Google Analytics is an online service from Google that allows you, as a website administrator, to easily track a wide range of statistics for your website. At Best4u Group, our guiding principle is “To measure is to know,” and this certainly applies to Google Analytics. In this blog, I will briefly share a few tricks to help you collect even more relevant statistics and make your online campaign a success faster!
If you do not have Google Analytics yet, it is a good idea to install it on your website first. This works using a tracking code that you place before the closing you can place from your website. In this step-by-step plan Google explains step by step how you can install this. Incidentally, there are various plugins for different websites. An example of this is the plugin NK Google Analytics from WordPressHowever, our experience is that the code functions best when you place it 'raw' in the website's code.
Before implementing all the tricks below, create a new view so that you can always access your original data. Google Analytics does not collect statistics retroactively, so you can view the original view as a backup.
Trick 1: Filter out as many spambots as possible
Without you probably knowing it, there are many bots that visit your website daily to generate data. One of the largest and best-known spambots is Semalt.com. This is a Ukrainian organization that generates website statistics by sending a bot to your website daily or weekly. This is not harmful to your website, but it does contaminate your statistics in Google Analytics. The statistics no longer accurately reflect reality, which is a shame! Fortunately, however, there are ways to solve this. For instance, you can specify in the Google Analytics settings that Google should automatically filter out the most well-known spambots. You can do this at administrator > view settings > filter out bots. Below is an example of the checkbox you need to enable.
Not all spambots have been removed with this, at channels > referrals There will be a number left. You can filter these out one by one at administrator > view > filters.
Trick 2: Defer your own IP address
In addition to bots, it is also recommended to exclude your own IP address. Why? Because you are likely one of the most frequent returning visitors to your own website. Every time you visit the website, Google Analytics will measure this. This is then displayed in the Analytics statistics. Unknowingly, you will therefore be polluting your own statistics, and that is annoying. You can solve this very easily by excluding your own IP address. You can find your IP address at watismijnip.nl. You then enter this at administrator > view > filters. You can use the image below as a guideline for this.
Trick 3: Set goals
What is more interesting than knowing how many conversions have occurred on your website? A conversion means that your visitor takes an action on your website, such as placing an order or requesting a quote. You can easily measure this in Google Analytics. Do you have a quote request form or a contact form? Then create a thank-you page that the visitor lands on after filling out the form. You create this thank-you page as a goal. You do this by following the steps below.
Go to Administrator –> View –> Goals. Next, click on the red button “+ New goal”. Then click on the Template of your choice and click on next stepNow you arrive at the goal description, where you can give the goal a name and indicate how you want to measure it. The 'Destination' type is most often chosen for this. This also applies to a thank-you page. Next, you arrive at the goal details. For this, enter the URL of the thank-you page under 'destination'. You do not need to fill in anything else and can proceed to create the goal. The funnel is described as the next trick!
Note: do make sure that your thank-you page a no-follow/no-index has, because otherwise this page is indexable by Google and this can clutter your Google Analytics statistics. Do you have a webshop and want to know exactly what you are selling? Then enable the e-commerce settings. This is a more complex method than setting up goals and will be covered in a subsequent article.
Below is a good example of how you can then track these goals in Analytics.
Trick 4: Set up a funnel
When setting goals, you can go a step further. You can measure a funnel conversion rate using filters. This allows you to answer the following question if, for example, you have a sign-up page: How many people who visit my sign-up page actually sign up? If you see that, for instance, a large number of people on this page do not convert (i.e., sign up), you can take immediate action. Below you can see what a shortened version of such a funnel visualization looks like.
This shows that there were 61 visitors on the registration page and that 32 of them ultimately registered. Now you can start optimizing. My colleague Sander Hoetink has already done a article written about conversion optimization and that is certainly added value for a contact or quote page.
Trick 5: Measure search queries on site
Does your website have an internal search function? If so, you can measure this in Google Analytics and concretely optimize your website. Why would you want to measure this? Simply put, it will provide you with a wealth of interesting statistics. For example, if people search frequently for specific topics or products and this information is not available, you know there is a demand for that topic or product. Perhaps it would then be worthwhile to include that product in your assortment after all?
When someone searches for a specific topic and this information is not available on your website, you can choose to provide information about it. After all, there is a high demand for it. You can capitalize on this to optimize your visitor's experience on your website. After all, an impression is made quickly.
But how do you set up such a code? You go back to administrator > view settings and the heading is at the bottom of this page Site Search SettingsAn important condition for measuring this is that there must be a query parameter. You can find this by running a test in the search bar on your website.
You will then see something like this: www.yourwebsite.nl/catalogsearch/result/?q=test
The text in bold is what matters. The part before the = sign is the query parameter. If you enable 'Track site search queries' and then enter a q for the query parameter, you are all set. An example is shown below.
In this case, q is the query parameter. This may be different on other sites, for example 'c' or 'query'. Once you have set this up, Google Analytics will show your internal search queries within 48 hours, and you can start tracking what your visitors cannot find on your website, or what they are very interested in. After that, only one thing remains: start optimizing!
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The tips above certainly add value to Google Analytics. Furthermore, they are easy to implement even for someone without much knowledge of Google Analytics. Very handy. If you have any questions about this article, please feel free to contact us!