Adam DesAutels

Google Expands Analytics Capabilities

Thomas Petty on 10 27, 2009

Google announced the other day that they are adding new functionality to their already powerful suite of Web measurement tools, Google Analytics. One of the more important tools within the Analytics family are “Goals”. We all know that raw traffic to a Web site isn’t very useful if people aren’t buying our stuff – either services or products. It’s far more important to measure conversions or put a dollar value to traffic.

For instance, if you have a signup form for people to get a free demo, and you know that 10% of those who go through the demo will sign up for your paid service, you can assign a rough dollar value to each free demo signup. So in that example, if your service costs $1000, and 10% of the people getting a free demo buy it, then you can assign a $100 value to each free demo request or “goal”.

Google Expands Analytics Video

In the past, Google has given you the ability to create up to four goals within the Analytics tool. With the rollout of their new version, Google Analytics 4 a few days ago, you now have the ability to create four sets of five goals in each set, or a total of twenty goals. This is great for measuring multiple traffic sources and marketing campaigns.

Their base set of goals include:

• URL Destination – If someone reaches a destination page, like a “Thank You” page, that easily translates into the dollar values mentioned above.
• Time on Site – If you notice that people who spend more than a set amount of time, or less than an amount of time on your site, you can set that up with this type of goal.
• Pages/Visit – If your goal is to measure a certain threshold of pages visited, either by exceeding a value or not reaching a value, that can also trigger a goal

Each of your goal sets can have a Goal Name, which will show up on each of your reports that you create with the goal results. Each of the goal sets will have their own tabs in your reports under “Goals”.

Google is continuing to listen to their user community and the power users to add functinality that we all want. Watch for other other changes and enhancements that will be rolled out over the next several weeks, as Google Analytics 4 gets fully implemented.

Read more from Thomas Petty at: Bay Area Search Engine Academy and on Twitter

Thomas Petty is President of the Bay Area Search Engine Academy. He teaches SEO and internet marketing classes in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento, California.

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