Don’t Forget about Google Analytics when Redesigning Your Website

By Beacon News | Published June 6, 2017 | Categories: Google Analytics

Are you planning to redesign your website soon? Have you already laid out the changes you want to make and have a timeline in place for getting the redesigned completed and launched? Is Google Analytics tracking code migration a task that is on your redesign list? If you answered yes, then I can tell website tracking is important to you. If you answered no, then you could be making a HUGE mistake and causing your team undue stress!! So this post is for you and I highly recommend you read on.

Make It A Priority

We have worked with many clients here at Beacon who have redesigned their sites. Some have worked with our development team and others have their own team. In house, Google analytics code migrations are always accounted for and known as a TOP PRIORITY before a site goes live. However, when we’ve worked with outside companies for development we’ve run into many instances where Google Analytics is a last thought. I’m actually working on site redesign right now where I get constant updates on when the site is planning to be launched live and yet the tag manager code hasn’t even been added to the site nor is eCommerce tracking in place. Despite sending numerous emails and having multiple phone calls, it just doesn’t seem Google Analytics tracking is a priority for the development team working on the site nor the PM managing all of the agencies. In all honesty, I’m very worried this site will be launched with no code in place or launched with the code in place but give me no time to get everything set up and tested before the site goes live. Either scenario is not good, which is why I wanted to write this post.

In a perfect world, all codes for GA (such as Tag manager container scripts, data layers, etc) would be added in the test environment so that GA can be fully set up and tested before the site goes live. Then when the site is ready to be pushed live, you switch out the UA ID variable, hit publish and you’re done.

What Can Go Wrong

In a not so perfect world, if the codes are added to the site after the site goes live it could potentially cause issues with codes conflicting, loss of tracking for a period of time and other problems. Let me share with you some examples of issues we’ve seen:

• We’ve had GA codes conflict with other codes on a page which has caused pages to break.
• We’ve seen checkout break due to codes conflicting. This is a BIG Problem for eCommerce site not just because people can’t check out and they are losing revenue now but they also could losing a lifetime customer.
• We’ve seen websites go live with no tracking and therefore no visits were tracked for days which in turn messes up YOY data and keeps you from seeing if the site has any potential issues with SEO or usage.

While these might sound like easy fixes, they have not been. Which is why I would highly recommend making GA Code Migration an important step in your website redesign. Whether you’re in the midst of a redesign or just considering it, now is the perfect time to add Tag Manager to your site and move away from hard-coding GA. If you don’t have a large complicated site, then it takes no time for a developer to add the container code and any data layers needed for tracking. It’s much faster than adding hard-coded snippets to different elements on a site.

Start Planning Now

So with that said, don’t let GA tracking be an afterthought in your redesign process. Don’t let it fall through the cracks and miss out on tracking visits and engagements on your new site. Talk about it when you first start meeting to layout the redesign process. Make sure you have a GA specialist in your meetings who can tell you what codes to add, when to add them and get it tested before you push your new site live.

I promise you, making sure the code is in place and working correctly before a site goes live, keeps you and your development team sane and saves everyone from many headaches and the potential for lots of stress if it’s added afterwards.