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Google Analytics – Creating Goals

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:53:35 +0000

Goals are a fantastic way of helping measure success of your efforts and when used in conjunction with “Javascript Events” (I talked about this yesterday) can be very informational for people running an online business.

Goals are a very quick and easy way to get a good picture of your conversion rates and understanding your conversion rates is critical for being successful.

The following is how to set up a basic goal for a double opt in mailing list.

Step 1: Click on “Analytics Settings” to ensure you are on the settings page.

Step 2: Click on “Edit” under the settings for the site you want to create the goal for.

Step 3: Scroll down to “Conversion Goals and Funnel” and click on “edit” for G1 (goal 1)

Step 4: Select the “On” radio button of “Active Goal”, keep the “Match Type” and “Head Match” (click the question mark if you want an explanation of the different types of matchtypes).

In the “Goal URL” just put the file name of the page. So if your url to your opt in page that the reader goes to once they have verified their subscription is…

www.yourdomain.com/thanksforconfirming/

…then simply enter /thanksforconfirming/ as the Goal URL. Then name the “Goal URL” and just leave the rest as default.

Step 5: Scroll down and in the “Define Funnel”, in step 1 enter the URL of the initial page that the user goes to when they initially opt in. Click on the “required step” check box and then click “Save Changes”.

Step 6: Once your goal is set up, you will want to let it run for at least 48 hours before you start looking at the info but I would recommend at least 2 weeks of allowing the goal to run, to get a real sample of your opt in conversion rate.

To check your “goals” (conversions), click on “Goals” and then “Overview”

Purpose: By settings goals you are able to effectively understand the conversion rate of your opt in and this allows you to test different things, such as headlines, and track improvements. Understanding your conversions helps you to understand if your efforts are providing an effective ROI.

But COW what about Tracking Affiliates!!!

Hmmmm…. have not I given you enough… do I need to give more????

OK then.. Here goes

Goals for tracking how well an affiliate page is doing is very powerful and it is super easy to set up. Lets say for example you have a review on your site and you want to know what the conversion rate is of people landing on your page and visiting the actual affiliate product page. To do this you would first of all make sure you add the JavaScript event to the links on your pre sales page. You will want to make sure that all the links in the content that are using the affiliate link, use the same event code.

So you link might look like this…

onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(’/aff_event/abc_com’);”>

What you would then do is create a goal with your goal URL being…

/aff_event/abc_com

…and then your step 1 required step would be the URL of the actual presales page on your site/blog.

This will now track for you the percentage of people that visit your page and actually go to the affiliate product page.

SO what do you think.. you like this tip or what?

This is the last one in this Analytics series and I am thinking I am next going to get into creating effective presales material but please let me know your thoughts on this tip.

Part 1: Google Analytics – Installing
Part 2: Google Analytics – Keywords
Part 3: Google Analytics – Incoming Links
Part 4: Google Analytics – Outgoing Traffic
Part 5: Google Analytics – Content
Part 6: Google Analytics – Tracking with JavaScript Events
Part 7: Google Analytics – Creating Goals

Google Analytics – Advanced Tracking with JavaScript Events

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:06:59 +0000

In the previous post I talked about “Google Analytics – Content” and how you can use the information to understand what are popular topics on your site to create content about. Today I want to talk about another “Content” feature in Analytics but this one is a little bit of a different tactic.

Google Analytics offers the ability to create what is called “Java Script events” that are added to the html of a link on your blog. These events will treat the link like it is an actual page and by doing this you will be able to see specific details about the links that are very worthwhile to know.

There are dozens of different things you can use this strategy to track and when you tie it in with setting up goals (I talk about this tomorrow) you have an extremely powerful “one – two” punch that gives you very powerful data.

Some examples of things you can track using this strategy…

If you have a page with multiple call to actions that link to the same page, you can track which one is getting the most action.
If you want to track clicks on different banner ads on your site, you can know specifically which banners are getting the most clicks.
If you want to track the amount of times someone downloads a PDF, ZIP or some other file.
If you run PPC and you have multiple copies of the same page for specific keywords and you are promoting the same affiliate product, you can track which specific page is getting the best CTR (Click Through Rate) on the actual “Call to Action” link. This is very powerful since most affiliate products do not allow you to put conversion tracking on their thank-you page… hmmm I see another series of posts here for tracking PPC.
and the list can go on and on…

To create an event you simple add the following code to your link…

onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/event/nameofevent’);

So the html of your link would appear like…

the (‘/event/nameofevent’) is what Analytics will use to identify the specific link. So for example, say I have a pre sales page that I want to track which call to action link on that page is getting the most amount of “Action” to the product I was promoting at abc.com, I would put with the top link in the post…

(‘/aff_event/top_abc.com’)

…and with the second link you could put…

(‘/aff_event/bottom_abc.com’)

…and if I had a banner ad in the post to the same product, I would put…

(‘/aff_event/image_abc.com’)

This is effective for testing links in different parts of your page and also using different call to actions or images.

Another example of how you could use a Java Script event is if we were giving away a free download. For that I would use…

(‘/downloadevent/pagefilename_pdf’)

If the file name is too long then just use abbreviations.

These are just two simple examples of how to use Java Script events and again when you tie them in with goals, it is very worthwhile.

How to Track the Events

Step 1: In the sidebar navigation menu, click on “Content” and then “Content Drilldown”

Step 2: Make sure to select “500″ in the display drop down and you will see all the content that Analytics has tracked being visited. Scroll down and click on /event/ (or what ever you called the first part of your file name in your event)

Note: you can name this what ever you want in the code.

Step 3: You will now get a list of all the javascript events you have created on your blog and you can start to see what links visitors are actually clicking on.

Purpose: I realize I reviewed different strategies already but for a lot of you who are just getting started and are primarily promoting other affiliate programs and this strategy is very effective for helping to understand whether a specific affiliate product is converting well or not. What you can do is add the javascript event to your links and if you see you are sending a lot of traffic to the affiliate site but not making sales, then you would want to test different affiliate offers, since you are sending lots of traffic but the sales page itself they are landing on is not converting.

If however you notice that you are sending very little traffic (getting a small amount of clicks on the affiliate links) you would want to focus on getting more visitors on your page and test a stronger “call to action”.

Often times we want to blame the affiliate program for not selling well but we are to blame because we are not even sending traffic to them… or we think we suck at affiliate marketing because we can not make sales when it is the actual affiliate product that is doing a poor job of converting sales.

Whew I hope that makes sense

So, any ideas pop up on how you can use this strategy?

Google Analytics – Content

Jason Katzenback — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:05:16 +0000

This was honestly one of the last things I ever started looking at when it came to using Google Analytics but I quickly realized it was one of the most important for planning out your content.

Step 1: In the left hand navigation menu click on “Content” –> “Top Landing Pages”

Step 2: Make the date range a couple months of data.

Step 3: Now you will have a list of pages on your blog that are ranked by highest to lowest for traffic.

Step 4: Click on the link and look at the data that Analytics provides for where the traffic to that page is coming from and what keywords are being used to find it.

Purpose: There are a couple different things you want to look for here…

What content is getting lots of activity? You can not always tell by the amount of comments that a blog post gets (although it is a fantastic indicator), sometimes the content does not really cause a reader to comment but it does cause them to share it with others. You want to highlight this content because obviously it is important to your readers and you will want to write more content on that topic. It is great to poll and ask your readers what they want but this is truly not the majority opinion because everyone does not participate… but using the Analytics data will tell you the true answers.
Where is the Traffic Coming From? Do not assume that the traffic must be coming from the search engines… I often find very popular posts have recieved most of the traffic from sites like StumbleUpon. If this content was popular on Stumbleupon, then it is probably a good idea to create more similar content.
What Keywords Are Being Used? Check out what keywords your page is being found with, check to see where you rank in Google for that keyword and if it can be improved… Just Do It!

So what are your thoughts on todays tip and do you have any to add?

Google Analytics – Outgoing Traffic

Jason Katzenback — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:35:07 +0000

This is continued from the previous post Google Analytics Incoming Links

Getting lots of traffic is great but if no one is going where you want them to, well then there is a problem. Google Analytics helps you get a clear picture of not only where the traffic is coming from but also what it is doing once it gets there. Below is a very brief walk through of one way you can use this data provide.

Step 1: In the left hand navigation menu, click on “Content” and then “Top Exit Pages”

Step 2: You will now have a list of pages from your blog that are the top pages that people are leaving your site according to Analytics. Click on the top link.

Step 3: You want to look at “Time on Page” and if the page has a very low time on page.

Purpose: This is very powerful information because if you are finding that there is one page in particular that is getting lots of traffic but is also losing lots of traffic, then you know you may need to focus on that page.

You will want to look at the time spent on that page and if the average time on your top exit page is 20 seconds or less, then it is safe to assume that people are landing on that page and leaving right away. Now you will also have to understand the type of page it is. If your top exit page is an opt in “thank-you for opting in please confirm your subscription” page, then that is a good thing but if it is your main sales page… well then that is not so good.

STOP –>The time frames I gave are NOT hard fast rules. Alot depends on the length of your content and all that good stuff. If you want to see how long the average person should be on a certain page (say a pre sales page), then time yourself. Time how long it takes you to quickly read over the content and then click the link to buy… then that should become your goal for that page.

IMPORTANT –>You want to look at each page listed and look at the type of page they are and focus on ways of improving these pages.

TIP –> Do not just ignore pages like a ‘Thank-You’ page as a top exit page. This is very valuable real estate and if the ‘thankyou’ page only says “Thanks for Opting In” and does not provide other instructions, then there is roon for improvement. This is a great time to offer a recommended resource or an upsell.

So did any lights come on from this post?

Google Analytics – Incoming Links

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:53:58 +0000

This comes in very handy when looking to help “Promote Your Promotions”. If a site is sending you traffic, you want to know about it and identify any ways you could help increase that traffic… even if it just means digging the story or submitting it to stumbleupon.

Step 1: In the left hand navigation, click on “Traffic Sources” and “Referring Sites”

Step 1: Now you will get a list of sites that Analytics has tracked sending traffic to your site. This informations is extremely valuable, no only does it show you the sites you have submitted links to that are sending you traffic but it also shows you all the other sites that you did not expect to get traffic from

Step 2: Click on the drop down box at the bottom of your screen that says “Show Rows” and select 500. This will now display all your sources on one screen.

Step 3: Do NOT click on the little icon beside the listed site, this will take you to the root domain of the site and not to the actual page that sent the traffic. Instead click the actual blue underlined link.

Step 4: You will now have a list of all the pages on that site that have referred traffic to your site, you will want to click on them and you will come to a new page that has the link “Visit the referring link”, you will want to click on this.

Purpose: With this information you will want to look for three different things.

The first is the sites that you have promoted, you will want to see which of these sites have sent you traffic and which ones have not. You can then tweak your promotions to exclude the sites that are not sending traffic and you can test new sites.
The second thing is for sites that sending traffic and you were unaware of. You want to look at these sites and see how you can improve the traffic they are sending. Perhaps it is a blog that posted a comment about your site. Look and see and then make a plan of how to help them send more traffic to your site.
The third thing is to look for potential JV partners. If someone has published your content or linked to you, perhaps they will let you submit more content to their site. The next time you do a promotion, you can then send them an article to publish on their site as well.

Hope you liked this post , if so let me hear about it… if not keep it to yourself and then make up a story of how you liked it and post that comment instead!

Google Analytics – Keywords and Covering the Basics

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:03:22 +0000

One of the issues that we feel happens when people start using a system like Google Analytics, is they over complicate things and try to figure out super complicated calculations, when at first there really should only be a few things you look at. Once you start using it and get a good grasp on the basics, then you will be at a position to start playing with the more advanced functions that they provide.

What we decided to do is to put together a quick and easy series for you on how to use Google Analytics for basic organic traffic improvement. Each day we will cover one different element to give you bite size pieces to be able to play around with.

This is by no means going to be a detailed course that will make you a Google Analytics pro but we promise it will give you a solid foundation to start with and you will love the information it gives you.

If you have just installed Analytics, you are going to want to bookmark this and come back to it in a couple weeks. We personally like to have a good 4 weeks of data under our belt before we start analyzing it but at minimum you want 2 weeks.

Over the next few days we are going to cover using the analytics function of…

Keywords
Incoming links
Outgoing links
Content
Creating Goals
Tracking through Java-Script events (create for affiliate marketing)

We will cover one topic per day only (trying to keep our posts a little shorter), each lesson will assume that you have already installed Analytics (if not then read yesterdays post on Installing Google Analytics) and will end with a “Purpose” that explains how we use the info.

Today we are going to talk first about…

Google Analytics for Keywords:

One of the first things we like to look at with Google Analytics is what keywords are being used to find our blog. We are always amazed at how words we never even plan to market for that can sneak their way into becoming huge opportunities.

The mistake a lot of people make is they look at these results and look for the keywords they were trying to get traffic for and ignore the other words. What we do is look for the words we want to rank for but also look for the words that are sending us traffic and we try to figure out how to increase that traffic.

Step 1: Log in to your analytics account and click on “View Reports” for the site you are wanting to analyze.

Step 2: In the left hand navigation, click on “Traffic Sources” and then “Search Engines”. Do not click on keywords because you are primarily focused on Google right now.

Step 3: Now you will get a list of all the search engines that have been sending you traffic. Click on “Google”. If you do not see Google then either give the system a little bit of time to gather some data or go back and do some promotion

Step 4: You will now have a list of all the keywords that analytics has tracked from Google. What you will want to do now is click on the drop down box at the bottom of your screen that says “Show Rows” and select 500. This will now display all your keywords on one screen.

Step 5: Now you will want to start at the top of the list and find out where you are ranking in Google. To do that copy the first term and then go to…

http://www.google.com/advanced_search

…and enter the term and make sure to select 100 for the results per page. You will also want to make sure you are searching in Google.com for the USA unless you are trying for traffic in a different specific country.

Step 6: Now in your browser go to “Edit” in the top menu bar and then click “Find it in this page”. Now enter your URL in the “find it” box.

Purpose of these Steps: What you are looking for here are keywords that are sending you some traffic but are not ranking for you on the first page (in the top 10). So if you find a keyword that has sent you 10 hits in the past month and you see that you are on page 4 of the results, you can safely assume that if you could increase that listing to page one, you could get a lot more traffic.

It is much more effective to focus on keywords that you are already getting some action for then blindly researching for keywords that you currently do not even exist for. We recommend once a month to make a list of the 5 keywords you want to improve on and focus on that every month. Since you are already ranking, it is often very easy with just a little focused keyword focused back link promotion to bump yourself from page 3 to page 1.

So, whats your opinion on this little tip and what we plan on covering?

Google Analytics & Social Marketing Go Hand in Hand

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:44:38 +0000

Testing and tracking is a huge component to running a successful business long term. Without it you really have no clear picture as to what your current situation is, what is doing good and what needs improving.

With a blog or website:

understanding where your traffic is coming from
what pages they are going to and
where they are leaving from are crucialThe easiest way to understand this in my opinion is by using the free Google Analytics service.

Yes, there are other free and paid services but none of the free services can even compare to analytics in our opinion and yes many of the paid services are extremely effective but are not realistic (nor necessary in our opinion) for the average person.

When starting a new Web 2.0 (Social Media) promotional campaign, you are going to be testing lots of different sites and you want to understand if these sites are even worth while.

Part of this process is using lots of different sites but filtering out the ones that do not provide good results, eliminating them and then adding in new sites and Google Analytics is a great tool in understanding this.

For any of you that have never used Analytics, do not worry. First of all, the process to implement Analytics is extremely easy and only takes a couple minutes, assuming you already have a Google Adwords account. If you do not have an free AdWords account you really NEED to get one… the extra tools Google gives is very worthwhile.

Once you have the analytics account then translating the data into useful information is very easy once you know what to look for and we will go through that in detail over the next few days and you when we are done you will wish you would have been doing this a long time ago

All you need to be concerned with right now is implementing it… translating it is not needed until you have a few weeks of data to actually look at.

If you did not already sign up for a Google Adwords account… PLEASE DO SO NOW. I mentioned earlier in some posts that you should to do this for the keyword tools but you also want to gain access to all the other fantastic tools and services that are included such as Analytics and the Website Optimizer.

To add analytics to your blog there are two easy ways you can do this; one is to use a plugin and the other is to enter the code directly into your wordpress template, both are very easy to do… the plugin of course being the easiest

Part 1: Using The Analytics Plugin

Step 1: Download the Google analytics plugin from…

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analyticator/

…and install and activate it on your blog.

Step 2: Log into your Google Adwords account and click on the “Analytics” tab on the top of the page.

Step 3: Click on the “Add Websites Profile” link.

Step 4: Leave the box checked that says “Add a Profile for a new domain” and then enter the URL of your blog. You can leave the box checked for applying adwords data…. it will not hurt anything. Then click “Finish.”

Step 5: Click on “New Tracking Code (ga.js)“ and copy all of the provided code that Google gives you into a .txt file. You only need the Google Analytics UID which is between _uacct = “UA-11111-1″; in the JavaScript.

Step 6: In the drop down menu for “Google Analytics logging is:” click on “Enable”.

TIP –> Not all themes support this but it is better to have your analytics in the footer of the page to allow the page to load much faster and so to enable this scroll down to “Footer tracking code:” and select enabled. You will then need to log out of your admin and then go to the index of your blog and refresh the page (make sure you are logged out). Now view source and you should see the anaytics near the footer of your page. If you can not find it then your theme might not support this function.

Step 7: Go back to your analytics account and click the “Check Status” to verify that your code has been entered correctly.

Part 2 –>Adding Analytics Directly into Your Template

Step 1: Log into your Google Adwords account and click on the “Analytics” tab on the top of the page.

Step 2: Click on the “Add Websites Profile” link.

Step 3: Leave the box checked that says “Add a Profile for a new domain” and then enter the URL of your blog. You can leave the box checked for applying Adwords data…. it won’t upset anything. Then click “Finish.”

Step 4: Click on “New Tracking Code (ga.js)“ and copy all of the provided code that Google gives you.

Step 5: Log into your WordPress admin account and go to Design –> Theme Editor and then click on the footer.php

Note: If under the template code box you do not see the “Update Now” button then you will have to change the permissions for that page. To do that, use your favorite ftp software and go to…

/public_html/wp-content/themes/yourthemename/

…click once on the footer.php file and then right click and depending on what FTP software you’re using, select “properties” or “permissions” and change the permissions to read/write access.

Step 6: In your WordPress admin area, paste the analytics code in the footer.php template directly above the

Step 7: Go back to your analytics account and click the “Check Status” to verify that your code has been entered correct.

Congratulations your Analytics is set up and you will soon start to be gathering some very powerful data!

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