When setting up a website for your business, it’s important to be informed about your users, what sources are driving them to you, and which of these sources are most effective in leading to conversions.
If this sounds complicated, it isn’t. The process behind gathering this information is startlingly easy, and best of all, conversion tracking won’t cost you an additional dime if you’re using Google Analytics.
To help get you started, we’ll walk you through the process of discerning goals, defining funnels, setting up Google conversion tracking, and we will also help you through the verification process.
Before You Begin
Before you can initiate Google conversion tracking, you must first identify the valuable actions (or “goals”) to be performed by your users. These goals will vary, depending upon the nature of a website: signing up for a newsletter, filling out a contact form, completing a transaction via a virtual shopping cart, etc.
Once you have determined the valued action(s), map out a funnel that traces the path a visitor will follow, from their initial point of entry onto your website, all the way to the “Thank You” page that awaits them after they’ve successfully completed the conversion.
You should then consider the monetary value tied to each conversion. Here you may have to do some math, because it may not be readily apparent as to how much an action, such as a visitor signing up for a newsletter, will directly earn you money. Using the newsletter as an example, if you know you can convert 15% of those who sign up, turning them into paying customers, then you can assume that the monetary value of this goal is 15% of the price of the product or service you offer.
Setting Up Google Conversion Tracking
At no cost, Google allows web owners to submit this information and track conversions whenever they occur. Start by signing into your Google Analytics account. Once you’ve chosen the relevant account from the Overview page, head over to the “Actions” column and choose “Edit.”
In the field pertaining to goals and conversions, type in a descriptive name for the goal within the appropriate field (e.g. “Newsetter Signup”) and click the circle next to “On” to activate it.
You may then define the nature of this goal in the “Goal Type” field. In many cases, you will select “URL Destination” from the drop-down menu. Next, you may input the aforementioned value in the “Goal Value” field.
If you opted for a “URL Destination” goal, you may then define the funnel by specifying that you desire to create one when the option becomes available.
Submit the URLs of the pages involved in your funnel and click the checkbox to the right of each of them until you’ve reached the end (e.g. the “Thank You” or “Your Receipt” page).
Save changes when you’ve finished defining goals and funnels. Google Analytics will then provide a code to be implemented within the last page in your funnel. This code should be copied from Google Analytics and pasted just before the closing </body> tag of the conversion page. If your website utilizes frames, you’ll want to also include the code within the <head> tag.
Verifying Google Conversion Tracking
Once you’ve submitted a goal within Google Analytics, you must verify that the tracking is set up properly. You can accomplish this by proceeding through your own funnel and completing a conversion yourself (recommended). When you’ve reached your conversion page, view the source code and look for the following line:
<!– Google Code for {The Name of Your Goal} Conversion Page –>
If all goes well, you’ll see the conversion listed in your Google Analytics profile. The benefit of setting up Google conversion tracking is the in-depth reporting features available to you. You’ll learn which search keywords are most effectively driving your conversions, and which segments of your conversion funnel are causing visitors to opt out, allowing you to adjust your website to effectively improve conversions.
We hope you’ve found this information useful. For more information on improving website conversions, be sure to stay tuned for our next blog post.
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