Roger West Develops Enterprise Level Tag Manager Solution for Sitefinity
November 23, 2020 / by Roger West
Roger West has been working with Sitefinity for more than 13 years to develop enterprise-level websites for clients across multiple industries, and we don’t plan to stop any time soon.
Sitefinity’s content management system (CMS) and digital experience platform provide a dynamic foundation upon which we build feature-rich websites.
A couple of years ago, we created a solution that allows users to easily manage bulk redirects in Sitefinity. Every now and then, we still come up against a new challenge. The good news is that when it comes to Sitefinity site management and development, where there’s a will, there’s a way!
What is a tag?
A tag or website tag is a code, pixel, or image used to collect website data.
Tag Management Complications
The functionality of tags is simple enough to grasp, but different content management platforms can complicate the day to day management of tracking codes.
Tags are typically inserted into web pages, but in situations where page templates are being used on a website, the codes are instead placed within the templates. The more robust the website, the more templates that are used.
This makes it challenging to determine what tracking codes have been placed across the various templates.
Tracking codes are placed in pages or templates as inline blocks or widgets, which must be inspected individually in order to view their content.
This method of tag management is time-consuming and laborious, as it requires an admin to identify each page or template, open it for editing purposes, locate the widget, click to “Edit”, then inspect the contents.
Enterprise-level websites can have dozens or even hundreds of pages, making tag management a full-time job!
So, Chris Aybar, Roger West's CTO, set out to find a better way to get things done. And, as usual, he delivered.
The Solution
We created a Sitefinity Scripts add-on module that allows us to add tracking codes from a single interface, select tag location (head/body), then the script takes it from there.
Using this add-on, tracking codes can be easily inspected from the script grid, which resembles a basic worksheet for easy use, eliminating the need to visit every page or template to assess the tracking codes embedded on the website.
How Did We Do It?
Tags are measurement codes (often Javascript), code fragments, or tracking pixels on websites or mobile applications that help enterprises with analytics and segmentation.
They’re important to marketers – and proper tag management is vital to digital strategy and web-functionality. Knowing the importance of tags, we wanted to set our clients up for success on their Sitefinity site.
The Sitefinity Scripts module allows scripts to be inserted into the HTML source of every web page, so we created a custom-coded solution for our clients to make this process a breeze.
Roger West wanted to give our clients the ability to easily implement scripts, embed codes, or snippets via a centralized management interface on the Sitefinity dashboard. Google Tag Manager container snippets were particularly important to our clients, and we wanted to ensure proper integration.
How it Works
Our solution enables any user with administrative access to Sitefinity to create scripts, which can then be configured and placed within the <head >or <body> elements.
We also included these other helpful features to simplify the process for clients:
- Sorting: The custom code allows scripts to be configured to appear in a specific order as needed.
- Visibility: The script’s visibility can then be toggled on or off as the user prefers.
- Control: Scripts will not be inserted into the HTML of source web pages if the current user is a “Backend” Sitefinity user.
We’re constantly updating and modifying our Sitefinity solutions. We recently added a new enterprise feature to this solution that supports multisite installations.
Looking for your own custom Sitefinity solutions, or even a robust Sitefinity site? We got you. Let’s talk.
Roger West Creative & Code is a full-service digital marketing agency that helps companies build brands, generate leads, and keep customers inspired and engaged. The agency provides a dynamic environment for marketing pros to innovate and team up with clients to drive traffic to vibrant places and send messages that pack a punch.