Google is a household name and is the go-to resource when you want an answer to, well, anything! On average 3.5 billion searches are made on Google per day and 1.2 trillion searches are made per year, impressive right? As well as this 73% of all searches made globally on desktop and mobile devices are via Google search. However, Google is much more than a search engine and has a lot more to offer than meets the eye.
As well as providing you with a steady stream of organic traffic, Google have developed a series of tools and applications specifically for businesses to help you reach your business goals and get the most of your online activity (they’re nice like that). At In Front we use many of Google’s tools everyday so we’ll only recommend the very best!
Here are our top 5 favourite Google tools that you NEED to be using…
Google Analytics
The holy grail of analytics tools: Google Analytics. Whether you’re an established business, a start-up or a blogger you want to know how your website is performing. By using Google Analytics you open yourself up to an overwhelming amount of valuable data and statistics about your website, your website users, your webpages and much more. The popular tool is free to use and is a MUST to have installed on your site, otherwise how else are you going to see your progress? Google Analytics gives you valuable insight into where your traffic is coming from, how long users stay on your site, your most popular pages, your least popular pages (pages with a low average time on page and high exit/bounce rate) and in conclusion gives you a good overview of where your site is lacking and which pages are leading to the most leads/enquiries/downloads.
Google AdWords
Ranking organically is not a quick process and does time some time for you to see the results you are looking for, this is why we always recommend having both SEO and PPC in your marketing plan for ultimate exposure. Google offer a paid pay per click advertising platform called Google AdWords which enables you to create, target and manage paid text and display ads that will appear in Google Search and other Google network partners (depending on your settings). With PPC, ensuring that your ads are set up correctly, you will start seeing traffic to your site almost instantly. You define within your campaigns the keywords you want your ads to appear for when searched for in Google, and then when users click on your ad they go directly to your desired webpage which could be the homepage, a product page or landing page. As long as your ads meet the criteria and you have a competitive bid on your desired keyword, your ads will appear at the very top of the search results above organic listings. If set up incorrectly PPC can be very costly and you will see your budget draining very quickly which is why we always recommend using a PPC management agency to look after your campaigns so you know they’re in good hands! With your campaigns set up effectively you can see how many people have clicked on your ads, how many people have seen your ads, how many people completed a desired action (conversion) on your site and more!
Google Keyword Planner
Keyword research is essential for SEO, PPC, content development and most other online marketing activity so you need to be using a keyword research tool to find keyword opportunities. Google Keyword Planner is Google’s free keyword research tool; it was developed mainly to help webmasters find keywords for their AdWords campaigns however it is commonly used for other purposes such as providing you with insight into content topics. Keyword Planner gives you an insight into how competitive the term is, how many times it is searched for per month on average and the suggested bid if you were to use the keyword in your AdWords campaign.
Google Search Console
Previously known as Webmaster Tools, Google Search Console gives you a direct insight into how your website is ranking and performing organically in Google as well as receiving alerts if the health of your site were to be compromised. Google Search Console is a must have for aspiring webmasters; it has recently been integrated into Google Analytics so you can see all your data in one place too! The difference between Google Search Console and Google Analytics is that Search Console gives you keyword data such as keyword position and CTR (click through rate). This data helps you identify where needs optimising and what changes need to be made for maximum success.
Google My Business
Ranking locally is key; whether you have one or multiple branches, you want to be visible to users near each of your branches to encourage them to visit your store. Local search results appear above the organic listings and are free of charge unlike paid listings. Google My Business enables you to create your local listing with information about your business such as address, contact details, website and more. It is through this listing that customers can leave reviews and share their possible (or negative) experiences with your business and branch.
