DIY Tracking Conversions with Google Analytics

First thing you want to make sure you have set up for your practice website with Google Analytics are page-based or destination goals.

For instance, a thank you page that is viewed after someone requests an appointment, consultation or contact via a form on the website. In Analytics you can set a view of the TY page as a conversion.

Thank you pages are simple to set up and need not be more than a thank you note. Its a good idea to also place links to your testimonials, directions to your office and social links on this page to keep visitors engaged with your brand after they have filled out a form.

By setting up simple TY pages that are displayed after someone takes a desired action on your website you can track the success of your marketing efforts more easily using Analytics.

For example, on one of my client sites I have three TY pages. One for contact form, another for request appt. and another for a new patient deal. When one of those pages are viewed its counted as a conversion.

Google will also track which channel the conversion came from such as organic, PPC, social, etc. Its not that difficult really once you get your feet wet.

You’ll most likely need the assistance of your webmaster to create the redirect that occurs after someone clicks the send button on a form (there are free plugins available that do this for the standard Contact7 forms most ppl use provided your website is WordPress).

I’m embedding a helpful video below I found on Youtube that explains how to set up goals.

Setting up conversion tracking is especially important for Google Ads paid campaigns because Google’s AI can make attempts to optimize for conversions on your site and seek out ideal patients that will convert.

Other very important metrics you should pay close attention to are “average time-on-site” and “bounce rate”. If your average time on site is only a few seconds you need to improve your content and website engagement by using videos etc. You want to engage with your target patients not turn them away. The lower the bounce rate the better your site is engaging with your visitors. If someone clicks from a google search to your website and quickly exits then your site is most likely flawed and turning ppl away before they have a chance to convert. First evidence of this is a high bounce rate and visits to your site of a short duration.

A digital marketer can take one look at these two metrics and quickly tell if a website needs to be replaced or improved.

Search console is not that hard to set up for your practice. Since you own your website and have an existing Analytics account associated with it, you can easily verify ownership of your site in Search Console and set this up in minutes.

Ideally you want to share Google Search Console data with Google Analytics. Connecting the two will give you more data. Search console is a must and will give you insights into things like website errors, problems and warnings, keywords used to find your website, info on links to your website and a ton of insights.