Multiple Views
Each Google Analytics property should have, at the very least, 3 different views: All traffic, Filtered Traffic, and Testing. All traffic should be untouched – and should retrieve all data that comes into the site with no filtration process. Filtered Traffic should exclude the IPs of your home, office, company, support team, website team, SEO company, social team, and whomever else would have a reason to visit your site on a regular basis for administrative reasons. Your testing view should be a sandbox that you use to implement
Universal Google Analytics Tracking Code
The Universal tracking code for Google Analytics has now been out of beta for over a year and there are many reasons why your site should be taking advantage of the wealth of information the code has to offer. This code can streamline the tracking process for all your site assets and import valuable information about your site visitors. Need to chart your customers’ engagement with your site over multiple devices, including registers or kiosks? Universal Analytics is your answer.
Enable Demographics and Interest Reports
With a click of a button and a small modification to the Universal Analytics code on your website, you can start reviewing invaluable information about your site visitors, including age range, gender, lifestyle categories, and more. Find out who is visiting and engaging with your website. One cool utilization of the Interest reports allows you to determine what general “buckets” of people are visiting your site – categories include representations like ‘Movie Lovers’, ‘Technophiles’, ‘Business Professionals’, and ‘Travel Buffs’ among others. By reviewing how these interest categories interact with your site content – you can generate blog posts that are specifically tailored to the interests of the groups that you want to keep coming back.
Enable Benchmarking
Benchmarking is a more recent feature that Google released in September of 2014, and it allows you to compare your marketing channels with others in your same category. In order to enable benchmarking, you must agree to anonymously share your site’s information – one little checkbox in the Admin area of Analytics.
Review Goals and Goal Funnels
Goals are one of the most important aspects of Google Analytics because they offer insight to whether the strategies you’re implementing are achieving the business goals you desire. Goals should be set up for every action a site visitor could take that could lead to additional interaction with your brand or site, or that result in the purchase of a product or service. Goals are particularly important for sites that don’t have quantifiable e-commerce values. Tracking newsletter signups, RSS subscriptions, or PDF downloads are just a few examples of goals that should all be set up on your site. Need ideas? There are galleries of goal templates available to import into your Analytics.
Funnels are also key, as they allow you to track your visitor through the goal completion process. Goals without goal funnels tell an incomplete story – they deliver the end of the story, without describing the evolution of the journey. Funnels can be useful in determining what roadblocks may be preventing visitors from triggering your goal completions, or isolate problem areas where users are directed away from the conversion process.
Review E-Commerce Code Tracking Code for Errors
Although this is only applicable for e-commerce sites – it is important to include on this list because e-commerce tracking is notorious for being rife with discrepancies. Troubleshooting can be a challenging process – if you notice that the numbers aren’t matching up it’s best to request the services of a developer who is versed in the installation and troubleshooting of this feature.
