How to use the Tools Google Provide

This blog is all about the tools Google provide, for free, which can seriously help your business grow and your online review strategy to blossom. We’ll be taking a quick look at four specific Google tools and giving you a little more detail on what they are, where you can find them and how they can effectively help you and your business achieve more.

Where we’ve written more in-depth blogs about a specific Google tool, we’ll provide the links to that blog so you can read more on tools that really resonate with you.

Ready? Here we go!

What is Google Trends?

 

Do take a look at Google Trends. Google Trends is an online tool from Google that analyses the popularity of top search queries in Google search across various regions and languages.

Google Trends can be used for comparative keyword research and to discover event-triggered spikes in keyword search volume (World Cup, for example). You can use Google Trends to see what searches are currently trending and you can also enter a search term into the search box at the top of the tool to see how search volume has varied for that term over time and in different locations. Change the location, timeframe, category or industry, and type of search (web, news, shopping or YouTube) for more detailed information.

Google search trends data is extremely useful in terms of helping you to market your business. For example, if you run a seasonal business (let’s say a garden centre for instance) you’ll want to increase your marketing efforts when search terms relevant to your type of business are trending. Google Trends search function can help you accurately define those time periods which may, in actual fact, be quite different to what you were expecting!

 

What is Google Search Console?

 

Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools) is another totally free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website’s presence in Google Search results. You don’t have to sign up for Search Console to be included in Google Search results but Search Console does help you to understand and improve how Google sees your site.

Search Console offers the following tools and reports;

  • Confirm that Google can find and crawl your site
  • Fix indexing problems and request re-indexing of new or updated content
  • View Google Search traffic data for your site – how often your site appears in Google Search, which search queries show your site, how often searchers click through for those queries and more
  • Receive alerts when Google encounters indexing, spam or other issues on your site
  • Show you which sites link to your website
  • Troubleshoot issues for AMP, mobile usability and other Search features

 

Google Search Console has been created to help anyone who has a website from a generalist to a specialist and from a newbie to an advanced website programmer. It is also said by some to be one of the most powerful, free SEO tools out there. Want to learn more? Then head over to Google Search Console itself!

 

What is Google My Business?

 

Google My Business is a totally free tool that allows users to promote their Business Profile and Business Website on Google Search and Google Maps. With a Google My Business account you can see and connect with your customers, post updates to your Business Profile and see how customers are interacting with your business.

To successfully use Google My Business firstly, and most importantly, you need to set up a free Business Profile. Your Business Profile on Google helps your business show up when it matters most – the exact moment customers are searching for your business or products / services on Google Search and Maps.

Log into your Google My Business account and complete it fully. Your updates can become live in a matter of minutes (worst case, a couple of hours) and updates to Maps are particularly quick.

If this sounds simple, it is, but you must make sure you tick all the boxes. Don’t be tempted to miss out a single step. Ensure that your Google My Business account has your:

  • Up-to-date address
  • Phone number
  • Website
  • Opening hours

… and more to help customers find and connect with your business.

We’ve written two far more detailed posts about Google My Business – Google My Business Part 1: The Importance of Optimising Google My Business and Google My Business Part II: The Full Potential of Google My Business. Whilst we say so ourselves, they’re both well worth reading and your business will thank you for it too!

 

What is Google Analytics?

 

This is the one Google tool that you may have already heard about and for good reason! As of 2019 Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics service on the web.

In brief, Google Analytics gives you the free tools you need to analyse data for your business, all in one place, so you can make more informed decisions. By using Google Analytics you can gain a full picture of how your website is performing and track website activity such as session duration, pages viewed per session, bounce rate etcetera of individuals using your website, along with information on the source of the traffic.

Google Analytics does collect a vast amount of data which can be off putting to those new to this tool, however, these reports are what you can use to gain critical insight into your site and the people who visit it. Our advice? Stick with it! There are loads and loads of online guides and videos which will help you create and pull off the reports that matter most to you, as well as how to understand them.

A whistle-stop tour for sure and so much more we could say, however, this blog is an overview of these four free Google tools so if you want to learn more do click on the links and have a look around.

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