Chapter 16. Making More Sales with Google Analytics

In This Chapter

  • Activating Google Analytics

  • Observing and measuring your visitors' behaviors

  • Identifying Web site roadblocks and detours

  • Making your Web site friendlier and more effective

In Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping (Texere Publishing), Paco Underhill shares the insights gleaned from 20 years of his study of the science of shopping. Some of these include

  • Putting shopping baskets all over bookstores.

  • Making the women's clothing aisles wide to avoid the irritation of "butt-brush."

  • Putting fitting rooms next to the men's clothing section because men buy mostly based on fit, while women consider many other factors.

These findings may seem like common sense to you, but I wouldn't have come up with them in a hundred years. And neither did the giants of retail until they hired Underhill to study shopper behavior and redesign their stores. Underhill's company Web site, www.envirosell.com, describes the methodology for a typical engagement:

  • Twelve Staples stores were studied in different markets across the country for two days each.

    • Shoppers were observed throughout their visit by in-store observers.

    • Video, focused in different areas of the store, recorded shopping patterns for eight hours each research day.

    • Shoppers were intercepted and interviewed after they completed their shopping visit.

    • A manager and an associate from each store were interviewed by researchers to gather their insights on the store.

I bring this up to explain how incredibly ...

Get Google AdWords™ for Dummies®, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.