Google has recently made some improvements to Analytics that are making many users very happy. The days of four goals per profile are over! This is just one of the new improvements that Google has made in Analytics.

You can now place up to 20 goals in a single profile on Analytics. These goals are then organized into 4 sets with 5 goals in each. You can add even move goals across sets (assuming there is room). This is an exciting new addition for all of those users who needed to create multiple profiles just to cover the goals they wanted to track. Moving all goals into a single profile can make reading reports significantly easier. However, remember if you move goals into a single profile that historical data does not transfer between profiles, so it is wise not to delete old profiles with historical data in them until you are finished with the data.

The sets are great because they can be organized any way you want. Organizing by business functions or different types of goals can make analysis that much easier. Since so many goals are now allowed, Google has also added goal tabs for each set of goals on the Analytics reports. This makes it easier to navigate through the reports into different sets of goals.

In addition to allowing more goals per profile, Google has also added new types of goals. You can now set goals based on how many pages are viewed in a single visit or for time on site. Both of these goals are set up so a user can set the number of visits or time on site to be greater than or less than some number. Time on site can be set to hours, minutes, seconds or a combination of the three. Number of pages per visit is set by any number of pages you choose.

It seems a little strange that you can set your goals to be less than a certain number, however, this is a great way to measure failure and can give you a great amount of insight on your site and its visitors. For example, you can set a goal for time on site to be less than 5 seconds and have a visual of how many visitors leave your site within 5 seconds. Then you can analyze other Google Analytics metrics and determine what action steps are necessary to help improve your site.

These new changes to Google Analytics have made it an even more efficient and user friendly way to monitor your website's performance!

Labels: Google Analytics