Virtual Page views using Google Analytics is an essential feature to track visitors within your site and to have a good idea as to where customers leave the conversion process. Virtual page views are used when traditional page views are not recorded and an alternative traking convention is required.

Virtual page views are very helpful because any kind of activity can be represented and tracked if the code is paced properly. An interaction involving playing a flash video, for example, would not normally be recorded as an action by analytics, although by setting the visitor interaction as a virtual page view, it can be accomplished.  In other words, even if a page hasn’t actually been loaded, by setting it as ‘virtual’ Google Servers receive information that a page view has just been enacted.The main argument which is called during implementing this is _trackPageview()

Again, first the standard Google Analytics Tracking code must be implemented in the source code on the main server hosting the site. So your code should look like this I will provide a sample:

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var gaJsHost = ((”https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);

document.write(unescape(”%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));

</script>

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(”UA-7799676-1″);

pageTracker._trackPageview();

</script

The main argument here is the _trackPageView method, however for each element tracked, the trackPageView() method must specify a name for each event, thus if you would like to track a step in the purchase process and state it step 1 in the purchase funnel, within the track page view parenthesis, the code will be:

pageTracker._trackPageview(”/purchase_funnel/Step1.html”);

-However remember that what is in the parenthesis varies and you must adopt a consistent naming convention in Analytics.

Also, a Download can be tracked by inserting the _trackPageView argument inside a hyperlink as follows:

<a href=http://www.example.com onClick= “javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(’download/example.pdf’);”>

This code makes it possible for a download to count as a page view and thus an additional step in the conversion process.

In all, virtual page views are essential when tracking visitors through the conversion process and viewing the funnel visualization in analytics which is a great visual of when you lose customers. This can give a clear picture as to what works in the conversion process and what doesn’t.