Chapter 7. Tracking Conversions with Goals and Funnels
Another common profile configuration is the creation of goals and funnels. Goals provide a way to measure conversions in Google Analytics. Hands down, specifying goals is the most important configuration step because they directly align business outcomes on your website with your Google Analytics configuration.
A conversion occurs when a site visitor completes a task on your website. Why is this important? Every website exists for a reason. It is not enough to measure traffic to your website, you want to measure how often visitors complete the tasks and processes that you create.
While it is not necessary to create any goals or funnels, it is highly recommended. How else will you measure business outcomes on your website if you do not configure goals?
Goals
A goal can be almost any visitor activity on your website. This includes viewing a specific page, spending a certain amount of time, or viewing a minimum number of pages during a visit.
Time on Site
Time on Site goals are triggered when a visitor’s visit reaches or does not reach a certain length of time on your site. Time on Site goals are useful when trying to understand if visitors are engaging with your content.
Figure 7-1 shows the configuration page for Time on Site goals. All you need to do is define a time and whether the visit must be greater than or less than that time.
Figure 7-1. Creating a Time on Site goal
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