My daytime job consists of a mix between search engine optimization, analytics work and growth hacking. But outside my working hours you’ll probably run into me walking around with a camera, or two. I’ve covered topics for my fellow photographers in the past, like the Photographers Guide To Google Analytics and how you can Understand Your Content, also with the magic tool we all call Google Analytics.
I had a gut feeling that photographers tend to put all effort into the design and experience with their photographs on the website, not paying any attention to measuring usage or visitor quality. And thinking about it, why should they? A photographer is telling stories with pictures. I, on the other hand, am telling stories with data and powerpoint. So I’ve taken a small project on my hands, trying to get photographers more excited about measuring their digital assets.
Use goals to see what works and what does not
So I took to Twitter with my account I use to stalk photographers and asked the simple question: Have you set up goals on your website with Google Analytics?
No one said yes and alarmingly few responded to my open question, which made me sad. Because website goals are used to determine what works and what does not. It is vital for any website owner, if they want to improve.
Thus, my project aimed to get photographers excited about analytics continues.
A few goals that photographers should use
To get you excited and not stray away from this post (put down your phone, I can see you’re looking at Instagram already) I’m going to list a few goals that you should set up right after reading this.
Goal name: The Fan. Set up a goal in Google Analytics that are being triggered by Pages/Screens per session and that the goal is greater than 3. This goal will trigger when a visitor interacts with at least 4 pages within one visit (called session in Google Analytics). If I had more fans on my photo blog, I would be a proud amateur photographer…
Goal name: The Stalker. Have you set up a page for visitors to read more about you, the photographer behind all the amazing pictures? Shouldn’t a visitor that comes to look at your work and then decides to learn more about you (also known as The Stalker) trigger a goal? Of course it should. Trigger the goal by destination that equals to the about page.
I would also set up goals for posts being shared in social media, but let’s leave that one for another post.
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Setting up your first goals in Google Analytics
To set up your goals, open your Google Analytics account, then your admin interface and hit Goals in the right column.
You’re all done, for now. Promise me that you set up at least one goal after you close this browser tab.
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