Google has offered free tools that can help businesses reach new customers and make money with their websites for as long as I can remember! Unfortunately, most businesses I talk to don’t take advantage of the free tools available to them either because they are not aware of them or they are overwhelmed by how many there are.

To make it easy, I have outlined the most popular, beneficial tools Google offers that EVERY business should take advantage of. They are all easy to use, FREE, and offer value to your website presence.

Google Places – If you have a location, you should update your maps listing and take advantage of the free advertisement!

• What is it? The map you see when searching local maps or receive local results displays a company’s information. Sometimes you just see an address and phone number, other times you may see more information such as business hours, images, videos, coupons, and more!
• How does it work? Each listing Google has on their map can be claimed by the business owner. If you choose to claim your listing, you can update and enter in any information you would like. First, you must either answer the phone number they have on file to receive a key over the phone, or receive something in the mail to the address they have so you can use the information to enter your key into the system to validate your company. Once you are validated you can update the information.
• What is the benefit to my business? Not only will you be able to more visibly advertise your company, coupons, hours, and services, but you can also receive reports about the number of times your listing has been viewed, in addition to what actions were taken, such as directions or clicks to your website.
• Insider Tips: Google uses trusted sources to pull information about your company, including reviews. To have the most impact and best placement for your local listings, it is important to keep all of your ‘local’ accounts with these trusted sources up to date. Most of them are free, so use them like you would use Google, and manage your Brand online!

Webmaster Central – If you have a website, you should have your Webmaster Tools set up to communicate with Google and understand how Google sees your site.

• What is it? Google Webmaster Central provides you with reports and information about how Google sees your website on the Internet. So, even if actions are not taken, you can see impressions of when your site appears in Google’s search results. It is also a place that you and Google can communicate about issues regarding your website. In some cases, this is the only way to communicate with Google when Malware is detected on your website.
• How does it work? You can add a simple line of code or a file on your website to verify your website and you will start receiving reports about your website, from search queries, to crawler errors, and even your websites performance. It will immediately start giving you information that Google tracks on your website.
   
• What are the benefits to my business? Find out how your website is coming up in Google search results, what sites link to your site on the web, how often Google is visiting you, how fast your website is loading, and even get suggestions from Google on how to better optimize your site. And if you want to keep people away from certain areas of your site, you can add blocks to certain pages and areas.
• Insider Tips: Use your Webmaster tools, look at them on a regular basis and take Google suggestions when you can. This is not only a valuable tool for the person who manages your website, but it can also be valuable for your Marketing director to understand how Google sees our website. If you ever have a problem with the way your site is appearing in Google (i.e. malware notices), this is where you can quickly communicate with Google when it is fixed and they will often update their records quickly.

Analytics – Find out how your website is performing online.

• What is it? Analytics gives you valuable information about who is visiting your website, how they got to your website, what they are doing on your website and more! While Webmaster is how Google sees your site, Analytics is the activity of your website online for all users and search engines. So, this will ONLY show activity on your website.
• How does it work? You add code to the pages on the website that you would like tracked. Every time someone visits your website, it sends information to Google who stores and gives you very easy to read reports from anywhere on the Internet.
• What are the benefits to my business? No matter where your website is hosted, or who may take over your website, with the code on your site and access to your Google account, you can keep historical data on your websites performance, track campaigns, and make decisions about your website based on data. So, if you find that a campaign or page is not working from you, while another is, you have data to back which direction to take on your website.
• Insider Tips: If you use your hosting provider’s statistics, you may see some differences; however the trends should be the same. Because Google uses java to send information over the Internet and your hosting provider uses the web server logs, your hosting provider will show more data than Google. Be sure to always keep your company account so you don’t lose historical data, and if multiple people need access to the account, you can set up multiple accounts to have access to the reports.

While these are the top three Google tools EVERY Business should use, you can check out the next article to find more tools to help your website make money!