Small Business, Big Impact: The Most Valuable Google Analytics Goals

Goals are important in life and in business. Without them, you would have never taken the initiative to start your own business. You would have never developed the motivation to wake up early and work into the late hours of the night to make sure your business took off. And you wouldn’t be here, right now, reading this blog. 

But let’s not think about that right now. I’m glad your goals have brought you here, and I hope to teach you some new goals (Google Analytics goals, that is) that will take you even further!

For those of you who are not familiar with Google Analytics, this is a tool that provides owners with tons of business insights. It’s perfect for small businesses because — drumroll, please — it’s FREE! You can measure advertising ROI, learn about customer behaviors, improve your website, and so much more without spending a penny. 

Here’s the thing to remember, though: Google Analytics is meaningless without goals. Goals are how you measure target objectives. Without clearly defined goals, Google Analytics will provide you with seemingly great data that means absolutely nothing. To be a great digital marketer, you need to set up valuable Google Analytics goals.

The great thing is that you can set up and track just about any goal imaginable. The bad thing is that you can set up and track just about any goal imaginable, so it’s easy to get overwhelmed, frustrated, and lost. Fear not; this quick guide will help you get started! 

But first, let’s make an educational pit stop to learn the different types of goals you’ll find in Google Analytics. 

1. URL Destination goals measure how many times visitors land on a specific website page. For example, if a customer fills out a contact form or makes a purchase, they may be directed to a thank you page. In fact, they should be — this is important. But, I digress. Every time someone accesses www.yourwebsite.com/thank-you-page, your Google Analytics goal is achieved. When setting up this goal, make sure you choose carefully between Equal to, Begins with, and Regular expressions. 
2. Visit Duration goals measure how many customers stay on your site for a certain amount of time. This is helpful in tracking user engagement. The more intriguing content and strong CTAs your website has, the longer customers will browse through it. When setting this goal, be careful not to choose a duration that most of your customers are already hitting, as this won’t give you much insight. 
3. Page/Visit per session goals measure how many pages customers visit before leaving your website. This goes hand-to-hand with Visit Duration because they’re both important in tracking user engagement.  
4. Event goals are triggered every time a customer performs a specific activity, such as click a CTA button, watch a video, download a PDF file, etc. This is where you can set miscellaneous goals that aren’t included in the previous three categories. 

Now, onto the good stuff. How can you track your small business’s online presence and performance? By measuring different points of contact. We’ve broken these down for you below. 

Live Chat Interactions

I bet every time you hear the ping of a live chat, your heart races… in a good way, obviously! There’s a customer out there who’s interested in talking to you, and there’s nothing more powerful than meaningful interaction in the small business industry. There are a lot of metrics you can track just for live chats, but you can start out with interactions first. Then, as your live chat, website, and overall business become more successful, you can learn more about how to leverage live chats to improve your customer’s experience and generate brand loyalty. 

Click-to-Call

There aren’t very many modern consumers who don’t cringe at the thought of picking up the phone to call, especially when a business is involved. That’s why this is like striking gold! Not only do you get to verbally engage with your customers, but this is crucial in tracking mobile metrics — especially considering the fact that more than half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices nowadays.

Online Contact Forms

Did that customer on your site ghost you, or did they convert? You’ll never know unless you track online contact forms. The best way to do so is through a thank you page! (Told you this was important.) Every time a client submits a contact form, have them redirected to a thank you page with a unique URL for contact form submissions only. Don’t forget to set the page to no index, so it doesn’t show up on Google Search results. This will provide you with the most accurate representation of how many people filled and submitted a contact form. 

Google Analytics may be one of the most powerful tools a small business owner can leverage to get a better understanding of their website’s health and success. The best part, of course, is that it’s FREE. We suggest you dive in right now! You’ll find enough resources in there to fill an entire Yellow Pages — remember those?

Don’t worry, though. If you get lost or need help at any point, just give the 1SEO team a call! We have a special place in our hearts for small businesses, and we’re always eager to help. Our chat and phone lines are always open, so don’t be shy.