Huh? The goal is to have more goals? You may be thinking this is a stupid idea. I don’t actually want more goals though. My primary goal for 2010 is to have my “goals”, that I defined using Google Analytics, to occur more often. My goal is to increase my goal count.

Google Analytics

I’m sure many of you have Google Analytics running on your site, and already know what a great resource it is. Are you using it to its full potential though? In my most recent post, Your Website is Better than You Think, I mention a potential goal for websites owners. That goal was to get your visitors to do something on your site.

With Google Analytics you can define that “something” that you want visitors to do using the Goal feature. You can see not just if a visitor completed a goal, but how, when, and where they completed the goal. For instance. I have a goal set up for BWI. When users click on the links to my follower page I know it. I also learn all sorts of information about  my ideal target audience. What website they are coming from, what city they live in, what type of browser, and all the other cool things Google tracks.

Setting Up a Goal

To set up a goal on Google Analytics, you first need to go to Google Analytics home page, and then click edit profile as seen in screenshot below.

Once clicking edit, you will see the website you are tracking, and its main information followed by a box where you can define up to 20 goals. This used to be five, so the extra 15 added is a welcome thing.

After that, it is a simple form to complete, and a little pasting into your anchor tags. You can see a detailed example on how I set up a goal tracking visitors that click my feed link. See Google Analytic Goals example.

If your goal is getting your users to do something on your site, knowing what makes the ideal target audience is some exciting information.

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