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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALY TICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

KISSMETRICS.COM

Introduction
Im going to lay it to you straight: Google Analytics doesnt offer any value out of the box. In fact, its costing you money because you spend WAY too much time looking at metrics that dont matter. But theres a way to x this. Below, youll nd the 8 critical features that will help you get great insights out of Google Analytics. Youll know whether or not your site is worth the effort, how to protect yourself from corrupted data, and how to evaluate all your marketing. So lets get started. (Sidenote: if you cant be bothered to wrangle with Google Analytics, a free trial of KISSmetrics is included in this bundle. KISSmetrics complements Google Analytics and is purpose-built to achieve the analytics goals outlined below, and more.)

THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Ecommerce Tracking
Dont you want to know where the majority of your revenue comes from? It might be Facebook. Or organic searches. Or all those banner ads you bought. With ecommerce tracking, youll know right where it came from so youll be able to brainstorm ways to nd more. Nearly every report in Google Analytics can be switched to an ecommerce version so you can see exactly how youre making money. If theres only one thing you set up in Google Analytics, it needs to be ecommerce tracking. Obviously, feel free to skip this one if your customers arent purchasing anything from your site.

THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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To set up ecommerce tracking: Go to your Google Analytics standard reports Click on the Admin button in the top right Click on Prole Settings Go to Ecommerce Settings and change the drop down to Yes, an Ecommerce Site Click the Apply button at the bottom.

THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Now the hard part starts. You see, we have to connect the ecommerce part of your site to Google Analytics. When a transaction occurs, we need to send info about the revenue and which products were purchased. But this isnt easy. Your best bet is to nd you friendly neighborhood developer/ engineer/code wizard and buy him or her a case of PBR to connect everything for you. Youre going to want help with this. If you feel particularly courageous, you can get the gritty details on ecommerce tracking from Google here. Be warned, this is not for the faint of heart. Isnt there an easy way to set up ecommerce tracking? There is, as long as your site is built on the right platform. Shopify will automatically pass ecommerce data to Google Analytics once you connect your accounts. All you have to do is give Shopify your Google Analytics property ID, turn ecommerce tracking on in Google Analytics, then youre done.

THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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There are also plugins for Wordpress that will do this like Cart66. Once again, give Cart66 your property ID, turn on ecommerce tracking, and youre all set. When youre shopping around for an ecommerce cart or Wordpress plugin, make sure that it easily integrates with Google Analytics. This is one of the most important features to have. What about Paypal? Paypal does not play nice with Google Analytics. If youre running a site with a basic Paypal button and youre trying to pass that data to Google Analytics, its probably easier to set up a dedicated shopping cart. Then youll be able to pass data to Google Analytics without a problem.

THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Goals
Why do we love goals so much? Because Google Analytics uses them to track conversions. And conversions pay the bills. To gure out what you should be tracking, start with the most critical element (yes, singular) of your site. Are you looking for leads? What about newsletter signups? Do you have a site that sells ad space by the page view? Whatever keeps the lights on is what you want to track. If youre just starting, keep it simple and focus on a single goal. Worry about everything else later. To reach the goal settings: 1. 2. 3. 4. Go to your Google Analytics standard reports Click on the Admin button in the top right Click on Goals From one of the Goal sets, click + Goal (goal sets are just a way for you to easily group goals)

THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Youll rst need to decide what kind of goal you want Google Analytics to track. URL Destination: Tracks a goal when people visit a specic URL. Visit Duration: Tick off a goal every time someone spends a certain amount of time on your site. Pages/Visit: Set a threshold for a number of page views that will set off a goal during a visit. Event: Youll need to dene an event by adding a snippet of code to your site. Once Google Analytics is tracking the event, then you can set it as a goal. See Googles Event Guide for the lowdown. Be sure to check out the post 4 Google Analytics Goal Types That Are Critical to Your Business that goes into more detail on how to set up goals.

THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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If youre looking to build one of Google Analytics fabled goal funnels, select URL destination, dene the goal URL (the nal URL that you want people to reach), check Use funnel, and punch in the preceding URLs of your funnel. Heres what the nal settings look like:

THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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AdWords
If youre using AdWords, youll need to connect it to your Google Analytics account. AdWords has a wealth of data that youre paying for, you need to make the most of it. If you dont take the time to set everything up correctly, your paid search trafc can be reported as organic search trafc. Step 1: Enable Auto-Tagging in Google AdWords This tells AdWords to tag each of your links which will tell Google Analytics that the visitor came from AdWords. 1. Log in to AdWords 2. Click on the My Account Tab, then Preference 3. Make sure Auto-tagging is set to yes. If not, click edit and check Destination URL Auto-tagging

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Step 2: Link Google AdWords and Google Analytics This will import all your other juicy Google AdWords data into Google Analytics. But sadly, this is a tad buggy right now. My best guess is the recent UI changes to Google Analytics v5 havent been completely streamlined with Google AdWords. Generally speaking, you follow these steps: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Log in to AdWords Click on the Tools and Analysis tab, then Google Analytics Click Admin in the top right Pick the account you want to connect Adwords to Click on Data Sources Then choose the AdWords tab and click Link Accounts Youll have to select which proles you want to send AdWords data to 8. Click Continue and youre all done. When youve nished these steps, AdWords will start sending data to your Google Analytics account so you can see which keywords are sending you protable trafc. Youll know where to spend money in AdWords to keep growing and how to save money by stopping campaigns that arent protable.

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Site Search
What if you could nd out what people think is missing from your site? Thats easy. Just connect your Google Analytics account to your internal site search and youll have a list of every keyword people search for on your site. To set up site search: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Go to your Google Analytics standard reports Click on the Admin button in the top right Click on Prole Settings Go to the bottom where youll nd Site Search Settings Select Do Track site Search

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Now you need to nd out how your site identies internal search terms. Your site uses whats called a query parameter for this. We need to make sure Google Analytics knows to look for the same query parameter and identify them as internal search terms. How to Find Your Search Query Parameter Go to your website and search for something. On the search results page, look at your URL and nd your search term. For example, I get this URL if I search for google analytics on the KISSmetrics blog.

Right before my search term, theres an = and the letter s. The s is the query parameter for the KISSmetrics Blog site search. Now your letter might be different (its usually s or q) and you may even have a complete word like search. The key is to look for your search term and nd the letter or word before the =.

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Once you know what letter or word your search query parameter is, plug it into the Query Parameter box in the Site Search Settings of Google Analytics. If youre not already stripping other URL parameters from your URLs to clean up your data, dont worry about doing that here. Feel free to leave the Strip query parameters from your URL box unchecked. Check the Search Categories box if your search eld has a way for people to search within a category on your site (through a drop down for example). If you do, youll need to gure out the category parameter the same way that we just gured out the search query parameter. Otherwise, leave it unchecked and apply your changes. Youre all done. Once its connected, all you have to do is wait for the data to come in, nd the trends, and x what your customers have trouble with.

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Campaigns
Measuring the ROI of search trafc is great. But its even more important to measure the ROI of all your marketing campaigns. After all, youre spending money and time on them. We need to make sure its worth it. Google Analytics will track any URL that you can edit. Emails, Facebook, banner ads, you can track it all. Its also super easy to set campaigns up. Theres no settings on your prole to manage and no new reports to activate. All you have to do is start building campaign URLs via Googles URL Builder tool.

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Enter in your domain and some basic info about the link so you can keep track of it in your Campaign reports: Source - What domain are you placing the link on? Which email list? Medium - Use categories like banner ad, ppc, afliate, email etc. Term - This is for paid keywords but you wont typically use this because theres a better way to connect Google Analytics to AdWords that does this for you. Content - Use this to separate different versions of the same ad. Name - This is how youll differentiate groups of ads in your reports. Google groups campaign trafc by name so this is the rst item youll see in your reports, make sure you can recognize your campaigns from the name alone. Punch everything in, grab your new link, and drop it wherever you want. When people use the link to access your site, itll come up under the campaign you dened. Dont worry about adding campaign URLs to AdWords, your ads get tagged automatically if youve enable auto-tagging and connected AdWords to Google Analytics.

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Safety Net Proles

What happens if you have a typo in one of your lters? Or you set up your goals incorrectly and dont catch it until 3 weeks latter? That mistake will corrupt your Google Analytics data as long as its in use. So what can you do to make sure you always have a backup plan? The solution is simple, create two extra proles for your Google Analytics account that will protect you from data corruption. The Raw Data Prole This prole does exactly what it sounds like. Set up a new prole, name it Raw Data, and never touch it again. Thats it. Dont apply lters, set goals, or change the settings in any way. The purpose of your Raw Data Prole is to silently collect data in the background and serve as a last resort if something goes horribly wrong on your other proles. Youll have a set of data to work with and depend on no matter what happens

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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The Test Prole Before rolling out new settings on your main prole, test them on a junk prole that you never use for analysis. This way, youll be able to experiment with settings as much as you want and youll never have to worry about corrupting your data. Set your Test Prole up with the exact same settings as your main prole so you can see exactly how theyll change your real data. If the test goes well, apply the new setting to your main prole. If something goes wrong, keep making changes until everything works or remove the new settings altogether.

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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How to Create a New Prole This takes no time at all: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Go to your Google Analytics standard reports Click on the Admin button in the top right Click on New Prole on the right Name your prole, then select your country and time zone Youre done, apply any settings you want

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Word of Caution: Every account on Google Analytics is limited to 50 proles. For most people, this isnt a problem. But if you have a bunch of different websites, you can hit this limit pretty quickly. Rumor has it that you can petition this limit and get it raised but I wouldnt count on it. Youll probably be forced to split your sites up between different accounts or avoid creating any new proles.

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Exclude Internal Tra c

Google Analytics collects data on every visitor (as long as they have cookies and javascript enabled) and that includes you. If youre constantly checking your site, tweaking details, and updating content, a sizable portion of your overall trafc could be you and your team. This will skew every metric in your reports. Instead of gaining insights about your customers, youll learn how you behave on your own site. And the way you use your site is going to be VERY different than how your customers use your site. But never fear, you can exclude all of your internal trafc to your own site. Weve already posted a great step-by-step tutorial for how to set up lters that exclude internal trafc. Use your newly created Test Prole and make sure youve set everything up correctly. To verify it, just compare the trafc from your state/country between your main prole and the test prole. If the lters are doing what theyre supposed to, youll see less trafc from your location. Go ahead and apply the same lter to your main prole when you know its working.

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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SEO Reports
The SEO Reports help you see how you perform within Googles search rankings. Previously, we could only get data on which keywords people click on. Now, we can also see: Which keywords give us the most impressions What our click through rates are How we rank for individual keywords (and our average position) Click through data for our top landing pages But we have to jump through a few hoops to get the SEO reports activated. Youll need to activate Google Webmaster Tools on your site and connect it to your Google Analytics account. Check out the KISSmetrics Beginners Guide to Google Webmaster Tools for help on how to set up Google Webmaster Tools. And the KISSmetrics 2012 Guide to Google Webmaster Tools will show you how to connect Google Analytics to Google Webmaster Tools (its towards the bottom of the post).

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

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Bottom Line
If you want to make the most of Google Analytics (and learn how to grow your business), you need to set up these features: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Ecommerce tracking Goals AdWords Connection Site Search Campaigns Safety Net Proles Internal Trafc Filter Google Webmaster Tools Connection

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THE 8 GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES EVERY SITE MUST ENABLE

KISSMETRICS.COM

PEOPLE PAY YOU, NOT PAGEVIEWS.

Unlike other analytics packages, KISSmetrics measures people, not pageviews. We dont rely on cookies alone, we consolidate all of a customers behaviors whether theyre browsing on their home laptop, their work desktop, or even their mobile device.

KISSmetrics gets you answers to questions that will help you make better decisions:
Where are your highest-converting, highest-revenue customers coming from? Where should you focus your development attention next? Are your visitors progressing towards revenue-generating activity? Are your visitors able to use and benefit from your offering?

Weve helped a variety of businesses optimize their funnel and increase revenues - from those who are just starting out to those who are bringing in millions in revenue each month.

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MEASURE WHAT MATTERS

Learn more at

KISSMETRICS.COM

EFFECTIVE HOMEPAGE
As a general rule, your homepage is the rst encounter someone will have with your business. Great care should be taken to design and structure your homepage so that readers will digest and act on your business message. Below weve identied certain qualities that compose an e ective homepage. Special thanks to @keanrichmond and @onextrapixel.

the anatomy of an

1. THE BASICS
LOGO
Tasteful sizing and placement of a logo is essential for any good homepage. Logos should be able to quickly communicate your companys ethos and personality to users both new and old.

It doesnt matter what kind of website you visit, youll notice that nearly all well-designed homepages contain the following elements.

SEARCH CAPABILITIES
SEARCH
Adding search functionality to your site helps to reduce the number of links (and declutter the layout in general). For certain kinds of websites (ecommerce, etc.) the search element may be the most important aspect of your site.

HOME

PRODUCTS

ABOUT

CONTACT

CONTENT & COPY

While copy shouldnt be the primary focus of your homepage, it can be important for SEO and accessibility reasons. Take this into account when designing your homepage. Try to keep things clean and clutter-free. Consult a SEO professional if necessary.

NAVIGATION
A homepage should function (in part) as a rendezvous point for users whove lost their bearings and cant nd what they need. The homepage shouldnt be a sitemap. Rather, it should simply guide the user to the most important sections of your website.

CLICK HERE

BRANDING CONSIDERATIONS
Brand recognition is less important for returning visitors. Some websites (such as Facebook) believe that their members are aware of who they are and so they dont push their branding as powerfully for users who have logged in. With A/B testing and other kinds of analysis, KISSmetrics helps you pinpoint which changes are making the biggest impact on your site.

2. THE OBJECTIVES
HOME

What do you want visitors to do when they visit your site? Have you made this clear to them? Take this into consideration when designing your site.

SEARCH

PRODUCTS

ABOUT

CONTACT

USER OBJECTIVES
The elements that go into a hompage (and a website in general) are there primarily to cultivate a good user experience and guide the user to the objectives that they have. Provide a clear and easy route to products that certain users will be more inclined to buy.

RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS FOR YOU

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
In addition to catering to user objectives, its duly important to promote your objectivesyour business objectives. Most business objectives aim to promote the items which will make the most prot.

THIS SUMMERS HOTTEST OFFERS

A NOTE ABOUT OBJECTIVES

Need help creating a custom-tailored experience for your visitors? KISSmetrics makes it easy for you to target users with marketing (and remarketing) campaigns. When designing your homepage (and your website in general), its important than both user and business objectives be considered (the two objectives can also overlap). If an element on your website doesnt serve one of these objectives, consider removing it.

3. THE PURPOSE
LOGO
Its often the case that the logo itself does a good job in communicating exactly what the company does. Consider this when designing your logo.

When people visit your site, do they immediately know who you are and what you do? A good business homepage is able to quickly and e ectively communicate the purpose of the business.

SHOPPING CART
A shopping cart in your sites header immediately communicates that you sell something. Remember, try to communicate what your site does as quickly as possible.

HOME

PRODUCTS

ABOUT

CONTACT

IMAGERY
Do the images and stock photos used on your site e ectively communicate what your business does? Your website should include images that align with the message of your business.

MICRO COPY
Navigation labels and headings are examples of microcopy the small bits of text that help tie a site together. Microcopy can play a big part in communicating what your site is about.

THE FOLD
Dont make it di cult for the user to nd out information about your business. Be sure to communicate what your business does above the foldthe visible portion of a webpage that people see immediately upon visiting.

LANGUAGE
The main purpose of design and imagery is to capture a users attention so that they will read the content that is presented. Be sure to structure content and engage the user so that they read, digest and act on your message.

MORE ON MICROCOPY
Always be looking for ways to make it easier for the user to understand what your website is all about. For example, if youre a web designer, instead of a navigation link to your Services, you could create a link to your Web Design Services. Changes such as this one help to inform the user what your business does.

Need help to determine whether your homepage is effective or not? We can help!

Lets talk: +1 (888) 767-5477

PEOPLE PAY YOU. NOT PAGEVIEWS.

KISSmetrics is a powerful web analytics solution that helps you make smarter business decisions. Try KISSmetrics for FREE: kissmetrics.com/signup

Special thanks to @keanrichmond and @onextrapixel

THE BLUEPRINT

PERFECTLY

for a

TESTABLE
LANDING PAGE

Landing pages are composed of a group of denable elements. The building blocks presented below can be used as a guide when dening and creating a perfect landing page of your own!

THE MAIN HEADLINE

DATA COLLECTION

CTA
(CALL TO ACTION)

THE HERO SHOT

BENEFITS

THE SAFETY NET CTA

Each landing page element is elaborated on below.

e HEADLINE
The purpose of your main headline is to get people interested enough to read the rest of your message.

Provide ample space around your headlines.

Use a typeface meant for headlines. Don t be afraid to give up a little legibility in order to make it more noticeable.

Travel First Class to Mars

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Move headlines out of alignment with your typographic grid.

Keep in mind that the SEO and PPC keywords that bring visitors to your landing page should also be used throughout your landing page, including your headline.

e HERO SHOT
The hero shot is the main photo of your product or service.

Numerous studies have found that photos containing humans convert better than those that don t. * Several studies have found that adding the ability to rotate product images 360 degrees can signicantly boost conversion rates. **

Use the hero shot to evoke positive emotions in the mind of the user. This helps establish trust. The images you use on your landing page (especially your hero shot) should be clearly tied to your central theme.

DATA COLLECTION
Email signups, contact forms and surveys are examples of data collection.

Make sure your data collection points are easy to understand and have clear instructions.

First Name

Politely point out form errors.

Last Name

Email Address

CTA Establish trust.

Your data is safe with us

Generally, fewer form elds result in a higher conversion rate, but not always. Sometimes, if you don t ask enough questions, you might be spending less time closing important leads (good matches) because youre wading through spam and bad matches. Test and see what works best for you.

e CTA
A CTA, or Call to Action, is web page element that solicits action from a visitor.

Subtle changes to a CTA button (such as color, size, placement) can signicantly impact your conversion rate. See what works best for you.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec et mauris sed ligula euismod condimentum at nec nulla. Integer adipiscing massa ac massa ullamcorper rutrum iaculis mauris laoreet. Aliquam vitae sapien leo. Donec risus neque, ullamcorper ac aliquam quis, luctus lobortis tortor. Ut

SIGNUP TODAY Wording plays a huge effect on conversion. Strive for simple, clear, compelling language that inspires users to take action. Also, make sure your CTA stands out. Bigger is usually better.

The fold refers to the rst frame your visitors see when they visit your site. Users spend 80% of their time above the fold, so keep the most important parts of your webpage (CTAs included) in that space.

e BENEFITS
How does your product or service benet a potential customer?

Web visitors are scanners, not readers. Consider distilling large paragraphs into simple bullet points.

As a general rule, sell benets, not features. Nobody who bought a drill wanted a drill. They wanted a hole. Focus on how your product or service can benet a potential customer.

When writing benets, you rst need to understand your target audience and connect with them on an emotional level. If you write for everybody, you end up talking to nobody in particular.

e SAFETY NET CTA

A secondary CTA can sometimes help capture prospects not ready to convert.

An example of a secondary CTA might be a cluster of social sharing buttons. By adding a sharing cycle (multiplier effect) to your page like this, youre able to keep people in your sphere of inuence who may not be ready to convert.

Other great places to put your secondary CTAs are your conrmation and thank-you pages. Test landing pages with and without secondary CTAs to see how they impact your conversion rate.

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SOURCES: http://www.vertster.com/writing-better-copy/3-tips-for-writing-better-headlines/ http://unbounce.com/landing-page-articles/the-anatomy-of-a-landing-page/ http://www.emagineusa.com/blog/6-ways-to-make-your-landing-pages-convert.htm http://www.copyblogger.com/landing-page-mistakes/ http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/marketing-101-sell-the-benets-and-not-the-features.html * http://thinkvitamin.com/design/human-photos-double-your-conversion-rate/ ** http://conversionxl.com/how-images-can-boost-your-conversion-rate/