Analytics

Understanding Google Analytics: Website Goals

Understanding Google Analytics Website Goals

“We have so much data on the web, almost all of it available for free, that we dive into the data ocean hoping that magically awesome things will follow. They never do.”

― Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist - Google

If you're a business owner, marketing manager or, agency owner this blog post is for you. Do you "not quite" understand Google Analytics reports? Maybe your eyes just glaze over at the sight of any of those dashboard reports that mysteriously show up in your email every month? Or,  you find yourself  scratching your head as something like this stares back at you when you log-in?

Google Analytics Report

The challenge is that your business is going 100 mph forward and this is a look in the rearview!
In fact, every single report IS a look back. So, what's the point? Collectively, some of this can help make decisions going forward.

Do You Have Website Goals Defined?

In Google Analytics go to Conversions > Goal Report. Are there signs of life or, do you get this?

Google Analytics Website Goals Not Defined
Aww, website goals aren't enabled. 🙁

If you are seeing this screen, stop here. Go back to your web designer and ask for at least one goal to be set up. In many cases, it's just a matter of tracking a meaningful action that is already happening on your site. This goal could be something like:

  • a contact form submission
  • e-mail submission
  • whitepaper download
  • newsletter subscription
  • donation
  • e-commerce order confirmation

Once your web designer has setup the goal on your site and in your Google Analytics, you'll begin to see a report like this. In Google Analytics go to: Conversions > Goal Report

Google Analytics Report defined

Now we are on to something! And if you see a screen like this, congratulations! You are on your way to some meaningful information.

All Website Goals Aren't Equal

It would be helpful at this point to mention that all of your web site goals aren't equally important. But, how do you know? By taking steps to define them and integrate them into a measurement frame model you can tie this into different types of priorities. The steps to developing website goals include:

    1. Identify the business objectives upfront and set the broadest parameters for the work we are doing.
    2. Identify goals for each business objective.
    3. Write down the key performance indicators.
    4. Set parameters for success upfront by identifying targets for each KPI.
    5. Identify the segments of people / behavior / outcomes that we’ll analyze to understand why we succeed or failed.

In our next post we'll break down these steps into some meaningful ways to measure.

Maybe you'd like some help implementing a measurement framework model, or goals?
Take a look at our Google Analytics service page.

Finish line image: Flickr user jayneandd
Measurement model: Avinash Kaushik

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8 Reasons Why Your Website Doesn't Rank or, Show Up in Google

8-reasons-why-your-website-doesn-rank-showup-on-google

You’ve recently launched a new website but, have yet to see it in Google or, BING’s search results.  Maybe you are up late looking for an answer or, you tried searching your company name and don’t see it.  Some common reason why are below:

  1.  The domain name is too new.
    Selecting a domain name is only half the battle. Your domain name hasn’t been around long enough (and active) for the search engines to “rate” it’s reputation. What you/your company do with the website is very important to the search engines and your visitors.
  2. The web site has had little traffic.
    Have you done anything to promote the web site? This could be something like send out a press release, post to Facebook or, an email campaign.
  3. The web site has a high bounce rate.
    Do people go to your website, look at one page and then, leave? If they do, that is considered a bounce.
  4. The web site is not “mobile friendly”.
    Google has a tool for you to test mobile friendliness. It has also been pointed out that a lack of mobile friendliness could have an impact on rankings/traffic. If you don’t pass, maybe we can help.
  5. The web site is not organized and hard to navigate.
    The harder it is for someone to go from page to page on your site, the less likely a visitor or, search engine may want to return.
  6. The web site has no inbound links from other companies, associations, etc.
    Do you have links from other websites that link to your site? If you don’t, it’s harder for search engines to trust that your site is reliable and worth ranking. Or, maybe you need some links removed.
  7. The search engines have been blocked or, otherwise discouraged from visiting the web site.
    When you site was launched did your developer/designer unblock access to your site? If they haven’t, there is very little chance that you will be ranked.
  8. There are no reviews of the website/company anywhere online.
    Do you have past customers/clients? Have they left a review on Google or, Yelp? These reviews help perspective new clients and search engines understand something more detailed about your business.

Need a little help getting your site ranked? Let us know.

5 Google AdWords Tips for Small Business

Adwords Tips for Businesses

We've been fortunate to earn the trust of a growing number of small businesses in the Greensboro area. With this trust comes the opportunity to review  their Google AdWords accounts. In some cases,  we've made immediate impact and in others we've helped them better understand the value of AdWords and Analytics working together.

We were reviewing an account of one business owner and explaining about the AdWords "Conversions" column. Goals setup in Google Analytics would flow through to AdWords so that you could better understand what was working and what was not. The proverbial light seemed to go on in their head!

As a result of this conversation, the lab techs here at Why People Click have compiled a list of five things SMBs (Small to Medium Businesses) can do to immediately improve the performance of their Google AdWords accounts.

  1. Set up Goals
    Goals in Google Analytics are any meaningful action a user can take on your website. For example: FIll out a contact form, complete a purchase, sign up for an email news letter.
    Google-Analytics-Goal-Setup
  2. Target the Correct Trade Area
    There is good targeting available in Google AdWords and it's important to take into account both cities/states/zipcode to include as well as exclude.
  3. Select and Target the Right Keywords
    There are many ways to select and target keywords for your ads in Google AdWords. Some of the ways are covered in this Google support document.
  4. Write Enough Ads
    We generally like to see at least four ads per ad group. Why? This gives you a great way to test ad versions against each other.
  5. Monitor the Account
    This is probably the post important point. After goals have been setup, targeting is correct, ads have been created it's time to monitor your account. Check that click-through rates are good and that your ad groups are delivering on the established goals.

If this seems a little overwhelming consider hiring us to manage your Google AdWords

Google Analytics & Why It Is Important for Your Business

Google-Analytics-Why-Use-It

Google Analytics, you’ve heard the term, maybe even have access to account but, aren’t totally clear on what it is and how it can help your business. In this Online Marketing Foundations blog post, we’ll explain some of the benefits of using Google Analytics, explain why it’s important to your business and offer a few tips for using it to your strategic advantage.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics allows website owners to collect statistics on web site visits, sources of traffic and what visitors find most (and least) interesting on the site.

Some questions Google Analytics can answer include:

  • What referring website is the biggest source of leads/sales?
  • Is my Social Media having a positive impact?
  • Are website visitors encountering errors that prevent them from completing a form?
  • What page(s) do my visitors like most/least?
  • Why are my customer service agents getting calls about the website?

Why Is Goggle Analytics Important to Your Business?

Google Analytics allows you to look back so you can make better decisions going forward.
Track the website and the progress it is making to your business goals. Website analytics is like GPS for your website. Want to know more about where your website is headed? Contact us.

Google Analytics Tips

  1. Ensure it’s setup accurately – Far too often we find Google Analytics not implemented correctly or, worse… no web analytics setup on a site at all.
  2. Goals, goals, goals – Goals in Google Analytics are a powerful tool in any marketer’s tool box. If you have an online store you can use Google Analytics to measure sales, shopping cart abandonment and more. If your a company is interested in leads, Google Analytics can tell you how well your latest lead nurturing campaign is working.
  3. Experiment: setup duplicate views within an account – If you are going to make the most of your analytics you are going to want to experiment. The thing about experimenting is that you don’t want to do it with the single version of the data that is in your account. Making a duplicate view allows you to experiment on the copy and leave the original data untouched.

Need some more help with your Google Analytics?
Review our Google Analytics services or, contact us.

9/14/2014 Roundup: Google Analytics Benchmarks, TINNY Launches, Facebook Asks Why

weekly blog roundup 9-14-2014

Our weekly roundup of things clicking on the interwebs in SEO, paid search, web design, social and more.

Google Analytics To Roll Out New Benchmark Reports

“Google Analytics announced (…)its new benchmark reports will be rolling out over the next few weeks, allowing users to compare their results to industry standard acquisition and engagement metrics.According to the announcement, users can select reports from among 1,600 industry categories, 1,250 markets and seven size-buckets, with metrics by channel, location, or device category dimensions.
Why this clicks: As marketers we look for external bearings for some sense of direction. And for that we finally see some payoff for anonymously sharing our data with Google for years. While these benchmarks provide a tantalizing cache of data, we should view it with some caution. Especially if you are in a niche or, in B2B. Ultimately, the best benchmark lies within your own data.
Article: Google Analytics Begins To Roll Out New Benchmark Reports

New Photo Sharing App: TIINY

“beta testers shared 5 time more photos with Tiiny than on their other photo apps, but he’s not even concerned about the success of the app”
Why this clicks: The spirit of innovation and Kevin Rose’s observation that a user can consume more content in a grid pattern is an interesting insight. And the proof appears to be in the early sharing results. Perhaps will see this feature built into other image intensive apps.
Article: Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg, Launches New Photo Sharing App Called ‘Tiiny’

Facebook Now Asks Why When You Block an Ad

“When users click on a sponsored post to block it, they’re asked, “Why don’t you want to see this?” Was it because you found it irrelevant, offensive, annoying? Facebook says responses from relatively few people will increase the relevance of ads for all users.”
Why this clicks: On the surface the incremental feedback Facebook gets might be helpful. Atleast it looks like Facebook is making an attempt to be helpful and refine newsfeed ads. But, this is a main profit driver for FB, are they likely to make changes?
Article: If You Block an Ad, Facebook Now Wants to Know Why

4-19-2014 Roundup: Analytics Troubleshooting, Podcast is Hot, Does Click Here Work?

Weekly Blog Round Up

Our weekly roundup of things clicking on the interwebs in SEO, paid search, web design, social and more.

This week: Analytics Troubleshooting, Podcast is Hot, Does Click Here Work?

Podcasting Is HOT

“In this year’s Infinite Dial report from Edison Research and Triton Digital, there was some good news for podcasting: a 25% bump in the percentage of Americans 12+ who have listened to a podcast in the past month.”
Why this clicks: A podcast is a great way to stay relevant, provide value and give control to client about when to listen to your content. Get some mindshare via their ears.
Article: A Major Shift in Podcast Consumption

Google Announces Analytics Troubleshooting

“Google announced it is launching beta Analytics Diagnostics, but only giving access to a limited number of users for now.”

Why this clicks: For years, business could rely only on analytics professionals or, programmers to troubleshoot their website reporting. Now, those with access to website analytics will get feedback on possible problems and get some pointers on how to fix the issues. This is a huge step forward in giving business users clues for starting the dialog with developers.
Article: Google Analytics Rolls Out Beta Diagnostics For Limited Number Of Users

Do the Words “Click Here” Work?

Does telling someone to click here, work? It’s a great question and this Copyblogger post adds some good information to the dialog. Pointing out that the right combination of anchortext could lift click through 8%+.

Why this clicks: Anything that can increase a visitor’s ability to dig into your content is a great starting point for experimenting on your site. Try it on a PPC landing page and compare to one that doesn’t use it. What are the results?
Article: Does Telling Someone to Click Here, Work?