At Got2Web, I recently fielded a question from a client who wanted to know how to track conversions from an individual outgoing link button on their site. While I was walking them through the process, it occurred to me that many do not take advantage of the phenomenal asset that is Google Analytics’ Goals. With that in mind, I decided to create a quick primer based on my verbal walkthrough with the client I just mentioned.

To begin, you must have a Google Analytics account. If you’re reading this article, I assume you already have one. If not, more info can be found at Google’s Setup Checklist.

The easiest type of goal to track is the number of views of a particular page. For instance, let’s say that you owned an artisan pie shop, and you wanted to know how many people were viewing one of your less popular products (strawberry rhubarb, maybe) to make content adjustments

Once logged into your Analytics account, the first step is to click on the Admin  link, located on the right of the orange top menu.

Next, select the web property you’d like to set the goal for. It’s likely you’ll only have one.

In profile page’s submenu, select the Goals link and then click on the Create a Goal button.

Give your goal a name.

There are four different types of goals you could set: Destination, Duration, Pages/Screens per Visit and Event. For the purposes of  monitoring our strawberry rhubarb pie page views, we’ll select Destination. Click the Next Step button.

Under Goal Details, you’ll want your Destination to be the listed relative to the site’s root. In other words, if your site is awesomepies.com and you see your page at awesomepies.com/strawberry-rhubarb.html in your browser, make sure you only put in /strawberry-rhubarb.html  or everything after awesomepies.com (including the “/”).

Leave the dropdown selector as Equal to.

You can assign a monetary value to views of this page, although that is likely not relevant in this instance. To do so, you’d simply click on the slider and enter the designated worth of a page view.

You can also set a funnel, or specific series of steps to be monitored. In order to do this, simply fill out the fields for each step (the page url convention is the same here).  There is no limit to how many steps can be created.

Click on Verify this Goal if you’d like to view the conversions immediately, otherwise skip to the Create Goal button

Now that you’ve created the goal, you probably want to know where to check your conversions.

Click on Reporting on the left of the orange menu to return to your reports section.

You’ll now find your goal in the Conversions section under Goals Overview.  You should see the url of the page you just set up as a goal under Goal Completion Location in the report itself.

Congrats on setting up your first goal.

If you find yourself encountering difficulties managing your own Analytics account, or are interested in a more in-depth site audit, please contact us today!