|
|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
Tracking Outbound Clicks Using Google Analytics
Tracking outbound clicks is an important part of many an e-commerce strategy. Many business derive income by demonstrating the ability of their site to "refer" users to a business partner. This traditional "pay per click" advertising model is only reinforced by the thousands of sites that do business outside the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN). While search engines provide complex click tracking facilities, many business to business models cannot take advantage of this.
Many E-Commerce sites have developed custom complex database systems to track click traffic. Using tools like ASP and MySQL, they are able to support their own traffic reporting infrastructure. Small businesses often do not have the resources, or the capabilities, to develop and maintain this type of code. Until recently, they were at the mercy of their business partners and their biased web usage logs.
Google has recently leveled the playing field. As part of their Analytics package, Google has introduced tools to track all outbound clicks from a particular web page. Google Analytics provides a simple way to install a piece of code to track links that lead away from your site.
Because these links lead to pages that are often out of your control, you will need to add tracking code to the link to capture this data. For example, to log every click on a particular link to www.slashdot.com as a page view for "/outgoing/slashdot_com" you would add the following attribute to the link's <a> tag:
<a href="http://www.slashdot.com" onClick="javascript:urchinTracker('/outgoing/slashdot_com');">
These reports may then be found in the "Top Content" section of your associated Analytics account. These numbers will appear as collated totals for the selected reporting period and for each unique outbound link that exists on your site. Please note that Google Analytics often takes from 24 to 48 hours to begin reporting on these new links.
This article has been brought to you by Tim Moran, president and founder of
SEM Logistics. SEM Logistics is an
internet marketing / search engine optimization firm based in Scranton, PA, specializing
in helping local businesses maximize their Internet advertising potential. He can
be reached at info@semlogistics.com. Visit SEM logistics at: www.semlogistics.com
© 2007 SEM Logistics
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
