General Questions
Why should I use Tag Manager for SEO?
Tagging for SEO is complex, especially large sites need to constantly update their product pages, landing pages and blog content. With Google Tag Manager you have a centralised place to organise all of your tags, perform debug in real-time, manage users permissions and have a natural integration with Google Analytics.
Why using Tag Manager for structured data?
Google Tag Manager allows you to save time because you can directly insert the necessary structured data code and trigger it for relevant tracking needs. You can first build the code separately, then insert it into a Tag and test it using Google Structured Data testing tool, before you even publish it on your website.
What variables might you need to use for certain types of structured data?
The most common SEO variables used for tagging on your website are those that isolate a single page for content tracking and performance tracking:
- Page Path – returns the string containing the URL without your domain name (/blog). Example of building Review Snippets
- Page URL – returns the string containing the full URL (https://www.lucatagliaferro.com/article)
…those that track clicks on pages:
- Click URL – returns a string contained in the URL that has been clicked
- Click ID – returns a string contained in the ID attribute. This is particularly helpful when tracking button clicks
What triggers might you need to use for certain types of structured data?
It depends on what you are trying to accomplish with Tag Manager. Let’s see a few examples:
- Page View – fires the trigger as soon as GTM has loaded. This is what I have used for the review snippet tag guide.
- Custom Event – fires an Event when a value is pushed into the Data Layer. Example of use for tracking form submissions
What are the limitations of using Google Tag Manager for structured data?
There is basically no support team to help you with any of the issues you might encounter. Being a free tool to use, you also don’t get proper guides or certifications. The other limitation is that you might need to use a developer for the most complex tags.
And Google itself advises against using Tag Manager for structured data. Here is their official statement:
“On-page SEO should really be visible — it’s hard for Google’s algorithms to give something appropriate weight if we determine that it’s never visible. For example, when adding structured data, our goal is to only use it when we see that it’s visible on the page.”
In other words, Google can only parse, index and publish what they see within the code of your websites.
However, this is not what I have experienced. Most of my code is visible on Google, I have added reviews snippets and FAQs using Tag Manager.
What are the best uses of Tag Manager for SEO?
Dynamic schema implementation, form tracks, buttons click track, content engagement tracking, page scroll, outbound links click, structured data implementation.
About coding for SEO
Which code do I need to know to implement tags for SEO?
It depends on what you need to implement, some of the native integrations don’t need any coding at all. However, if you have a working knowledge of HTML and JavaScript that would help you immensely.
Where can I learn the code?
There isn’t a course that I know of that could skill you up specifically for Tag Manager for SEO. However, you can follow me and ask me any question you wish.
Can I use Tag Manager without any coding skills?
I don’t think you’ll accomplish much without knowing any code whatsoever, this is due to the technical nature of GTM being code-based.
What other codes do I need to know?
Regex – A sequence of characters that define a search pattern
J-SON – The standard format for representing structured data
