How to use Google’s Free Tools

By Corey Hinde – SEO New Zealand

Keen to grow your business, improve user experience on your website, and improve conversion rates all at the same time?

I bet you are…. and Google allows us to do all of this, for FREE!

Read on – most of these tools you are probably aware of, but might not have fully explored, or haven’t had time to use to their full capacity.

Google Trends

https://trends.google.com/trends

Discover keyword trends, interests, related topics and related queries.

We recommend people use Google Trends as part of their research for what topics to blog about, or discuss on social media. Think – “what are people searching for now?”

Google Keyword Planner

https://ads.google.com/intl/en_nz/home/tools/keyword-planner/

Run website through scanner for keyword targeting recommendations
Run competitor websites through for new content ideas
Run product or service terms for ideas on content for blog/social media posts

Keyword planning is an element of SEO that cannot be ignored. There are lots of tools available on the web for this process, the main thing is that you have some words and phrases you are targeting, and you have some data to support the goals you have.

Google Data Studio

https://datastudio.google.com/

Visualise your Analytics in a personalised way that makes sense for your business
Set up automated email reports to keep track of your data

Marketing is best driven by data, and data studio can be customised to give you a lovely executive report, weekly or monthly, so that over time your marketing engine improves as you make data driven decisions.

An executive report can be basic, or more complicated. With Google Data Studio, you just include the most meaningful data for you.

Google PageSpeed Insights

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

Find ways to improve the performance and load time of your website

Google really likes fast websites. A faster website will not only help user experience, but also help you to rank higher on Google.

Google Search Console

https://search.google.com/search-console/about

Find how people are searching for your business + identify ways to improve SEO

Search console is yet another tool that will help you learn more about how customers, or potential customers, are searching for your business, which will help you as you develop and grow your site.

Google Analytics

https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/

Measure your website results. Track what people are doing on your site.
Find your best performing customer groups & marketing channels

This is a MUST for any business owner. If you don’t have analytics installed, get it installed asap.

Google Business Profile

https://www.google.com/business/

An entirely free platform for listing and showcasing your business. Listing your business here and revisiting is now an essential marketing activity. If your business serves a local area, its even more important as our research proves that people make local buying decisions based on the Google Business Profile listing position you occupy.

Google Optimize

https://optimize.google.com/optimize/home

Test different versions of your website and see which performs best. Using Google Analytics data, Google will help you improve user experience.

Check our YouTube video talking through these great free tools!

Now – obviously continually improving your business is the goal here. If you’d like to talk more about any of these tools, join us in our Free Facebook Group – we’d love to see you in there!

Feel free also to grab any other article from our BLOG HERE, and discuss the topics raised in our Facebook group, we really want you to win in business!