Blog Archives - Trevor Ayers

CSS Tips for Non-Developers for Basic Site Changes

Making site changes as basic as color can be a huge pain for non-developers if the options are not found in the CMS of choice. The great news is that in 2016 most themes are robust enough to allow for all changes in the WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc. UI without knowing a lick of coding. However, there will be a time when you see something on your site that the them doesn’t let you control and you’ll either come to peace with how it is or you’ll start digging for the solution to edit it. Well, that often leads you … Read More

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December 4, 2016

AweSEM Advice / Google AdWords / Google Tag Manager

How to Set Up Google AdWords Website Call Forwarding with Google Tag Manager

Google’s documentation on how to set up Google AdWords website call forwarding with Google Tag Manager is surprising light with some glaring omission for these both being Google properties. In fact, Google does support this, but Google’s documentation is missing one key element, which is that the dynamic number replacement is actually supported by Google and therefore, you don’t have to seek out a third-party solution.

It’s also very simple to set up AdWords website call forwarding with Google’s method – it’s just not covered in the documentation!

These are the steps for Google Tag Manager to get your … Read More

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September 1, 2016

Tech Tips / Wordpress

Top 5 WordPress Plugins to Improve Load Times

Like any CMS or Web architecture, there will be fast and slow websites. The CMS is a layer that can add some latency, but, fortunately, most CMS platforms have a number of solutions for improving page load times. I’ve played with dozens and these are my top 5 WordPress plugins to improve load times.

First, you want a good arsenal of tools for tracking page load times. I tend to reference the below. It’s always a good idea to run the baseline load time test to have a comparison.

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August 1, 2016

Track Embedded Videos With Google Tag Manager in Wordpress

AweSEM Advice / Blog / Google Tag Manager / Wordpress / YouTube

Track YouTube Videos With Google Tag Manager in WordPress

Google Tag Manager is extremely powerful. Most website interaction can be tracked without any customization, but, alas do not pass the interaction values by default. This makes tracking the embedded videos a bit more high-touch. In this post, we’re going to track YouTube videos with Google Tag Manager in WordPress and tie it to applicable events in Google Analytics.

First, to track the embedded videos, we will be using a plugin. I typically hard code the Google Tag Manager code, but this plugin is starting to sway my recommendations. A little. If you do not want to use a plugin … Read More

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June 28, 2016

Blog / Facebook / Google Tag Manager / Tech Tips

Add Facebook Conversion Tag with Google Tag Manager

Typically, adding conversion tags such as Facebook’s conversion tag with Google Tag Manager is a breeze. Set up the custom HTML tag, place the conversion script and set the triggers to fire the conversion pixel. However, I found Facebook’s information for the conversion scripts to be fragmented, so I wanted to provide the complete overview here. Now, let’s add the Facebook conversion tag with Google Tag Manager.

Note that you will already need a Google Tag Manager account and you need the container placed on all of your site pages – or at least the pages you want to … Read More

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March 13, 2016

AweSEM Advice / Blog / Google Analytics / Google Tag Manager

Track Div Clicks in Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager has no shortage of functionality, but often the challenge becomes how to unlock this potential. In this post, I will cover how to track div clicks in Google Tag Manager by using the CSS Selector property.

There are many reasons you may need to specify a CSS div as the most descriptive element on a page to pass events to Google Analytics. If no unique class id, anchor text etc. are available it whittles down your options for tracking clicks in Google Analytics, but rest assured that you can track ALL div clicks in Google Tag Manager … Read More

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February 14, 2016

Blog / Tech Tips / Wordpress

Top 5 WordPress Plugins

While I appreciate Joomla and Drupal as well as some of the Niche CMS such as Magento and some on the Windows side WordPress remains my go-to CMS for flexibility and potential. For this reason, I find myself using many WordPress plugins. Through this experience I have found dozens of favorite WordPress plugins. Some have niche use and others can really apply to almost ANY install. For this list of top 5 WordPress plugins I will concentrate on the WordPress plugins that can be used on most any Wordpress install with great benefit.

Top 5 WordPress Plugins

1) WordPress SEO… Read More

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December 27, 2015

AweSEM Advice / BingAds / Blog / Google Analytics / Google Tag Manager

How To Track Conversions in BingAds Using Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is great. Out of the box, it lets you track site engagement that would have required manually tagging on-page elements in your code in the past. This site engagement can be configured to trigger events and then these events can trigger goals. These goals can then easily be imported into Google AdWords from Google Analytics. However, BingAds does not link to Analytics and even with UTM auto-tagging enabled you will need to configure your BingAds conversion tag to fire in addition to your Google Analytics goals.

BingAds conversion tags by default can be configured to fire on … Read More

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September 27, 2015

AweSEM Advice / Google Analytics / Google Tag Manager

Track Email Clicks in Google Tag Manager V2

I’ve covered how to track mailto: clicks as events in Google Tag Manager before. Well, Google has updated their entire Google Tag Manager interface and with has come many changes. Without diving into the specifics of the changes, I’m going to show you how to track email clicks in Google Tag Manager V2. We will set these up to trigger events for Google Analytics. These events will instantly be visible in Google Analytics; you can also set these events to track as goals in Google Analytics.

The benefit of tracking email clicks as conversions is you can know the … Read More

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July 25, 2015

AweSEM Advice / BingAds / Google Analytics

Why Aren’t All My BingAds Clicks Showing in Analytics with UTM Auto Tagging?

There is nothing more frustrating than Web analytics data discrepancies. Particularly with paid ad referrals because you do not want to test in real time and cost yourself a click. No matter the spend. If you’ve been running search campaigns on BingAds you may find yourself asking why aren’t all my BingAds clicks showing in Analytics with UTM auto tagging.

First, I commend BingAds for UTM auto tagging as manually tagging each destination URL was a huge pain point with the platform. Not tracking the visits was foolish even when firing the conversion code at the BingAds platform. However, … Read More

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July 3, 2015