Google Analytics

Goals and Funnels

Another common profile configuration is the creation of goals and funnels. While it is not necessary to create any goals or funnels, it is highly recommended. Google Analytics automatically segments report data and displays the goal conversion rate for each line item in the report. So, if you're looking at a report containing keywords, Google Analytics will display the goal conversion rate for each keyword. This type of segmentation is extremely valuable when analyzing data but is only possible if you set up goals for your profiles.

Goals

Google Analytics goals are a way to measure conversion activities on your website. A goal is simply a pageview that indicates the visitor has completed some type of high-value process. This process could be filling out a contact form, purchasing a product, or downloading a file. Each process usually concludes with some type of "thank you" page. In Google Analytics, this is called the goal page.

A goal is defined by the URL of the goal page. As Google Analytics processes site data, it increments the goal counter each time a goal page is found. If the goal page is found multiple times during a single visit, the goal counter is incremented only once. This is important because it means that a visitor can convert only once during a visit.

There are multiple ways to define a goal, depending on the complexity of your web site. The easiest way to create a goal is to paste the URL of your goal page into the Goal URL field. Figure 20 shows ...