Google Analytics

The Source / Medium report - one report to rule them all

The data shown should include the useful search queries and keywords that have lead to clicks to your website. You will also see the number of impressions of each query and where your website was placed in the top 100 SERPs.

To explore which keywords you should focus on; click on "impressions" to sort the queries by the most popular keywords. This should give you an indication of a range of keywords you should focus on to further optimise your website.

Campaign URL tracking

Channels like email are not automatically tracked in Google Analytics, so you will need to create tracking links manually to track this data. Similarly you might also want to track links from social networks with campaign details to show how effective different campaigns have performed.

Google Analytics provides a URL building tool that can generate links that include 'urchin tracking modules' that can tell google analytics which campaign and even which individual piece of content brought people to your website.

Alternatively; if you didn't want to create each link one at a time; Google have created a spreadsheet where you can create all your links at once quickly and consistently.

I have replicated and colour coded this for you to copy into your own Google Drive. Note, don't edit the columns highlighted in red, and don't uses any spaces between words, replace them with dashes or use Camel Case instead. The Complete URL can be found in the green column.

Configuring goals to track conversions

On the admin screen, select the "Goals" option in the view section. Let's create a goal.

These will ultimately need to be configured to your own businesses goals, but below I have outlined two examples.

Destination goal - tracking a contact form being filled in.

For this goal you will need a contact page with a contact form, and a confirmation page after the user submits the contact form.

Create a new goal and in "Goal setup" select "Custom".

In "Goal description" give the goal a name, then under "Type" select "Destination".

In "Goal details" input the URL for the confirmation page. Next turn the "funnel" on and input the URL for the contact page in step one and select "required". This will mean that the goal will only trigger if someone clicks from the contact to the confirmation page.

Finally, try and give this goal a value. You can do this by taking the average number of form fills over a period of time (F), the average value of a sale or conversion (V), and average number of forms that convert in to sales over a period of time (C). The value of the goal will be (V * C) / F.

For example, if I had 50 forms filled in each month, and 3 of those converted, and the value of a conversion was £2250 the formula would be £2250 * 3 = £6750 / 50 = £135; thus the value of my goal would be £135

Event goal - tracking a subscribe form button being clicked.

For this goal we will refer to a newsletter subscription button from a third party email platform. The best way to do this right first time, is to complete the event you want to track immediately before configuring the goal.

Once you have completed the event yourself; go to the Realtime > Events report in Google analytics. Copy and paste the name of the Category of the event you want to use in the goal. Next click on the category and then copy and paste the Action and the Label for the event you want to use in the goal.

Create a new goal and in "Goal setup" select "Custom".

In "Goal description" give the goal a name, then under "Type" select "Event".

In "Goal details" input the category, action and label that you copied earlier when you completed the event yourself.

You can also set a customised value, or on ecommerce websites you can instruct Google Analytics to use the value of the event itself to track items being added to the cart.