Google Tag Manager: Tagging was never that easy!
In the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimization,) there are a
plethora of analytical software tools. Indeed, in all cases, it is
necessary to obtain big amounts of data about users, websites,
interactions of users in the social media, the purchasing of products,
in addition to other factors, and, in order to collect all this data,
web analytics tools need to make use of an asset in particular. Tags.
What are tags? They can be defined as small fragments of source code which is inserted in a website that collects data about the website itself and its guests. All SEO experts need to work with tags, and the main issue they have to deal with on a daily basis is that tag accumulation usually causes performance issues when it comes to navigation, which, in the long run, cause the positioning job to lose some effectiveness.
Excessive tagging, ‘messes up’ the web document, so to speak, and makes an IT intervention necessary (almost mandatory.) For this reason, people have been looking for a disruptive change in this subject. The generic solution that many have come up with is to free the websites of the excess of tags, and, instead of storing them on the site, managing them externally. In other words, creating a tag manager: A software tool for simplified web code management that makes things easier both for experts and newcomers.
Featured Image courtesy of Sabrina Gelbart at Pexels.com
That sounds too simple. Creating a system that allows you to create a label that, in turn, manages all tags sound like a Herculean task, and it is. It takes a great knowledge of programming, and practically, a whole revolution in the way websites operate … but nothing is impossible under the sun. In fact, Google Tag Manager is the proof that the wonderful team of this giant of the digital age has done it (and in a big way.)
Before Google Tag Manager, if you wanted to install Google Analytics on your website, you needed to copy a long snippet of code in the header of your files; and if you then wanted to use AdWords on your website, again, you had to copy and paste another piece of code, and so on with each external service that you wanted to use on your website, related to the capture of traffic data, analytics, etc.
Well: Thanks to Google Tag Manager you only have to configure a snippet of code on your website once, and, from there, managing the external services you want to use from a simple and friendly control panel.
The first big advantage of Google Tag Manager, besides the centralization of labels (which already is a tremendous achievement,) is that the load performance of the tags increases considerably. Yes, it is that simple: Use it on your website, and your website will load faster. There is nothing to add.
On the other hand, thanks to this tool, you can try out different possibilities before publishing (and obviously making mistakes that could influence your search rankings.) Google Tag Manager incorporates an easy-to-use system to test any changes you implement before that any user visits your website. In this way, you can avoid walking on thin ice because now you can know if a label does negatively alter your site before publishing it for everyone.
Moreover, the centralization of labels allows the coexistence and collaboration between them. To send data from a form to Google Analytics it is necessary to manipulate codes, and there are really no alternatives, but things are simpler with Google Tag Manager in this regard. Not only that: Because tags are centralized and managed from a master tag, your SEO team may add tags without crushing the tags on which the sales team is working, for example.
There is a fundamental difference between using standard Google Analytics and using it with Google Tag Manager. Any SEO expert would add an Analytics tag and then, in case he or she wants to extend it, for instance, such expert would do it through the common options, starting from the basic premise that analytics mean a single tag. However, when it comes to Google Tag Manager, an analytics tag is just a submission of information.
Like all Google tools, this is also free and there are several excellent guides to learn how to use it (this one is particularly recommended.) These are good news, especially for small businesses, since you will not have to spend so much money on installing, using, or updating this tool (actually, zero money,) and learning the basic use of Google Tag Manager is quite simple. It’s not much different than using Google Analytics. Of course, learning to use this tool with mastery will require many hours of effort and practice (like everything in life, really.) But the truth is that if you work hard, your website will achieve greater efficiency, and the results will be reflected in your positions on Google.
What are tags? They can be defined as small fragments of source code which is inserted in a website that collects data about the website itself and its guests. All SEO experts need to work with tags, and the main issue they have to deal with on a daily basis is that tag accumulation usually causes performance issues when it comes to navigation, which, in the long run, cause the positioning job to lose some effectiveness.
Excessive tagging, ‘messes up’ the web document, so to speak, and makes an IT intervention necessary (almost mandatory.) For this reason, people have been looking for a disruptive change in this subject. The generic solution that many have come up with is to free the websites of the excess of tags, and, instead of storing them on the site, managing them externally. In other words, creating a tag manager: A software tool for simplified web code management that makes things easier both for experts and newcomers.
Featured Image courtesy of Sabrina Gelbart at Pexels.com
That sounds too simple. Creating a system that allows you to create a label that, in turn, manages all tags sound like a Herculean task, and it is. It takes a great knowledge of programming, and practically, a whole revolution in the way websites operate … but nothing is impossible under the sun. In fact, Google Tag Manager is the proof that the wonderful team of this giant of the digital age has done it (and in a big way.)
Before Google Tag Manager, if you wanted to install Google Analytics on your website, you needed to copy a long snippet of code in the header of your files; and if you then wanted to use AdWords on your website, again, you had to copy and paste another piece of code, and so on with each external service that you wanted to use on your website, related to the capture of traffic data, analytics, etc.
Well: Thanks to Google Tag Manager you only have to configure a snippet of code on your website once, and, from there, managing the external services you want to use from a simple and friendly control panel.
The first big advantage of Google Tag Manager, besides the centralization of labels (which already is a tremendous achievement,) is that the load performance of the tags increases considerably. Yes, it is that simple: Use it on your website, and your website will load faster. There is nothing to add.
On the other hand, thanks to this tool, you can try out different possibilities before publishing (and obviously making mistakes that could influence your search rankings.) Google Tag Manager incorporates an easy-to-use system to test any changes you implement before that any user visits your website. In this way, you can avoid walking on thin ice because now you can know if a label does negatively alter your site before publishing it for everyone.
Moreover, the centralization of labels allows the coexistence and collaboration between them. To send data from a form to Google Analytics it is necessary to manipulate codes, and there are really no alternatives, but things are simpler with Google Tag Manager in this regard. Not only that: Because tags are centralized and managed from a master tag, your SEO team may add tags without crushing the tags on which the sales team is working, for example.
There is a fundamental difference between using standard Google Analytics and using it with Google Tag Manager. Any SEO expert would add an Analytics tag and then, in case he or she wants to extend it, for instance, such expert would do it through the common options, starting from the basic premise that analytics mean a single tag. However, when it comes to Google Tag Manager, an analytics tag is just a submission of information.
Like all Google tools, this is also free and there are several excellent guides to learn how to use it (this one is particularly recommended.) These are good news, especially for small businesses, since you will not have to spend so much money on installing, using, or updating this tool (actually, zero money,) and learning the basic use of Google Tag Manager is quite simple. It’s not much different than using Google Analytics. Of course, learning to use this tool with mastery will require many hours of effort and practice (like everything in life, really.) But the truth is that if you work hard, your website will achieve greater efficiency, and the results will be reflected in your positions on Google.
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