How do you know if people are taking action on your website?
This is where setting up goals in Google Analytics comes in handy!
Now, you must be asking yourself, “what are Google Analytics goals?”
Let’s explain that piece first.
What are Google Analytics Goals?
Goals in Google Analytics allow you to track actions users take on your website. These user interactions could be button clicks, form submissions, downloads, phone calls and more.
Every time a user visits your website and interacts with a feature that’s attached to a goal, Analytics will track it as a goal conversion.
Setting goals allows you to see visual results and know exactly where your conversations are coming from.
How to Create Goals in Google Analytics
Now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for!
Here are the four starting steps for setting up goals in Google Analytics:
- Head over to your Analytics account
- Click on “admin”(the gear icon)in the bottom left
- Click on “goals” under the “All Web Site Data” column
- Click on “+ new goal”(the red button)
Once you click on the add new goal button, you’ll be taken to a screen where you can start setting up your goal. At this point, you will be able to pick the goal type and other settings as well.
Types of Google Analytics Goals
There are four types of goals that you can consider when setting up goals in Google Analytics. Each goal tracks a different type of engagement while a user is visiting your website:
- Page/Visits
- Duration
- Events
- Destination
Without setting goals in your Analytics account, Google won’t track the specific information you seek. So if you’re trying to collect data on how many people fill out a contact form, you must create one of these goals.
Page/Visits Goal
The page/visits goal is great for tracking how users engage with your website.
The purpose of this goal is to obtain data on how many pages screens per session each visitor explores before exiting your site.
Within this goal set, you are able to select the number of pages you want to start tracking user sessions.
Duration Goals
Just like page/visits, this goal setting is great for tracking user engagement on your website.
The purpose of this particular goal is to collect to track the amount of time a user stays on your site before they decide to exit.
Now when deciding to pick the duration you’d like to track, it’s important to choose a time that some visitors will reach.
However, you don’t want to pick a time that every visitor is likely to achieve because you won’t be able to tell where they’re could be improvements.
Events Goals
Events come in handy when you’re trying to track link clicks, form submissions, contact button clicks(email/phone), downloads or the amount of time a user watched a video for.
These interactions are not tracked by Analytics by default, so just be aware that this is the type of goal you’d want if you were track something like contact form submissions.
Destination Goals
Creating destination goals allows you to keep track of when users land on specific pages of your site.
For example, for an eCommerce site, it would be beneficial to set up a destination goal that tracks when a customer lands on the add to cart page.
Destination goals are also great if there’s a certain page path you expect a user will follow after they land on a particular site page.
You can turn on the goal funnel and specify the path you want to track.
Again, this is good for eCommerce sites that want to lead customers through a series of pages to complete a conversion such as making a purchase.
Now You Can Create Goals in Google Analytics
Now that you understand what Google Analytics goals are and what data each type tracks, you’re now ready to create your first goal!
If you’re still not sure what goals would be right for your website contact us via phone or email and we would love to give you some recommendations and let you know how we can help you.
However, if you go and start setting up goals in Google Analytics and we didn’t answer a question in this post, or need some extra help, feel free to leave a comment!
Good luck – DM us questions on any digital marketing topic and we will answer them!