refers to their own website on a daily
basis to answer customer questions.
While employees get information from the site in much the same way that
customers do, they don’t necessarily represent the company’s target
market. In fact, their visits to the
website can cloud and skew the monthly data and provide a false positive to its
meaning. In a case like this, it is
important to scrub that information from the results before they are presented. As stated by Google, “Filters allow you to
limit and modify the traffic data that is included in a profile. For example,
you can use filters to exclude traffic from particular IP addresses, focus on a
specific subdomain or directory, or convert dynamic page URLs into readable
text strings” (About profile filters). Through
the addition of filters, GA provides a quick and effective way of removing this
information and is aimed at providing more accurate visitor statistics.
The best way to make good decisions is
to begin with clear data. The information
provided through these tools allow an organization to better visualize the way
traffic moves within a website beyond the standard traffic flow report GA
provides. Taking action without this
information can have a detrimental effect on one’s web offering.
References
About profile
filters (n.d.) Retrieved December 2, 2012 from http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1033162
Set Up Goals
(n.d.) Retrieved December 2, 2012 from http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1032415
Sparks, D. (2010,
March 14) Google Analytics in Depth: Goals and Funnels. Retrieved December 3,
2012 from http://sixrevisions.com/tools/google-analytics-in-depth-goals-and-funnels/
No comments:
Post a Comment