Google Tag Manager – what is it?

Google Tag Manager is a tool that allows you to easily add scripts (or tags) to the website, remove or modify them. In other words, thanks to it, you can manage all the tags we need from one place to analyze data from the website more effectively, increase conversion, track traffic sources, etc. Using GTM, we do not have to interfere directly with the website every time we want to implement a new script. site code. It is a kind of intermediary, thanks to which you do not have to insert any tags “rigidly”, burdening and slowing down the page. It also allows you to avoid errors that may occur when you try to implement the tag manually.

Over time, we place more and more tags on websites. The most popular are the Google Analytics tag, thanks to which we can collect data on traffic and conversion on the website, the Facebook pixel that allows us to measure the effectiveness of advertisements, or the Google Ads remarketing tag. However, there are also many other scripts that are useful from a marketing point of view. Thanks to GTM, we do not have to place all of them manually on the website – we just need to implement the Google Tag Manager code once, and we can implement all other tags through it.

How is Google Tag Manager built?

In Google Tag Manager, the account is the highest in the structure – it collects all the smaller subsets in the tool. Within the account, we can create containers, i.e. figuratively speaking, separate boxes for collections of tags. Each container has its own code to be implemented in the code of the page. After its implementation, the entire collection of tags contained in it is active on the website.

The tag itself is a type of tracking code that, once installed on your website, starts collecting data – this could be information about traffic, conversions, etc. – depending on the type of tag. Each tag should have an assigned rule that says when the script should run – we can add a rule that the tag should work on all subpages or only on some of them – for example, when measuring the conversion, we will assign a rule that the script should collect data only from the purchase confirmation page.

Assigning permissions in Google Tag Manager

In Google Tag Manager, we can grant permissions both at the account level and at the level of the container itself. If we want a user to have access to all the containers we have created, we should give them account-level permissions. We have two types of permissions here: Read Only and View, Edit and Manage. However, it is worth knowing that the second type of permissions cannot be edited within the containers – it only allows you to see what settings have been selected for each of them.

If we want to give the user the ability to edit the container or do not want to give him access to the entire account, we should grant permissions at the container level. In this case, we have three options: View Only (view only), View and Edit (view and editing) and View, Edit, Delete & Publish (view, edit, delete and publish). Thanks to this, we can freely manage access to the account and maintain full control over the data it contains.

Why is it worth having a Google Tag Manager?

Facilitation when making changes to the website
Sooner or later, most pages need updating or even more radical corrections. If, however, we change the appearance of the website, CMS system or template, it is necessary to transfer all scripts implemented directly in the code. When there are a lot of them, it is easy to skip any of them or paste them incorrectly, and in addition, it is simply tedious and time-consuming. By using the Google Tag Manager, we have an easier task – you just need to move the code to the container in which we placed the tags from a given site to trigger all the scripts on a given page. Therefore, it is worth thinking about implementing GTM at the beginning of running a website – at first it may seem that there are not many scripts, so this is an unnecessary difficulty, but their number can quickly grow and make any changes difficult.

Faster website loading
Each additional script in the page code makes the site a bit slower, and the longer the page load time, the more likely the user will get impatient. Thanks to GTM, it is easier to keep order in tags and to easily remove those that we do not need, so as not to unnecessarily burden the site. However, using this solution has one more important advantage – thanks to it, tags can be loaded asynchronously. what does it mean? Simply put, faster loading scripts do not have to wait for others, which shortens the overall page loading time.

Container template import option
If we have prepared and implemented a set of tags on one page, we can easily import it to a new account. Thanks to this, we do not have to waste time creating a completely new container with scripts if we launch a second or another website.

Ability to disable tags
If we implement the scripts directly on the website, we have to completely remove them if we do not want them to collect data further. However, we do not always want to decide on such a radical solution – sometimes we are not sure whether we will need a given tag in the future. With the help of Google Tag Manager, we can simply temporarily disable a given script.

Ability to quickly verify the correctness of the script implementation
Google Tag Manager gives you the ability to preview and debug, so you don’t have to wait to see if the tag has been properly implemented. Otherwise, we would have to wait for the tag to collect the data to be sure the implementation was successful.

Possibility to implement tags without the help of a programmer
When it comes to tampering with the website code, most people prefer to seek the help of a specialist to make sure that the change does not cause problems with the website. The need to involve a programmer in the implementation not only extends the entire process, but may also be associated with an additional cost. However, if we use Google Tag Manager, we can implement new scripts ourselves, being sure that we are not threatened by a long-term failure of the website caused by the new tag. If, as a result of our actions, the website starts to work incorrectly, it is enough to return to the container settings before the last script was deployed.

It is not our intention to duplicate that post or refresh it after many years. Therefore, this time we will not present in detail what a long tail is and convince you why it is worth focusing on long tail positioning. We want to tell you how to prepare your website in terms of positioning for long tail and what good practices support it. It is also worth finding out how you can know your real long tail.

For whom will the long tail be especially important?

However, it will not do without a short reminder. The term long tail is used by positioners to define more complex, and therefore more precise and unique, keywords that generate traffic for a given website. Such a keyword phrase consists of a few words. While the long tail can often account for most of the traffic that leads to a given side, it varies greatly internally. There will be no clear leaders here – the most common keywords. However, since this internally fragmented pool of keywords gathered together gives valuable and converting traffic on the website, it means that it is worth taking a look at it and taking care of it. The long tail should not be underestimated.

Long tail will be especially important for online stores. This does not mean that websites presenting services will not benefit from them – they will definitely feel them, though on a different scale. However, it is the extensive websites with a rich offer that will be the biggest beneficiaries of optimization in terms of strengthening the long tail. Considering how influenced by the situation in 2020, trading has become more online than it has ever been before, it is definitely worth strengthening your online store.

Can I monitor long tail phrases?

Can a long tail be somehow grasped, examined, and the most “fat” pieces extracted? Definitely yes. Positioners have at their disposal specialized industry tools that allow you to assess, for example, how many phrases that Google connects to a given website are in the top 10. These tools perform a comprehensive assessment of the website, in isolation from the phrases that are included in the SEO contract and which are monitored. Sounds complicated? We will illustrate this with an example. We position a brand new online store that has just started operating. There is no traffic yet, nor are there any keywords visible in the top 10 on Google.com. By signing the contract, we declared that we would conduct detailed monitoring of positions for 200 keywords selected together with the client. For these phrases, Paraphrase-Online.com measures the position daily. Information on this subject is visible in the customer’s panel and in the reports that he receives periodically. Thanks to this, we know that, for example, after six months of the 200 phrases written in the contract, 150 words are in the top 10. But does this fully reflect the scale of the website’s visibility on the Internet? Another tool can tell us the four-digit number of phrases in the top 10.

By testing the website with SEO tools that do not know the provisions of the contract and the list of keywords, we can determine how many phrases generally related to this website are in the top 10, i.e. after entering how many keywords this website will be displayed in the top 10 search results for a given term.

The number of top 10 phrases for a given website may change by making a month-to-month comparison. When we are dealing with a website that already has a history and established visibility on the Internet, we can compare the results from before the start of positioning (e.g. a month before signing the contract) with the current ones. Thanks to this comparison, you can see how many activities of SEO specialists gave the website and how they increased its visibility in the top 10.

Both parameters – measurement in the context of keywords included in the contract and measurement made with the use of additional tools and referring to the website as a whole – are not mutually exclusive and do not collide with each other. Their combination gives a more complete picture of the effectiveness of positioning and the support it gives the website.

Is there any way to know your long tail beyond the paid tools for positioners in the pro version? The free Google Search Console tool comes to the rescue, which provides a lot of useful information, for example about queries that lead to clicks and visits to the website, and also estimates the position of the keyword generating impressions and clicks. The analysis of the phrases that are visible there allows you to identify those matching the long tail criteria, as well as assess whether they generate clicks and in what positions they are. For the record, we note that these criteria for catching page entry phrases will apply not only in the context of long tails. They will also help you catch shorter but valuable phrases that can be used for promotion, and which were not included in the original set of keywords for positioning for various reasons.

General phrases versus long tail

At the outset, we can say that general phrases should not be opposed to those of the long tail. They are entered into the search engine by various groups of potential customers and, as a result, have different functions. The extensive phrases characteristic of the long tail indicate more precisely expressed expectations regarding the product that our potential client is looking for. General terms are most often entered identically and at the beginning of your search, before the purchase, when you do not have precise expectations yet. General terms can also mean searching for information or a loose examination, rather than an immediate desire to make a purchase.

How to effectively support long tail?

Effective support for long tail phrases can take place at the level of building or optimizing an existing website. We selected 4 elements that are important in the context of long tail optimization, and which are not associated with complicated interventions in the website.

A. Meta title and meta description
The fact that the meta tags: meta title and meta description are particularly important for positioning has been mentioned more than once in our publications on SEO. Since the optimization for long tail concerns mainly subpages with products and subpages related to product categories, it is important to take care of meta tags for these subpages. Setting the same meta tags for the entire website will be a big mistake. Such a duplicate is definitely undesirable from an SEO point of view. We realize that setting up unique meta tags for each product “out of hand” is quite a challenge. Therefore, it is necessary to automatically generate meta tags, which will use, for example, a unique product name (or product category – in the case of category subpages), and at the end there will be e.g. a suffix with the name of the store or company. If we use pagination and products from the same category are visible on more than one subpage, then you should also take care of the uniqueness of these meta tags on subsequent page views. The solution may be to reach for a cleverly interwoven note such as “page 2”, “page 3” etc. What can be done in terms of unique and non-duplicate descriptions? In this case, you can use unique content published on subpages, which will become the basis for meta description. It is worth emphasizing that the meta title tag is more important than meta description in the context of SEO.

B. Page headers
We will write about the importance of headers in terms of diversifying the content in point 4 dedicated to content issues. It’s a good idea to place headers on your website and use keywords in them. If we have a subpage dedicated to, for example, women’s tracksuits available in our offer, then instead of the casual “women’s” headings, it is worth placing keywords describing our offer in the hx headings: women’s tracksuits – cotton, pastel, oversize, printed, etc. Of course, all the keywords and terms that they form a long tail need not appear in a single header. In such a situation, it is worth dividing them among several headings. Of course, there may also be a headline on the page that does not include keywords – not everyone has to include them. However, it is worth using at least some of the headers as space for keywords and terms that may become key to the search.

C. Url address
Words keywords and words that are used to search for products from our offer can also be placed in the url of subpages. We do not encourage the machine to change the current, even imperfect addresses of subpages – improper approach to this topic may cause damage to the website. However, if we are faced with adding new subpages or rebuilding the website, then when planning a new structure and addresses of subpages, take into account that they contain important passwords, in full wording. Referring to the example from the previous section: it is better to have the term “women’s tracksuits” in the subpage address of the category than “women’s”. The subpage of the product should also have a user-friendly url that takes into account specific passwords. However, do not go overboard with the length of the url, as an address of more than 100 characters is too much. Blog entries are also a problem more often than product pages.

D. Content matters
Of course, you can identify the best-selling products and product categories for an online store. This pool is most often reflected in a keyword set, which is saved as an attachment to the SEO contract. These are also phrases for which position monitoring will be carried out – daily research that allows to capture drops and increases or the phrase entering the top 10. Potential customers, however, enter much more variations on the query than is usually included in the list of keywords selected for monitoring. There are some important features for them. When analyzing the keywords that led to entering the website, it is worth knowing what words and terms to use when describing the available product or service. Rich content corresponding to inquiries – not only the most popular ones – is an action supporting positioning, taking into account the long tail. The best place to introduce content supporting phrases described as long tail will be the subpage of the product categories or the products themselves. Being aware of the enormity of the project, which is content optimization (not only for long tail phrases), we encourage you to do it in stages. It is better to gradually implement new content, even in small portions, than to abandon the idea entirely.

The content published on the page on the page must be visible to robots in order to be indexed. They must also be unique content if they are to positively affect the SEO process. It can be said that all the rules for good content that apply in the context of optimization also apply to enhancing content in terms of long tail. As a reminder, it will be:
– uniqueness – the text on the website should not be duplicated on other websites,
– don’t skimp on words – an extensive text will be better than a casual approach to the topic,
– the text should not be monolithic, it is worth using the division into paragraphs, use headings and include keywords in them,
– the text should be linguistically attractive and correct, encouraging people to read, and at the same time providing information that will facilitate making a consumer decision,
– available for network robots,
– systematically developed.