Optimise your conversion rate with Google Analytics

Understanding and calculating the conversion rate of a page or website in Google Analytics is absolutely vital for improving your business’s return on investment. The platform’s detailed reports and wide range of features allow you to refine your online strategy and significantly boost your conversion rate. While Google Analytics is an invaluable tool for website optimisation, other SaaS solutions such as Incremys are equally effective, helping you to identify both strengths and areas for improvement.

The conversion rate

Conversion rate is one of the most important KPIs in digital marketing. In Google Analytics and more generally, it’s defined as the ratio between the number of users who complete a specific action and the total number of visitors over a set period. To express this as a percentage, simply multiply the result by 100. A "conversion" is essentially a "goal": the action you want your visitor to take. For ecommerce sites, this is usually a purchase, but depending on your sector, a conversion could mean signing up to a newsletter, joining a social media community, completing a form, downloading a white paper, and so on.

The average conversion rate

The average conversion rate for a website is unique to each business, just like profit margin or turnover. While there are industry benchmarks, these should always be considered in the context of your own business model and marketing strategy.

Many businesses try to compare their conversion rate to a general web average, but this is misleading as rates vary widely between sectors. For example, conversion rates in the sports equipment industry are much lower than those for high-tech products.

Conversion rate in Google Analytics

If you’re wondering where to find your conversion rate in Google Analytics, rest assured the platform is user-friendly. Conversions are tracked as goals. Here’s how Google Analytics can help you optimise your conversion rate.

Improving your conversion funnel

The conversion funnel describes the journey a user takes on your website before becoming a customer. Google Analytics enables you to break down each stage of this funnel, helping you identify which steps are underperforming and which are working well. If you notice a significant drop-off on a particular page, it’s a sign that improvements are needed. To further enhance your Google Analytics conversion rate, it’s worth using complementary solutions such as Incremys personalised AI to gain deeper insights into user journeys, or the content production module to create high-value pages that strengthen each stage of the funnel. The performance reporting module from Incremys also provides detailed analytics, making it easier to identify opportunities for improvement and inform strategic decisions to increase your conversion rate.

User experience: a key factor

For visitors to complete your conversion funnel and become customers, you need to optimise their user experience. This means paying close attention to several important elements.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. A low bounce rate is generally positive. Bounce rate and conversion rate are closely linked. You can monitor bounce rate in Google Analytics via Behaviour > Site Content > Landing Pages.

Segmentation

Analysing conversion rate in Google Analytics is incomplete without segmentation. It’s essential to know your SEO conversion rate (from organic search) and SEA (from paid advertising). It’s also useful to track conversion rates from email campaigns and social media. By segmenting how visitors arrive at your site, you can identify which channels are performing well and which may need further analysis to unlock improvements. Google Analytics also allows you to analyse conversion rate by device: desktop, tablet or mobile. A quick check can highlight areas that need attention. For example, having a responsive site is essential for a good mobile user experience.

User analysis

The principle is straightforward: the better you understand your website visitors, the better you can meet their needs. In Google Analytics, the "Real-time" menu provides valuable data about current user profiles and the pages they’re viewing. By analysing the actions taken during the purchase journey, you can create segments for key behaviours, such as abandoned baskets. To create a custom segment, go to Audience > Overview > Add Segment, then select "New Segment". You can then tailor the segment using the filters and data most relevant to your goals.

Page analysis

If you want to track the conversion rate of an ecommerce site in Google Analytics, this is essential. The tool shows which links are effective (clicked) and which are not, allowing you to improve your layout and address any issues. There are three main areas to focus on:

Smooth navigation

Users dislike waiting for pages to load. If loading times are too long (the general threshold is three seconds), visitors are likely to leave. Google Analytics lets you monitor this via Behaviour > Site Speed > Page Timings. You can identify which pages are problematic and also measure site speed by browser type.

The importance of the landing page

The landing page is the first page a visitor sees, so it’s crucial that it’s fully optimised (title, content, layout, loading speed, clear CTAs, etc.). Analysing landing pages is vital for CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation), and Google Analytics shows which pages need improvement. To do this, go to Behaviour > Site Content > Landing Pages.

Internal search

This feature is very useful for understanding what users are looking for on your site. By going to Behaviour > Site Search > Overview, you can access a report on the search terms entered by visitors. It’s an excellent way to discover keywords you haven’t yet targeted.

Conclusion

Optimising your conversion rate starts with careful monitoring and detailed analysis. Google Analytics provides a comprehensive and insightful view of your conversions. For actionable, in-depth reports, it’s important to configure the tool correctly – mainly by clearly defining your goals and logically segmenting your traffic by acquisition channel. Ultimately, conversion rate is the key indicator to guide where you should focus your efforts.

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