Creating your GTM account and adding it to your website.

First things first, let's check to see whether your website already has Google Tag Manager installed on it. 

1) Check if GTM is already installed on your website

You can test if GTM has been installed on your website in multiple different ways.

The best way is by using Google Tag Assistant.

Google Tag Assistant is a browser extension that checks each page of your site for various Google properties like GTM and Google Analytics.

1. Download Google Tag Assistant here
2. Once installed, visit your website and click the tag icon to enable the extension
3. Check to see if the Tag Assistant returns "No tags found". If it does return this, continue to step 2. 

If you don’t use the Chrome browser, then you can use http://www.gachecker.com/

1) Visit the GTM sign-up page 

Go to https://tagmanager.google.com/ and sign-in using your Google account. If you don't have a Google account create one using your usual business email address. 

Don't be confused that the image says "continue to Google Analytics",  this is just the login screen we where shown when creating this process. Yours might look slightly different.

2) Create a new account and container

Click on the create account button in the top right corner.

Complete the details on the “Add a new Account” page - ensure to select “Web” as your target platform. It should look like the screenshot below once completed. 

Click “create” and accept the terms and conditions.

3) Don't Panic!

Once you have created your account, you will get a pop up like the one in the screenshot below. This is the code snippet that you will need to add to your website. If you are not familiar with web development, don’t panic, it’s not as scary as it looks.

Before GTM was created, you would have to write the code the snippet and install it yourself, for every tag you wanted to create. With GTM you only have to install one, single, pre-written code snippet to your website, then you can use your newly created GTM account to add additional tags to your site without having a touch a single line of code ever again.

Feeling brave? Let's take the plunge!

4) Add the GTM code snippet to your website

The platform your website is built on will dictate how you add this code snippet to your website. I’ve linked to the best online guides to the most popular website platforms being used in the present time. If you can’t find your website platform in this list, I’ve added instructions for how you can find an online guide to help you through the process.

Click on the website builder you use to view the relevant guide for you.

• Wordpress.org
• SiteBuilder
• BigCommerce
• Shopify
• Weebly
• Wix
• HubSpot

WARNING: Be very, very, very careful when you are completing this step. Although it is very unlikely, there is a possibility that you could break your website if you aren’t sure what you are changing. If you are not 100% confident in what you are doing, it is best to contact your web developer or other professional to complete this step for you. It is a very quick task to execute and will definitely be cheaper than building a whole new website if it gets broken! 

If your website platform is not included in the list above, follow the instructions below.

The following search query will pull up the most relevant result for you on Google, just replace the part in bold with the name of the platform your website is built on. For example, if you have a website built on Squarespace, replace “Wordpress” with “Squarespace”. 

How to add the Google Tag Manager snippet into my “WordPress” website

IMPORTANT: Keep the quotation marks around the name of your website builder when searching in Google. This ensures Google only returns results that include the name of your website builder. 

5) Test you have installed GTM correctly

You can test if GTM has been installed correctly in multiple different ways.

The best way is by using the Google Tag Assistant we installed in step 1.

1. Once installed, visit your website and click the tag icon to enable the extension
2. Check that the results are green tags, this means the installation has been successful!

If you don’t use the Chrome browser, then you can use http://www.gachecker.com/

Simply copy and paste your website URL into its search bar, click “check your site” and then click “tag manager” which is highlighted blue in the image below. If there are green ticks next to each result, congratulations, you have completed the installation of GTM on your website!

Now that wasn’t so hard, was it...

Now you have successfully created your GTM account and integrated it with your website, the foundations for a data-driven approach to your online marketing have been set in motion.

In the next 1% weekly improvement guide, we will be showing you how to install a Facebook pixel to your website using GTM.

See you there!

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