Typically, those who create a website on the internet have a specific goal in mind. Naturally, this goal varies for each resource, but most often, websites are created either to make a presence known, find like-minded people, or generate revenue. Despite this variety of goals, in practice, they all come down to one thing: every website owner is primarily interested in getting visitors to take the “right” actions that ultimately help achieve the main objective.
For example, a blog owner wants as many readers as possible to subscribe to their resource, while an online store owner wants visitors to make purchases. To quickly and effectively track such goals, Google Analytics provides a dedicated functionality. With it, you can gather information not only about the goals themselves but also about the actions that led to them and determine the traffic sources that brought visitors who completed the goals to the site.
Thus, goals in Google Analytics help record the audience’s “correct” (target) actions and analyze the conversion rate—the percentage of visitors who complete the goals versus those who do not. In turn, analyzing the conversion rate demonstrates the effectiveness of an online project and allows the owner to take appropriate measures for its further development and online promotion.
The importance of Goals in Google Analytics
The usefulness of goals for websites of different types in Google Analytics is hard to overestimate, as the conversion rate determined through goals is one of the key metrics. In addition, the “Sales Funnel” (Conversion Funnel) plays an important role in evaluating the effectiveness of an online project.
An example of a target action: for an online store, the target action is the purchase of a product or service. The path to this action goes through several steps, such as filling out order forms and completing the checkout process.
Features of the goal funnel
It is important to consider the following feature: if a user creates a funnel to track a goal, several intermediate pages may precede the goal completion page. In some cases, a visitor may temporarily leave the site and return later to complete the target action. In this case, the report records a second visit, and the goal funnel will not be displayed.
Thus, the goal funnel is reflected only when the visitor completes it fully within a single session.
Identifying problem areas and optimization
By tracking goals in Google Analytics, you can determine how many visitors abandon the target action at each stage, which allows you to identify “problematic” areas (difficult steps) and optimize the site for your specific target audience in a timely manner. Often, a few simple actions aimed at eliminating these problem areas can elevate a project to a qualitatively new level, attract more visitors, significantly increase sales, and, consequently, boost revenue.
For example, if potential buyers leave the site from the delivery checkout page, it may indicate that the delivery service does not meet most users’ expectations regarding quality or that the courier fees are too high. It may be worth offering visitors more options—such as multiple transport companies, in-store pickup, or free delivery under certain conditions, for instance, when purchasing products above a specified amount, and so on.
Goals as a measure of performance
The effectiveness of a web resource is determined by its results, that is, by achieving specific outcomes. Goals in Google Analytics help assess this effectiveness—they serve as an excellent indicator of how well the site’s operations are organized. With goals, you track not just statistical data (such as the number of visitors or pages viewed) but actual results—completed actions. Google Analytics provides four types of goals that can be tracked and analyzed.
Types of goals
In Google Analytics, the type of tracked action is chosen based on the primary objective of the website. Below are the main options for analyzing user behavior and evaluating the effectiveness of a resource.
1. URL destination
This type of goal is completed when users navigate to a specified page on the website. For example, for an online store, this could be reaching the “Thank You for Your Order!” page after completing a purchase.
2. Time on site
This goal is more typical for resources whose main objective is to engage the audience with content. It allows tracking how much time visitors spend on a particular page and experimenting with various methods to keep users engaged for longer periods.
3. Pages per visit
This type of goal is useful when the aim is to encourage visitors to view more pages on the website. It helps determine how many pages each visitor has viewed.
4. Events
This type of goal is a bit more complex than the previous ones, as it measures more intricate visitor actions. With this goal, you can track how much time visitors spend viewing albums (catalogs), videos, etc., how often they download various documents and files from the website, the frequency of clicks linking the site to social networks, and more.
Impact of keywords and traffic sources on goal value
For any type of goal, you can assign a “goal value” — a numerical metric that reflects the “importance,” “benefit,” or “significance” of the goal. This feature helps clearly show which keywords or traffic sources contribute most to improving the website’s effectiveness. In other words, the goal value demonstrates the practical benefit derived from conversions.
Assigning a goal value is not mandatory, but in practice, it is recommended, as it simplifies the process of evaluating the commercial return of your website.
Tracking conversions in google analytics
Once you have defined your goals and set up tracking in your Google Analytics account, you can start collecting information about conversions. It’s important to note that each view can contain no more than 20 goals. If you need to track more, you will need to create an additional view or disable unnecessary goals using the “Off” button, which will stop data collection for them.
From this, an important conclusion follows — goal creation in Google Analytics must be approached with full seriousness, as they cannot be permanently deleted once created. Properly set up and configured goals are a key component of success for any online project. Comprehensive web analytics and analysis of all tracked goals will help determine whether the website is developing in the right direction and, if necessary, implement new solutions as well as experiment with different methods to increase conversion rates.
