Over the past few weeks, the Google Analytics Demystified series has shown us what a properly installed and well configured tracking system can do for our sales.
The knowledge you gain from complete and thorough statistics can put money in your pocket — literally.
When the proper elements are tracked and read, you’ll learn how your customers think, what they really want, and what items on your site need to be addressed in order to meet those needs. The results of this knowledge often reward you with an increase in the conversion rate of your website.
However, I often here people saying “Great, I have Google Analytics installed, so now just how do I use it to make more money? What should I be looking for, and what are all these reports telling me?”
Well, that is a good question. As many of you may already know, installing Google Analytics (or any other tracking system for that matter) will do you no good if you do not know what key statistics to focus on in the reports. In turn, those key statistics will do you no good if you do not understand what they they are telling you.
“Installing Google Analytics is a starting point — and one that is critical if you plan on learning how to increase conversion.
However just installing it alone will not do anything toward increasing your sales. For that you need to know the key report elements to look at and understand.”
What can Reading Key Report Elements do for Your Sales?
In a prior article titled Zen Cart + Best Ecommerce Practices = More Sales. Here’s the Proof , I showed a few actual screenshots of a Zen Cart driven website that in just 10 months went from ZERO sales on the Internet to over $100,000.00 in gross sales (and rising).
A bulk of the knowledge gained to drive conversion increases was taken directly from key elements provided by Google Analytics reporting. Using key elements reported by Google Analytics, one is able to measure the effectiveness of how well a website is able to generate sales.
In turn, the knowledge gained directly assists in uncovering exact points on your website that you need to address (make changes to) in order to get your visitors to buy your product. By properly interpreting the right numbers, you can in effect learn how individual changes to your website impact its ability to sell, and build off of those changes that have a positive impact.
It’s like looking into a crystal ball, seeing the future, and making it happen.
Do You Know the Key Statistics You Should be Looking at?
Did you know there are a few Key Elements provided to you in your Google reports that if looked at carefully, can actually help you increase conversion?
Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- Do you know exactly what about your website is causing visitors to leave without buying?
- Do you know the points that are doing their job, working well, and should be left alone?
- Are you making changes to your website that have a negative impact on your ability to sell your product?
- Do you know exactly where in your checkout process you might have problems?
- Is your home page causing visitors to leave or is it your product page?
- Could the login / registration page be causing them to leave, or is it setup of your entire checkout process?
If you don’t know for sure, then you need to look to your analytics reports to find out. The answer is often in there, just waiting to be uncovered; You just have to look in the right places for the information and understand what it is telling you.
In Google Analytics Uncovered for Zen Cart: The Workbook, I reveal a number key statistical elements you should be looking at and explain through both screenshot and illustrative written examples, how you can use these elements to help increase conversion of your web store.
The workbook addresses many concerns and questions users have raised in finding the “key” statistics provided by Google Analytics — those elements that play the most important role in helping you increase conversion. If you can’t be certain in answering the questions I raised previously in this article, then you could benefit from getting yourself a copy.
With that I’ll bring to a close this 6 Part series on Google Analytics. I hope you enjoyed it and found it beneficial to your success.
Until next time … keep tracking along.