Are You Utilizing All of Google's Free Tools?
Here are 6 you probably aren't taking full advantage of.
The Inspiration Agency does pretty much everything on Google. We search on Google, we store our documents, we plan our social media content, we email from Gmail and we are 100% loyal to using google chrome. We love that it has the live time edits the whole group can see. Being a team of digital nomads, google drive helps keep us connected, organized, and running smoothly.
Aside from the pretty popular tools like Gmail, Chrome, and Google Drive did you know that Google offers a ton of other free tools that any company can take advantage of? Here are six additional tools we use from Google on an everyday basis.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the most popular Google tool (after those already mentioned above), so you may know this one already. In short, Google Analytics helps track your website’s data. Gain knowledge like who is coming to your site, where they are coming from, and how they used your site.
There are a ton of other features but getting this up and running is the first step to getting a better understanding of your audience and your website’s functionality. Below is a basic list of what we typically look at when taking a deep dive into a client’s analytics.
Conversions: how many people purchased if applicable or contacted the company
Engagement: how long someone might have stayed on certain pages or the site as a whole, and also how many pages they viewed in total
Content: which pages are performing the best and which ones have a high exit rate
Traffic Sources: where people are coming from before getting onto your site. This is more important than it might seem
Devices: are people viewing on their phone, tablet, or computer?
Demographics: who are your users, how old are they, where do they live, what else do they like?
While we might do some more advanced analyzing, these are the absolute basics! Did you know Google’s Analytics Academy even offers free training to learn how to best utilize this tool? There are also hundreds of great free youtube videos available for more specific questions as well.
2. Google Ads
Google Ads is probably one of the sneakiest, most successful ad platforms out there. We LOVE it and the best part is it gets smarter over time. While you do need a budget to run the ads, setting up an account is free and usually, they offer discount codes for your first ad campaign.
If this is new to you, then your life is definitely going to be changed forever. Essentially, google ads are just the first few search results on a Google search. It is very hard to tell which search results are ads or organic (hence the word sneaky above). The whole goal of these ads is for a company to show up for relevant searches by paying Google to put them at the top of the page.
For example, if I sold tennis shoes, I would run ads with tennis-dense keywords that someone might search for if they were looking to buy a new pair of shoes. These ads differ from other ads since there are zero graphics or photos. Google Ads works because it is a win-win for both the company and the user. The user is getting what they were looking for and the company is the one able to sell it to them.
3. Google Alerts
Did you know Google has its own social listening tool? It’s called Google Alerts, and once you set it up you will be notified when someone searches for your brand or a related keyword. You can have it sent to your email or an RSS feed. And, if you want to really stay on top of the competition, you can set up other alerts to see where your competitors are being mentioned or when they’re mentioned in the news.
It’s not perfect, and Google has even mentioned this before, but it’s a great free option compared to the pricier (but more accurate) listening tools on the market. If you’re a smaller business that doesn’t get as many mentions, this tool is perfect for you. If you’ve got a little bit of a bigger crowd, it may be time to think about a paid social listening tool like Mentionor Awario!
4. Google My Business
Google My Business is an easy tool that you can use to manage your presence online and promote your business profile through Search and Google Maps. Having a Google My Business account can help your online visibility; this is where you can respond to reviews and add photos. It acts as a storefront and actually takes up a considerable amount of space on a Google search page. The Inspiration Agency recommends this for any type of business. Whether our clients have physical locations, are just online, or both, we recommend it as it helps create authenticity and trust between a business and its customers.
5. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a web service by Google that allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize the visibility of their websites. Some of the features allow webmasters to submit and check sitemaps, list internal and external pages that link to the website, highlight Google Search elements of structured data that are used to enrich search hit entries, etc. Users of the search console can be anyone with backend access to the website. The main four groups are business owners, SEO specialists, site administrators, and web developers.
6. Google Tagging
Google Tagging is an awesome new feature that allows you to attach a tag with relevant content on it and leave behind your digital footprint wherever you go. If someone comes across this, they will be able to access all of the information related back to what was tagged through Google searches or other websites linking in.
This tool makes for some really advanced research if found by somebody who knows how these tags work! Regardless, utilizing google tagging can help improve your SEO because you are basically telling google in its language what the content is. While there is definitely a learning curve and basic coding knowledge is helpful, google tag manager can be a helpful tool to put yourself ahead of competitors.
If you’re not taking advantage of all of the free tools Google has to offer, you're missing out on some great opportunities. While some are more common than others, we hope you learned about at least one new tool you will implement into your company’s marketing strategy. Now, for the fun part. It’s time to get to work.
