Tracking JomSocial with Google Analytics

JomSocial is an excellent system to create a successful online community. I'm pretty sure most of you will agree with me on that. This blog post is not about the excellence of the JomSocial system, it's about tracking the use of your online community in Google Analytics.

Why should you track your JomSocial website?

Sure, your JomSocial community is very easy on the eyes and you may have lots of active users, but how effective is your site? How many registered users did you add to your community last month? And how did they find your website? Getting answers to these questions give you an excellent startingpoint to improve you website and get a better understanding of your users.

Easy-to-use Google Analytics tips to get you started

1. Installing the Google Analytics tracking code on your website.
   

   Installing the Google Analytics code on your website is the first step to tracking your visitors in Google Analytics. To do so, you need to setup a Google Analytics account. Register for an account here.
   Once this is done, you can install a simple plugin to implement the tracking code into your website source code. Try this straightforward Google Analytics plugin by Analytics for Joomla to get started.

2. Tracking registrations in Google Analytics.
   

   It might be interesting to see how your userbase is growing. Just imagine the seasonal trends on your website or valuable traffic sources to your website to give you more insight into the potential sources to attract new users. You can track this with goal tracking in Google Analytics.
   The goal url needs to be added to the setup to make sure you can best track the goal in Google Analytics. This is the standard url for your JomSocial registration page.
   index.php/using-joomla/extensions/components/users-component/registration-form?layout=complete
   If you customized your installation, just fill out the registration form and check the url of the thank you page. That's, the url you need for Goal tracking in Google Analytics.

3. Track internal search engine with Google Analytics.
   

   Your internal search engine can give you valuable information about the interests of your users. Learn more about the value of internal search engines and what you can do with that information here.
   To setup the internal search function in Google Analytics, follow these instructions by Google Analytics and use the JomSocial parameter 'q' to start tracking.

4. Tracking the interaction with the tabs
   

   This functionality might tell you a lot about the way users interact with the different tabs on you user profiles. What if no users are interested in the video tab of the profile. Will you keep it? Or will you push it forward to make sure people can find it easier? Google Analytics can give you insights in how people use your website.
   You can set it up as a goal, just like tracking registrations. Here's how this works:

   • Set the type of goal to 'regular expression'
   • Add the following url for the video tab 'index.php/jomsocial/.*/videos'
   • Or this url for the photos tab 'index.php/jomsocial/.*/photos'
   Once this is all setup you can compare the tabs in your goal section of Google Analytics to check the popularity with your users.

More on Google Analytics for JomSocial to come!

I'm sure you have lots of requests for additional tracking and insights of your JomSocial website. That's why Jomsocial has joined forces with Analytics for Joomla to develop an advanced Google Analytics plugin to enable sophisticated tracking of the effectiveness of your Jomsocial community. Stay tuned for more on this subject soon.

About the author

This is a guestpost by Martijn van Vreeden, a webanalist and founder of Analytics for Joomla. He writes blogs and develops Joomla plugins related to web analytics, conversion optimization at Analytics for Joomla. If you want to get in touch with Martijn to discuss web analytics for Joomla websites , follow him on twitter.