Given this week’s report, there is plenty of room for improvement. In this post, I examine how Google’s Goals, Funnels, and Filters can be used to optimize my Google Analytics data for this blog. I took a look at these three tools and chose which ones were appropriate to apply to my blog.
GoalsWhen you originally think of the term “goal”, you likely think of it as achieving a desired result. In Google’s world, a goal represents a level of interactivity on your website (Google Analytics, n.d.). There are four types of goals that can be set in Google Analytics (Google Analytics, n.d.; P.I. Reed School of Journalism, 2012):
1. URL destination goals are achieved when a user visits the defined goal page. A good example is a thank you page after a user has submitted information through a form or completed a shopping check-out process.
2. Time on site (or visit duration) goals are achieved once the user meets a certain time threshold on the website. You can specify a greater than or less than time in hour, minute, or second increments. Once this time threshold is met, the goal is achieved.
3. Page views/visits goals are achieved once the user meets a certain number of page views or visits to the website.
4. Event goals attach a conversion to an event.
Every website should have at least one goal. At a basic level, the goal should answer the question, “why do I have a website?” (Google Analytics, n.d.). A goal for this blog is that the user is actually engaged and reads a post. I don’t want to count visitors who click on the site, don’t read anything, and leave. This tells me they didn’t find what they wanted on the blog. For these reasons, I felt it was appropriate to set two goals for my blog. I set one goal for when the time on site exceeds more than 61 seconds. I felt after 60 seconds, the site visitor actually read a post, or at the very least, skimmed some of the content. The other goal was set for when the visitor views more than one page. This will show me that the site visitor viewed more than one post and had a high level of engagement with the site. All of the other goals offered through Google Analytics seem too in-depth for a shallow blog, but could be appropriate for more in-depth or e-commerce sites.
Funnels
Each goal can have a funnel that defines the desired steps (or path) necessary for converting to the goal (Google Analytics, 2012; P.I. Reed School of Journalism, 2012). Defining these pages allows you to see how frequently visitors abandon goals, and where they go. Funnels are particularly helpful on e-commerce sites because they can show how effective a sites check-out process is. Another example of where funnels are useful is a college’s online admission process. If the site visitor doesn’t reach the URL destination goal (e.g. purchase confirmation page, submits an application), the funnel report will show where the site visitor abandoned the process.
Although I certainly understand the merits of funnels in the examples provided, I don’t think they are necessary for my shallow blog. A goal of mine is for the site visitor to read a post. It would be nice if they continued reading all of the posts, but I don’t consider it a failure if they don’t. I also don’t expect them to travel through the site in any particular pattern or desire them to reach a certain URL destination. For these reasons, I did not apply a funnel to my blog.
Filters
Filters provide a flexible way to determine what data is included in your Google Analytics report and how the data appears (Google Analytics, 2012). Google recommends excluding internal IP addresses from reports but also suggests keeping all of the data because once a filter is applied, the data can no longer be accessed (Google Analytics, 2012). Google offers predefined and custom filters. For the purpose of this assignment, custom filters are too in-depth and unnecessary. I found the predefined filter to exclude traffic from a specific IP address to be helpful because I could at least filter out my own visits to my blog. After learning how to actually find my IP address, I set up a filter to exclude myself from the Google Analytics report. I certainly realize that I will see a decline in site traffic due to this filter, but at least I will be measuring actual visitors to the blog.
My former employer refused to apply an internal domain filter because it would show a significant decrease in site traffic. Their site goals were based on volume and they didn’t care if the traffic came from internal or external visitors. At the very least, they should have applied filters so that they could distinguish between internal and external visitors. This would have provided valuable insight on what types of content these two different sets of visitors are interested in.
Putting Data into Practice
After digging further into Google’s Goals, Funnels, and Filters, I realize these tools provide a more in-depth measurement of results. It is easy to gather data, but interpreting data is a whole different ball game. You really need to interpret the data, identify and summarize relevant parts, and understand the meaning and implication of this data so you can tweak and improve what you’re doing. Whatever industry you’re in, it is important to fully understand how your site is performing. With this understanding, you can optimize the Web experience for site visitors and get the most out of your site.
ReferencesGoogle Analytics. (n.d.). Google Analytics IQ lessons. Retrieved June 30, 2012, from http://www.google.com/analytics/iq.html
Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing. ISBN# 978-0470529393
P.I. Reed School of Journalism. (2012, May 25). Lesson 6. IMC: 642, Web Metrics and SEO. West Virginia University.
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