15 Free Google Tools You Should Use
Google offers much more than just its well-known search engine. A wide range of free tools can make your life as a blogger or webmaster a lot easier. Google offers tools to improve the SEO characteristics of your website, others to improve your productivity and some even to earn money. In this article, we will introduce you to some of the best free Google tools that you should know and use.
Google Analytics is the most popular service for website analysis. It helps you understand and analyse the visitor flow on your website. By now, the code that has to be integrated into your website can be adjusted to meet even the strict German data protection regulations. It only needs to be extended by a small snippet so that no IP adresses are collected. Here is an example:
Google Search Console is one of the most important tools for a webmaster. Here, you can discover how Google sees your website, but the tool offers much more information. The Console shows you errors on your website, which keywords were used to access your website and much more. The large scope of features makes the Console one of the must-haves for website owners.
The circuitiously named "Google Custom Search Engine" is a tool that you can use on your own website. Here, the Google search replaces the search option of your website and offers the well-known precision of the Google search engine right on your blog. Additionally, you can earn money off of the Google search engine as some of the search results are Google Adsense advertisements. Many websites use the Google search, we here at Noupe, for example.
The Google Tag Manager is a really useful tool. Many websites use a couple different analysis softwares to be able to test and analyse the website in a very detailed way. However, with every added software comes a JavaScript snippet that has to be integrated into the website and each snippet loads an external script. This will get messy, annoying and slow after a while. Do you see where I'm going with this? The Google Tag Manager connects all snippets to one single code snippet which then only needs to be added to the website. Without having to touch the code in the website again, you can now add or delete further analysis providers.
This tool helps you optimise your website's speed. Enter your (or any other) URL, click "analyse" and you'll instantly receive the results. These are then divided into results for mobile and those for desktop. The higher the score of the website the better. The improvement suggestions that you receive after the test are really useful. This way, you can build your optimal, fast website step by step.
With this tool, you can quickly detect if a certain website is optimised for mobile devices. Nowadays, mobile sites are gaining importance as a lot of visitor traffic is coming from tablets and smartphones. These users should be offered a very well optimised website. That's why a test with this tool is basically always useful. After the test, the tool provides extended information.
The Adwords Keyword Planner is a really good tool even for people that don't use Adwords advertisements because it allows you to find out which keywords and keyword combinations are searched for in Google search. When working with this tool, you can optimise your blog entries much more precisely according to the keywords that are actually searched for.
Google Insights offers a suitcase full of tools that give you an insight into Google search. Track the newest search trends and use Google Correlate and Google user surveys via Google Trends. Simply enter a keyword to track how the term develops. Compare a keyword to another, to see how the user interests develop. Overall, this tool collection offers a really good opportunity to optimise your articles for Google search effectively.
Google My Business helps your company to a better online visibility. By using Google My Business as a freelancer, your company is more present on the internet. Your customers can easily find your website and your company in Google search, Google Maps and on Google+. Once entered, you will be found throughout all Google services.
Google Drive is the direct rival of Dropbox, so basically just another cloud provider. Here, you receive 15 GB of storage when signing up for a free account. You can then save all files like photos, videos and other data. These can then be shared at any time and you can access your files from any place in the world. There is an app or application for every device you use.
In case you want to confide your photos to a company, meaning you want to save them in a cloud, you should definitely consider Google Photos because Photos gives you unlimited storage for your photos. One restriction: When you want to save your photos in original size, the photo storage is calculated against your Google Drive quota (meaning a maximum of 15 GB in the free plan). However, when saving your photos in high quality, you have unlimited storage. High quality equals about 16 megapixels.
Alerts are a handy thing. Alerts are alarms that can be set up specifically. With Google Alerts, you can let yourself be informed when your company or website is mentioned somewhere in the depths of the web.
The best way to keep and organise your blog ideas is a good notes app. Google Keep works on your smartphone, tablet and computer. Content that is added to Google Keep is synchronised on all of your devices so that your memories, plans and ideas are always available. There are apps for Android, iOS, Chrome and as a web version.
Google Fonts has developed to become one of the most important ressources for designers. By now, you can choose more than 700 web fonts to use on your website. This way, the boring default fonts can easily be exchanged for a web font.
Google Hangouts is a service that allows for easy communication. You can send text messages and have video or phone calls via Hangouts. Group chats are one of the special aspects when it comes to text messages. With Hangouts on Air, you can stream live conversations worldwide. One app per device is needed. These are available for Android, iOS and Desktop.
1 - Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the most popular service for website analysis. It helps you understand and analyse the visitor flow on your website. By now, the code that has to be integrated into your website can be adjusted to meet even the strict German data protection regulations. It only needs to be extended by a small snippet so that no IP adresses are collected. Here is an example:
2 - Google Search Console (former Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console is one of the most important tools for a webmaster. Here, you can discover how Google sees your website, but the tool offers much more information. The Console shows you errors on your website, which keywords were used to access your website and much more. The large scope of features makes the Console one of the must-haves for website owners.
3 - The Custom Search Engine
The circuitiously named "Google Custom Search Engine" is a tool that you can use on your own website. Here, the Google search replaces the search option of your website and offers the well-known precision of the Google search engine right on your blog. Additionally, you can earn money off of the Google search engine as some of the search results are Google Adsense advertisements. Many websites use the Google search, we here at Noupe, for example.
4 - Google Tag Manager
The Google Tag Manager is a really useful tool. Many websites use a couple different analysis softwares to be able to test and analyse the website in a very detailed way. However, with every added software comes a JavaScript snippet that has to be integrated into the website and each snippet loads an external script. This will get messy, annoying and slow after a while. Do you see where I'm going with this? The Google Tag Manager connects all snippets to one single code snippet which then only needs to be added to the website. Without having to touch the code in the website again, you can now add or delete further analysis providers.
5 - Google Page Speed Insights
This tool helps you optimise your website's speed. Enter your (or any other) URL, click "analyse" and you'll instantly receive the results. These are then divided into results for mobile and those for desktop. The higher the score of the website the better. The improvement suggestions that you receive after the test are really useful. This way, you can build your optimal, fast website step by step.
6 - Testing Optimisation for Mobile Devices
With this tool, you can quickly detect if a certain website is optimised for mobile devices. Nowadays, mobile sites are gaining importance as a lot of visitor traffic is coming from tablets and smartphones. These users should be offered a very well optimised website. That's why a test with this tool is basically always useful. After the test, the tool provides extended information.
7 - Google Adwords Keyword-Planer
The Adwords Keyword Planner is a really good tool even for people that don't use Adwords advertisements because it allows you to find out which keywords and keyword combinations are searched for in Google search. When working with this tool, you can optimise your blog entries much more precisely according to the keywords that are actually searched for.
8 - Google Insights and Trends
Google Insights offers a suitcase full of tools that give you an insight into Google search. Track the newest search trends and use Google Correlate and Google user surveys via Google Trends. Simply enter a keyword to track how the term develops. Compare a keyword to another, to see how the user interests develop. Overall, this tool collection offers a really good opportunity to optimise your articles for Google search effectively.
9 - Google My Business
Google My Business helps your company to a better online visibility. By using Google My Business as a freelancer, your company is more present on the internet. Your customers can easily find your website and your company in Google search, Google Maps and on Google+. Once entered, you will be found throughout all Google services.
10 - Google Drive
Google Drive is the direct rival of Dropbox, so basically just another cloud provider. Here, you receive 15 GB of storage when signing up for a free account. You can then save all files like photos, videos and other data. These can then be shared at any time and you can access your files from any place in the world. There is an app or application for every device you use.
11 - Google Photos
In case you want to confide your photos to a company, meaning you want to save them in a cloud, you should definitely consider Google Photos because Photos gives you unlimited storage for your photos. One restriction: When you want to save your photos in original size, the photo storage is calculated against your Google Drive quota (meaning a maximum of 15 GB in the free plan). However, when saving your photos in high quality, you have unlimited storage. High quality equals about 16 megapixels.
12 - Google Alerts
Alerts are a handy thing. Alerts are alarms that can be set up specifically. With Google Alerts, you can let yourself be informed when your company or website is mentioned somewhere in the depths of the web.
13 - Google Keep
The best way to keep and organise your blog ideas is a good notes app. Google Keep works on your smartphone, tablet and computer. Content that is added to Google Keep is synchronised on all of your devices so that your memories, plans and ideas are always available. There are apps for Android, iOS, Chrome and as a web version.
14 - Google Fonts
Google Fonts has developed to become one of the most important ressources for designers. By now, you can choose more than 700 web fonts to use on your website. This way, the boring default fonts can easily be exchanged for a web font.
15 - Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts is a service that allows for easy communication. You can send text messages and have video or phone calls via Hangouts. Group chats are one of the special aspects when it comes to text messages. With Hangouts on Air, you can stream live conversations worldwide. One app per device is needed. These are available for Android, iOS and Desktop.
Some Extra Tools
Of course, there are more tools in the Google universe. Presenting all of them would blow the scope of this article, though. That's why we simply linked a couple more interesting Google tools below.- Google Groups for group messages
- Google Translator - For fast translations with mostly fitting content
- Google News - always well informed
- Google Now – The right information at the right time (only Android)
- Google Bookmarks - to save bookmarks
- Google Adsense - earning money on your own website via Google advertisements
- YouTube - the whole world in videos
- Google Maps - maps, route planning and so on.
Great tool is https://toolbox.googleapps.com/apps/main/ too. Specialy for working with DNS settings
As a blogger i am using all the above listed google tools.