Google Tag Manager (GTM) is one of the best free products from Google that can make the life of a webmaster easier.
For every website we create, we end up adding a lot of tags, Javascript for social buttons as well as Google Analytics tags, Facebook pixels, ad tags or any other scripts.
Now, let’s look at this from a non-technical perspective, if you just got a new tag and needed to add it to your blog, you would have to manually edit the core theme files and add the code, which might not be an easy option for many people.
Google Tag Manager is a solution for managing tags through a single web interface , and you can quickly add and remove tags at any time. In addition, using a single tag manager can speed up the loading time of your pages because Google loads the code asynchronously, which means your site won't be slowed down by slow-loading tags.
Now, in this guide, I will share how you can use Google Tag Manager to manage all your website tags from one place in a simple and convenient way.
Get started with Google Tag Manager:
The way GTM works is simple, you can add the GTM code to your website and then manage all the tags of your website like (GA scripts, ads scripts, AdWords conversion tags) from the GTM interface.
[](https://www.google.com/tagmanager/features.html#feature-list)You can see the full list of features here .
Let’s start here together by going to the Google Tag Manager website and signing in with your Google account.
Here are a few things you should know:
- Account: Account name. Typically the name of the company where you manage labels.
- Container : The name of the website you are managing tags on. For example: ShoutDreams is the name of my company and the container name for this blog will be ShoutMeLoud.
- Tags: You will create different tags to easily manage tags under containers. For example, one tag for Facebook remarketing pixel and another for Google Analytics tag.
- Rules: Rules allow you to define when and where this tag is executed. For example, all pages, or when you don't want any particular tag to be executed on a specific page or directory on your website, you can create a custom rule.
In addition to this, you can also add other users to manage your labels. This is useful when you have an advertising agency or developer working for you and you want them to be responsible for adding and removing code without giving them access to your website or Gmail account.
Now, in this guide, I will show you how to use Google Tag Manager for Google Analytics and Facebook retargeting pixel.
Log in to GTM and create your company name. If you only have one blog, specify your company name for your blog.
In my case, I added LetsTalkrelations as a new container.
Here's how to add a website to a container:
Click Save and you will see the code for the container, which you will need to add to every page of your site. You can add it before the end of the body tag of your theme. If you are using WordPress, use this plugin and add a code like "GTM-xxxx" under Settings > Google Tag Manager.
Now, click on Google Analytics at the bottom and add GA using GTM. Now, add your Google Analytics Web Property ID (located in your Google Analytics code) and click on “Add Rules to Tag”. The default rule is All Pages, select it and click on “Save” again to add this newly created tag.
Similarly, you can create a new tag and add Facebook retargeting; Adwords remarketing or any other third-party script that you need to add to every page of your website. Change the tag type to HTML tag type.
How to publish tags in Google Tag Manager:
Now click on Versions on the left sidebar and you will have the option to preview the newly created tag on your website. In my case, I removed the Buysellads script and added it only using Google Tag Manager and it worked fine when I checked it using the preview feature. Once you are satisfied, click on Publish and the tag added through GTM will go live on your website.
You can always add new users to your company and container by clicking "Users and Settings". Also, if you forgot to copy the code after creating the domain container in the first step, you can click "Users and Settings" > "Settings" and add the code.
For new users, the whole process might seem like some technical know-how, but once you start using Google Tag Manager, you’ll realize how much easier it makes things for you. You can always use this free Tag Helper chrome plugin to verify that you have implemented tags carefully. If it still seems like a daunting task, you can forward this article to your web developer or ad management company and ask them to configure Google Tag Manager for your domain.
Honestly, for people like me who have to manage multiple websites, GTM is a useful tag management tool.
Because I don't need to change every site code to add new tags.
Here is a simple help tutorial for GTM that may help you understand it better.
[](https://moz.com/blog/what-is-tag-management)You can also learn more about tag management on the SEOMoz guide here .
If you have any questions or concerns about using GTM, please let me know.
Go ahead and use this tutorial to set up your tag management with GTM, then let me know how your experience goes.
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