{"id":7081,"date":"2020-04-09T07:05:41","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T05:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/?p=7081"},"modified":"2022-09-05T19:24:30","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T17:24:30","slug":"what-is-a-goal-in-web-analytics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/seo-blog\/what-is-a-goal-in-web-analytics\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a goal in web analytics?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"DSM<\/div><\/div>

A goal is a desired visitor action on your website and can be quite strategic and high level, for example, to sell more items, create happy customers or improve marketing effectiveness.<\/p>\n

Your goal should be to get a visitor to participate in some action item on your website. Google Analytics allows you to create up to 20 conversion goals per profile. Goals are really page views: you essentially tell Google<\/a> to record every time someone views a particular page or completes a specific action. Calls to action such as the following examples are an effective way to engage your visitors and encourage website interaction:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Complete the contact form<\/li>\n
  • Download a brochure<\/li>\n
  • Sign up to the newsletter<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    There are three types of goals:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. URL destination<\/li>\n
    2. Time on site<\/li>\n
    3. Pages per visit<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Consider the \u2018download a brochure\u2019 goal from the list above as a working example. Think about the user experience involved in this process:<\/p>\n

        \n
      • A visitor goes to your website and decides to download a specific brochure.<\/li>\n
      • When they click on the button to download the brochure, a lightbox appears.<\/li>\n
      • Once they fill in their first name and email address and hit \u2018proceed\u2019 this event is tracked in Google.<\/li>\n
      • The visitor can now download the brochure and, in turn, you have obtained the visitor\u2019s email address and have registered the download.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        This is an example of an effective call to action which provides the digital marketer<\/a> with valuable data and also gives the visitor what they want.<\/p>\n

        You may be familiar with KPIs (key performance indicators) which serve as a measurement of performance. They are typically used to refer to long-term organisation goals. Think of conversion goals as the KPIs of your website, deciding on which conversion goals are appropriate for your online marketing strategy will provide you with the means to evaluate how effective your efforts are proving. The feedback you receive from your web analytics report will provide valuable insight regarding consumer response and will permit you to make adjustments to those aspects of your marketing strategy which do not meet expectations.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>