Goals Goals Goals
The internet is a massive place filled with lots of different people and so many options to buy. If we are going to sell anything to a potencial client, we need to know what content is best suited to attract our audience.
Google Analytics
Enter Google Analytics
Where once a market ad campaign would cost lots of money, Google Analytics is available free of charge to spy on your users.
With the power of Google Analytics we can:
- Collect data on user habits
- Research how and when users are accessing our website
- Get insight into where our clients are located
- Collect demographic information to see whom we are most popular with
- We can track whether or not our ad compaigns are landing in real-time
And most importantly:
What We're Testing:
This week, I added a link on the homepage to take users to the most recent post.
Latest Post
For fun, I also made the text in the link green. There is no other green opject on the page, which makes the green text really stand out.
Hypothosis
Before we get started, a few thoughts about my users and the sort of data I will see from this goal.
Because there is no other green on the page, I expect the link to stand out.
If the link stands out, I expect the goal to be triggered 30% to 50% of the time.
Results
Google Audience Overview for the week of 5/19 to 5/25.
Just a note: There was only a week's worth of data this time (I've only been running the goal for about 5 days), so the numbers weren't as impressive as the whole month!
What I noticed
- I'm still getting a trickle of new users, this week there were 6.
- Users spent an average of about 6 minutes on the site before leaving.
- Of the new goal set up, there were four successful conversions.
- This means the goal had a success rate of 28.57%!
Detail of Google Analytics Goal Overview
All that I did was change the color of some text and users started to funnel towards the page.
I was surprised to see the change in behavior after just a few days.
Conclusion
It is amazing to see just how powerful a tool the Google Analytics are. I used it only for a few days and already I am beginning to see how my users are affected by the changes...I can even see them in real-time if I wanted to.
I am just one developer, working on one tiny website, but I can't help to imagine what a tool this would be to a large website with millions of users
Facebook for instance: with enough active users, a developer could change something on the page and watch users move through the site in real time.
They would know the instant a change had been made, or if the ad campaign is reaching their target audience. I feel like right know I am using Analytics for "good" but at the same time, it is astounding just how powerful Google Analytics is for marketing.
Detail of Google Analytics Home Page