32 Google Analytics Must Have's for Best in Class eCommerce Stores

Best in Class eCommerce Analytics Data Integration Checklist:

In today’s business, whether your primary business is eCommerce or not, you have to have a website. You know this, so you’ve gone through all the right steps to make sure your customers can find you online, you have a nice landing page, a call to action, you are posting on social media, and maybe even doing some advertising. Now what?

If you don’t have analytics set up on your site with best practices, you may be wasting your time and money. How can you improve your business if you don’t know what your customers are doing? Where are they coming from? What are they looking at? What are they not looking at? What should you do about it tomorrow? Analytics is the key to understanding your customers’ past, present and future. 

Just like when you start a brick-and-mortar store, you want to make sure you cover all of your bases. You check the shelves, you talk to customers, you get feedback from employees. If you have a store, and someone asks an employee where something is, you want them to be able to find it right? The difference is, if you don’t have your site search set up, someone can easily just click out of your store, and unfortunately it is that easy to lose a customer in the digital space. Setting up your store is where we come in. Analytics helps you check your digital shelves. Analytics shows you what you customers want. Analytics helps you decide how to advertise more effectively. Following this roadmap ensures your store will be up and running with the best analytics practices in place. We will be your guide and take you to from beginning to end. 

Ready?

1. ОGoogle Tag Manager
2. ОGoogle Analytics: Universal Analytics
3. ОEnhanced eCommerce and Confirmation Page Pixels
4. ОWebmasters - Google (SEO)
5. ОBing - Webmasters Tools (SEO)
6. ОGoogle AdWords (Google Search PPC)
7. ОBing Ads (Yahoo & Bing Search PPC)
8. ОSite Search Optimization
9. ОInbound Link Campaign Tracking UTM Tags
10. ОSocial Media Tracking in Analytics
11. ОUpload Marketing Costs in Analytics
12. ОBot-blocking in Analytics
13. ОVisitor Demographics & Interest Reports in Analytics
14. ОGoogle Content Experiments (Site Optimization A/B Testing)
15. ОLink Share URL Shortener Analytics
16. ОWebsite Likes and Product Page Sharing
17. ОOn-site Event Tracking in Google Analytics
18. ОCustom Dimensions in Google Analytics
19. ОCustom Metrics in Google Analytics
20. ОConversion Tracking (Confirmation Page or Events)
21. ОProduct / Cart Abandon Remarketing
22. ОOn-site Content Grouping in Google Analytics
23. ОMarketing Channel Settings in Google Analytics
24. ОConversion Attribution Model in Google Analytics
25. ОAdvanced data Segmentation in Google Analytics
26. ОCustom Alerts in Google Analytics
27. ОTraffic and Site impact Annotations in Google Analytics
28. ОWebsite Speed Tracking
29. ОGoogle Real-Time Website Analytics
30. ОThink with Google (online marketing insights)
31. ОGoogle Trends (keyword based market research)
32. ОMobile Website Responsive Design

How to improve site search results

Site search results page is one of the most important pages on your site. There are two pages that customers are hoping to view after conducting a search on your site: the exact product detail page for the product they were searching for or for a results page. More often then not they will get a results page with product, up-sells, cross-sells and navigation options.

How to optimize high volume site search keywords

Keywords with high internal site search volume will often not convert as well as other more targeted or refined low volume site search keywords. 

This is due to various reasons:

• Generic Broad Keyword
• Site Navigation Keyword
• Contemporary Product with High Consumer Demand but no Inventory
• Competitor Product Terminology
• High Content Demand with Limited Search Result Options

Optimizing for high volume poorly converting or performing keywords is a two step process.

The first step is to view the keyword from an unbiased view point. Place yourself in your website visitor's shoes. View your site from their perspective. Now imagine arriving on your site and searching for that keyword. What type of keyword is it. Specific or Broad? You will need to build out a simple decision logic tree diagram.

If the keyword is Generic Broad: You will need to modify your site search results page if it is geared toward products or content but not category level pages. Your visitors are using site search for site navigation. Make sure to add the category page to the search results or increase that category visibility in your existing navigation.

If the keyword is Site Navigation: You will need to add that navigational component to your site navigation or even though your site search is set for product detail pages add the navigational component to your results page.

If the keyword is High Demand No Inventory: You will need to either add the product to your catalog, provide results to similar products, or provide a promo or incentive to purchase an alternate product. No product inventory is often the biggest culprit. There is some time sensitive or contemporary product or cultural event for which visitors are searching your site. An example would be searching for iPhone 7 before it comes out or for Superman Products when you don't carry them.

If the keyword is Competitor Terminology: You will need to provide results to similar products that you carry or provide a promo / incentive to purchase an alternate product. Sometimes visitors will search your site using synonymous competitor terminology. Just point to your own products in the search results. If the site search volume is highly increased over average it would be worth it to add an alias to your own Product SKU (equivalent to Prodouct 123 From Competitor X).

If the keyword is Limited Search Results Options: You will need to provide the missing content that visitors are searching for on your site. You need to create specific Landing Pages or Content sections based on the high volume keyword. Point site search results to these sections.

Remember: Visitors will scan the results page visually!