Tracking & Forms

[00:00:00]
>> All right, this is one that's overlooked. And I yell at people about it all the time cuz I think it's the most obvious, but I don't think people just don't look at themselves the way that companies look at themselves, so they don't do it. Add tracking, implement Google Analytics or a similar tool to track visits, clicks and user behavior on your portfolio website.

[00:00:23]
This the one thing that everybody at RedCircle has been yelled at about at least once, because they have not done this, they're like, well, I didn't think it was a big deal. My question to you is, if you do not know when people are coming to your website, how long they're staying on your website, when they're bouncing off your website.

[00:00:44]
How are you gonna get the understanding of what to fix? You don't know what's going on, you don't have any data. We don't have anywhere to start on the process of where we're triaging everything else on your journey to get a job, right? This is why it's very important for me like yoh, get tracking, add tracking, you have a contact form, add tracking to the Contact Form button.

[00:01:09]
Any button they have, I want a tracker on it because I wanna know when they click that button, I wanna know if they click that button. I wanna know, do they play with the dark mode on your portfolio? I wanna know if they click your social media links.

[00:01:25]
We need as much data as we want to, cuz we wanna know, okay, why haven't you gotten a job? I can't answer that question if I don't know are people even going to your website. I don't know, right? If I was to look at my GitHub README, and I was, okay, you have 2,000 people have looked, so why aren't you have a job?

[00:01:48]
Let's see why they haven't done that. That's why I have tracking even on my GitHub README profile, cuz I wanna know how many people are looking at me? Have I done something bad? Usually when that happens I've done something popular or I've done something horrible [LAUGH] and I'm like, okay, which one have I done, right?

[00:02:06]
I don't remember doing anything so let me make sure. But that's what I want first thing you all, first thing you do your portfolio's add tracking, that's why I have it up so high. You have to add tracking on your portfolios. Another very, very important thing that I do not see on portfolios that everybody gets yelled at by me at least once cuz it grinds my gears.

[00:02:34]
Add a form on your portfolios, I cannot state this enough. Add a form on your portfolios. The reason why you wanna add a form on your portfolios is that you don't want to lose the information chain of the potential hiring partner or hiring manager that's on your website.

[00:02:57]
What happens when you have a link or your email or mail to whatever, something pops up, everybody's working remote from home. Little kid comes in asks daddy or mommy to go and look at a macaroni dinosaur that they have made. Next thing you know, they're looking at the dinosaur, they see a mess that the dog has made.

[00:03:16]
They're cleaning the mess of the dog, they're looking the clock, it's almost time to feed the baby. Now they're making dinner their significant others came home or the other kids came home now you have to deal and triage that. And guess what, now this person has forgotten what they're even doing on your website, why they have this pop up there of this email on your form and they're, you know what, it's 8 o'clock at night, I don't care.

[00:03:37]
They're gonna close it and you just lost a potential job, right? The contact form is right there on your website. They can sit it there. They can fill it out right then and there. They can go on their lives, someone interrupts them, it's still right there. They're like, I was gonna say something about this, it's always there.

[00:03:53]
You don't want to send them anywhere else when you're trying to get that information. And you also wanna be able to control it, because guess what? If they fill out that form, they're giving you their email as well, right? So now, you can control the communication flow, right?

[00:04:10]
And it's a piece of data. Now you have that data that you can track and even more, all right? This is how many people have hit my website. It's how many people have actually gone through the process of finishing out the contact form of my website. Now, all right, if I have a week where I'm like, okay, 175 people have hit my website, but only 20 people have asked to my contact form, what am I doing?

[00:04:34]
I have data now to see what do I need to do to get that number from initial contact on my website to actually filling out my contact form to reach out to me higher, right? These are data things so you can start using, I guess, forensics to start triaging your own problems, right?

[00:04:55]
When you're trying to figure out why you're not getting the call back or how many people are not getting enough callbacks, things of that, right? Yes, sir.
>> I have a couple of questions on the form. And it's basically kind of around spamming and security checks. What do you kinda recommend for that?

[00:05:19]
>> Well, Netlify Forms they do great with their forms and making sure their forms are protected.