In an ideal world, you would undertake detailed qualitative usability research with real customers to give you a deep understanding of who they are, and whether your content is meeting their needs.
However this can be both time consuming and expensive.
You can use Google Analytics to find some usability related data, which may give you an idea of areas for improvement. To get the most out of these quantitative metrics, you need to have a clear idea of the purpose and goals of the page - your content strategy.
For each page you want to review, think about:
- Who is the audience? What do you know about them?
- What is the goal or purpose of the content?
- Is there a clear call to action?
For more reading on content strategy and assessing your content, see:
- Running a website content audit
- Content 101 from Digital NSW, especially the Content audit section
Once you've identified the purpose or goal of your page, you can use various metrics in Google Analytics to start to assess how well your page is meeting those goals.
Key interactions you can measure using Google Analytics include:
- Clicks on links, buttons and other calls to action (CTA)
- Scroll depth - how far down the page is your key call to action? Are customers even reaching it?
- Form completion or abandonment - are your customers successfully completing your form?
Assessing a call to action (CTA)
Is the main goal of your page to get people to do a particular action? For example, directing them to a transaction, or signing up for a newsletter? GA can help tell you how many people are successfully clicking on your call to action.
Questions to answer
- Are people actually clicking on the CTA you want them to?
- If not, why not? Is the link obvious enough, or is it buried within a paragraph of text? Is it a long way down the page? Is the link label active and informative?
How to find this report
In Google Analytics, go to Reports > Events and interactions > External links OR Internal links, depending on the destination of your call to action.
- External link = destination outside nsw.gov.au
- Internal link = destination within nsw.gov.au
Filter to a specific page by pasting the page path (without the nsw.gov.au in front) into the Search box at the top of table and hitting Enter.
How to read the report
The first column shows the destination of each link on the page (remembering there are likely multiple links on any given page).
The Event count tells you how many clicks there were on each link, both as a raw number, and as a percentage of all link clicks.
What you can do about it
- Think about the wording of your call to action – is it clear? Is it active?
- Check where it is on the page – is it prominent and obvious? Or is it towards the bottom of the page so fewer people are even seeing it? You can also check the average scroll depth for the page
- How have you presented your CTA? Is it just a text link in amongst a paragraph of text? Maybe it would be more easily seen if it was a button, or in a callout, or even just separated from the text as a bullet point?
More information
Scroll depth
Google Analytics tracks how far users scroll down the page in 25% increments. 100% means they scrolled all the way to the bottom. It can be useful to look at scroll depth together with link clicks, especially if your most important call to action isn’t getting much interaction – maybe it’s because it’s a long way down the page, so people aren’t seeing it?
Questions to answer
- How far on average are people scrolling on your page?
- Are they missing important content because it’s a long way down?
How to find this report
In Google Analytics, go to Reports > Events and interactions > Events - By page.
You need to apply a couple of filters to this report: first to show just the scroll depths, then to restrict to page(s) you’re interested in.
- Filter the table by ‘scroll’ - type scroll into the search bar above the table and press Enter
- Click the drop down at the top of the second column. Type in percent and select Percent complete_cd
- To filter to a specific page, you need to add a filter. Click the Add filter button just under the report title
- A dialogue will popout of the right hand side of the screen. In the Dimension box, start typing Page path and screen class and select it
- Select Match Type exactly matches
- In the Value box, paste in your page path – without the nsw.gov.au at the beginning
- Click Apply bottom right.
How to read the report
The Percent complete dimension tells you how far people scroll down your page. For scroll rates, it’s best to look at the Total users column, which tells you the percentage of users who made it 25% down the page, 50% down, 75% down or 100% down (that is, all the way to the bottom).
What you can do about it
- Consider rearranging the page to bring the key info to the top
- If your page is very long, consider splitting it into multiple pages
- Check your headings – are they well written? Do they provide a clear signpost to what the reader will find in that section?
- Do you have an ‘On this page’ component? This creates a table of contents from your H2s, which is a useful wayfinding tool for users
More information
Form completions and abandonments
Google Analytics can help you understand how well your forms are performing by giving you completion and abandonment rates.
Questions to answer
- Are customers consistently abandoning a particular form? If so, there may be an issue with the form design, for example it may be too long and complex
How to find this report
In Google Analytics, go to Reports > Events and interactions > Forms – Submits or Forms – Abandonments.
Filter to a specific form by pasting the page path of the form (without the nsw.gov.au in front) into the Search box at the top of the table and hitting Enter.
How to read the report
The Event count column tells you how many the times the form was submitted or abandoned, depending on which report you’re looking at.
What you can do about it
- Compare the completion to the abandonment numbers to get an idea of the percentage of unsuccessful attempts to complete the form
- Review your form design – if it’s long and complex, it may be worth splitting the form into steps, to help relieve the cognitive burden for customers
Caution
Google Analytics reports will only give you a general idea that there’s an issue with your form. It won’t tell you where in the form the user gave up – you will need to do actual user testing to get that level of detail.
More information
Need any more help?
If you have any questions, or require assistance with anything mentioned in this article, submit a request via the webform.