Google Analytics - Big Brother or your best friend?
About 2 years ago, Google bought Urchin, which was quite a neat package that helped website owners interpret their site traffic. In typical Google style, Urchin went from being a pay for, server installed application, to an ASP model, but with no costs attached. Hence, Google Analytics.
But there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Google’s gift of Analytics gives the Search Engine Big Brother everything it needs to know about everything you’re doing. Moreover, it plugs in data from Google Adwords, Yahoo! and Microsoft, so Google now know how much you’re spending on Adwords, and its competitors, and if you use goal conversion, it knows how much you’re yielding per conversion.
Ok, that’s the health warning, if you can stomach it, you’re in for a treat. Analytics is a really powerful piece of kit. In addition to Urchin’s statistical breakdown of visitors, traffic routes, referrals etc., you get full integration with Adwords. Adword integration gives you an immediate snapshot of paid traffic vs. organic traffic.
The real jewel in Analytics and the reason for this blog is its goal conversion module. Click on the Analytic Settings > Profile Settings, and review the second panel down : Conversion Goals and Funnel.
Now all you need to do is create pages in your site that are stages in the funnel, and add them to the stages in a Goal, e.g. Home Page > Product Selection > Account Signup > Product Purchase.
Or you could set Account Signup as a goal, and build a campaign around prospect acquisition. Either way, using goal conversion gives you an easy way to manage micro-conversions along the route to the desired sale conversion.
Many Webreality customers already use Analytics, if you’d like more training on conversion/goal setting, please contact me directly.
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