By Matt Royse
Director, Marketing Communications
Forsythe Technology
Google is more than just the most popular search engine.
In addition to searching Google for what you need, Google has tons of products and offers a lot of tools.
If you are a digital marketer, Google is a highly valuable resource. A lot of Google tools are free where you can access them with just one login or account.
As a marketer, you should take advantage of free Google tools to improve your digital marketing efforts and take your efforts to the next level.
There a lot of ways you can use Google to boost your digital marketing performance. Maybe you have used a couple of these tools but there a lot of them you may not be aware of.
Whether you are trying to improve your website performance, find a new digital marketing job, increase your conversion rates, tweak your user experience on desktop and/or mobile, manage your personal brand and your organization’s brand, learn more about your clients and prospects, create content based on trending keywords, prevent spam and abuse on your website, Google has a lot of tools to help you.
Here are 15 hand-picked Google tools that all digital marketers should be using. These are some of the best tools that Google offers.
1. Google Page Speed
Google Page Speed is a helpful tool to make sure your web pages are fast on all devices, either on desktop or mobile. Just enter your URL of your websites, Google analyzes it and you get action items for desktop and mobile versions of your websites.
It will give you recommendations about possible optimizations and optimizations that you already have made. It will give you a score and rating for mobile and desktop.
Once you see your score, you can see what categories you need to improve. Once you get a baseline of where you stand, you know where you need to concentrate on. Learn how to achieve a 100 out of 100.
2. Google Mobile-Friendly Test
More and more people are accessing the web on their mobile devices so designing your website(s) so it is mobile optimized is important for a great user experience on the diverse types of mobile devices.
This tool can show you how a visitor uses your webpages on a mobile device. You enter your URL and see how your page scores. Learn how to use mobile optimization as a competitive advantage.
3. Google AdWords
Google AdWords is pay-per-click (PPC) digital marketing for your brand. When people search for answers, your ads will show and you only pay when they click on your ad. There are options for display ads, YouTube video ads, text-based search ads or in-app mobile ads.
When you link Google AdWords to Google Analytics, you are able to see ad and site performance in Google Analytics, take advantage of enhanced Google remarketing capabilities and get richer data in Google Analytics.
With Google AdWords, you can test your ads and message to find out what is working and what is not working so you can make changes to see if they work better. Make sure you take advantage of these 4 actionable Google AdWords tips.
4. Google AdWords Keyword Planner
With Google AdWords Keyword Planner, you stay on top of keyword trends to refine your Google AdWords campaigns and make sure your content matches relevant keywords.
In this planner, you can discover new keywords, conduct keyword research and choose better keywords.
Google AdWords Keyword Planner helps you see how often keywords are searched, how the volume changes over time and how competitive keywords are so you can pick keywords that are less competitive so you can rank higher. Learn how to use Google AdWords Keyword Planner.
5. Google Analytics
Google Analytics provides your brand with the digital analytics tools so you can track, report and analyze website traffic.
This data will help you better understand your clients and prospects and provide a better user experience, produce better content and produce strong results from all digital touchpoints.
Google Analytics can help you focus your marketing efforts on your most profitable marketing channels. Find out the 10 reasons you should use Google Analytics.
6. Google Search Console
Google Search Console, formerly known as Google Webmaster Central and Google Webmaster Tools, helps you monitor website performance in the Google search index.
Google Search Console provides you with a collection of tools and resources such as which pages on your websites are the most popular, you can find and fix website errors, build and submit a sitemap and create a robots.txt file.
Google Search Console is useful in finding out information such as how many people are visiting your website and how they are finding it and whether more people are visiting your websites via mobile or desktop. Learn the three ways you can use search query data in Google Search Console.
7. Google Trends
Google Trends helps you see the latest trends, data, and visualizations. It shows you how often a search term is entered in Google to the search volume in your country or various regions of the world.
You can find out what is trending in your country or near you. You can explore topics and see how keywords compare to each other. And you can see how keywords develop in popularity over time. Learn how to use Google Trends for search engine optimization (SEO).
8. Google TAG Manager
Google Tag Manager helps digital marketers and outside agencies make tag management simple and easy. It helps you place, update and manage code snippets or tags in one place and integrates into existing systems.
Google Tag Manager can help you speed up the development of your website by deploying code/tags quickly without relying on a developer, make code/tag updates easily, work with outside agencies by using one account to manage multiple codes/tags, and cut and paste multiple tags on a single website. Find out the 10 reasons you start using Google Tag Manager.
9. Google Forms
Like SurveyMonkey, Google Forms can help you easily create and analyze surveys for free. With Google Forms, you can use your own photo or logo, choose the look and feel, including picking curated themes so you can set the tone of your surveys that match your branding guidelines and style guide.
Google Forms provides you with questions options such as multiple choice or drop-downs. You can add images and YouTube videos and show questions based on answers.
Google Forms provides real-time responses and charts. You can data with you by viewing it in Google Sheets. Discover five reasons why you should Google Forms.
10. Google reCAPTCHA
reCAPTCHA protects your website from spam and abuse while letting real people pass quickly without being annoying of typing in a word or figuring out what an image is. As Google says: reCAPTCHA is “tough on bots but easy on humans.”
ReCAPTCHA uses its advanced risk analysis engine to stay ahead of spam and abuse fighting trends and keep automated software from engaging in abusive activities on your websites. According to Google reCAPTCHA website, the advantage is its advanced security, ease of use and creates value. Find out how Google can tell if you are not a robot with just one click.
11. Google My Business
Google My Business is a tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online presence in Google, including Google Search and Google Maps. By verifying and editing your business information, you can ensure your listing appears right and attract the right customers. You can add photos of your business and office locations, update the hours you are open and respond to reviews.
Google My Business is important in boosting your search visibility, showing up in local search results and making sure Google has your correct information about your business and your different office or retail locations.
Google My Business is critical to setting up locations extensions in Google AdWords. Location extensions in Google AdWords show your address, provides a map to your location and provides the distance to your local business.
Learn why Google My Business is so important for local SEO and how to optimize your Google My Business listings.
12. Google Alerts
Google Alerts provide you with email updates on the latest and relevant Google search engine results on a topic you care about. It monitors web pages, media articles, blogs and even scientific research. Basically, anything that is on the web.
Depending on your needs, you can choose between “only the best results” or “everything” and how often you want to get the emails (daily or weekly). It is helpful to find out what is being said online about your personal brand, your company’s brand and your company’s products and services.
Google Alerts is a wonderful way to keep track of trends, interesting topics and anything that is new on the web. Learn the five reasons you should be using Google Alerts.
13. Google for Jobs
Searching for the right job can take time. It is a full-time job to find a good full-time job. Keeping up-to-date with the latest jobs can be challenging. Now you can stay in the loop on jobs near you with a simple Google search.
Just search “[type of job” near me” in Google and you will find something like this on your mobile device:
If you type of “marketing jobs near me” on your desktop, you get something this:
Google is working with organizations such as LinkedIn, Monster, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor and Facebook to provide you with a comprehensive listing of jobs.
Google is also publishing open documentation for all jobs providers, from third-party platforms to direct employers on how to make their job openings more discoverable in Google Search with this new tool. Companies just need to add structure data to the job posting web pages. Learn how to use Google for Jobs.
14. YouTube Trends Dashboard
YouTube Trends Dashboard helps you tap into YouTube and see what is trending such as the latest music videos, movie trailers, and comedy clips.
With YouTube Trends Dashboard, You can find out what is trending today and what is trending this week. It also highlights a YouTube creator on the rise. If you haven’t already, you should create YouTube channel for you or your brand.
15. Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a fast, free web browser for your desktop computer or mobile device.
What is nice about Chrome is it supports a wide variety of extensions such as Hootlet, Grammarly, StumbleUpon, Google Page Analytics, and Moz Rank to name a few. You may want to check out these 41 Chrome Extensions.
To learn more, please visit: https://knowledgeenthusiast.com/2017/08/21/15-best-free-google-tools-digital-marketers-should-be-using/
Matthew Royse is the director of marketing communications for Forsythe Technology, one of the largest independent IT integrators in North America. He has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and communications, working in many different industries, including financial services, technology, media and entertainment.
At Forsythe Technology, Matthew oversees all content marketing and social media initiatives internally and externally, across multiple platforms and formats to drive sales, engagement, retention, leads and positive behavior with clients, partners, analysts and employees.
