Google’s Free Tools for Search Engine Optimisation and Profit

By now, if you didn’t know who or what Google is you would have to have been living under a rock!

Not only is it the most popular search engine on the planet, but what many people don’t realise is that Google provides an array of free user-friendly tools it can turn your online presence into a money making success!

For instance, did you know you can make money directly from Google Maps?
Ah..now I have your attention.! We’ll get to that further in this post, but for now I’d like to share with you some of Google’s great tools and how they can help your online business prosper.

To access most of Google’s tools you will first need to create a free Google user account. Simply go to Google.com and in the right hand corner you will see a menu appear with iGoogle | Search Settings | Sign In. Click the ‘Sign In’ link and click on Create an Account Now.

One you have set up your account and signed in, you can then go back to that same menu in the top corner and click once on Settings and then go down the menu to Google Account Settings.
This is your own membership area where you can add a number of great Google Webmaster Tools, such as custom Google Maps, Add your business to Google Local Business, Customize your Google browsing screen with iGoogle, and manage your Gmail account, which are just some of the features Google provides.

I will go through each of the basic tools shortly, but firstly lets get to the serious stuff, how to use Google to optimise your website and get you to the top of the search engines for fame and fortune!…

Google Webmaster Tools
Google’s webmaster tools rock! Not only can they your new website to the front page of Google in a day, but they also allow you to see exactly what your competitors are up to so you can outrank them.
Google Webmaster Tools provide you with the following solutions:

Get Google’s view of your site and diagnose problems

See how Google crawls and indexes your site and learn about specific problems we’re having accessing it.

Discover your link and query traffic

View, classify, and download comprehensive data about internal and external links to your site with new link reporting tools. Find out which Google search queries drive traffic to your site, and see exactly how users arrive there.

Share information about your site

Tell us about your pages with Sitemaps: which ones are the most important to you and how often they change. You can also let us know how you would like the URLs we index to appear.
Adding a sitemap to your website is one of the quickest ways to get a good listing on the search engines as they use this information to
determine the structure of your website and the relevance in where your website listing belongs. Ideally both a html sitemap and an XML sitemap should be added to your website, and the xml sitemap submitted to your Google webmaster account. Once submitted it can take just a couple of hours to see a great result. For larger websites make sure your web developer installs a sitemap generator which will automatically resubmit the sitemap each time new content is added to the website.

Google’s webmaster tools also can provide information about what people are searching for and how they found your website through different keywords and key phrases. You can even compare pages by the relevance of popularity, allowing you to review these results and tweak your website for better results.

Google Trends
Google Trends is a handy tool if you are a big fan of promoting yourself through social networks, or run a news blog. Google Trends shows you the hot topics being shared on the web that particular day, allowing you to use this information and write articles about the hot topics, gaining new followers also interested in these topics.

Google Insights
But the really powerful tool for achieving maximum results on the search engines is Google Insights.
Google Insights lets you search the web for the most popular search terms either globally or by location, and will also show you the most popular similar search words people are searching for for a particular period of time. You can search Categories, Seasonality, Geographically and even compare key properties. This makes it so simple to ensure you have the best possible keywords throughout your website that people really want to search for. Use this information, submit your XML Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools, and then finetune your keyword density and submit your website using SEO optimisation software, WebCEO. If done correctly you will get the top spots on the search engines! It’s no big secret, it’s just using the right technique and the right tools!

After all, Google provide all these great tools because they want your website on their search engine so they can make profit with Google Adwords.

Google Adwords
For those not familiar with it, Adwords has been Google’s ‘money-machine’, providing an online advertising system which allows you to create online advertisements and feature them on Google’s sponsored links and other websites using Google’s Adsense program.
Google Adwords is a pay-per-click service which allows you to set up your own advertising campaigns, targeting the exact audience you would like for your products. Be warned though, do your research first or setting up the advertisements incorrectly will see your advertising charges spiral quickly! Stay tuned…I will be doing a major post of successful Adwords campaign management in a future post very soon, which will show you how to actually beat the system and easily make more than you spend, without even needing your own product to sell!

Adsense
Adsense is a great service for those that want to make a little extra cash from their websites.
Adsense is the other end of Adwords, where you can place Adsense customers’ ads on your website. These ads are designed to reflect the content in your website, enticing people to click the advertisements, and when they do you make a profit from each click thru! Simple as that! It can also be very profitable if done well.
You simply sign up for an Adsense account through your Google account, go through a few simple steps which allow you to customize the colours, target content, size of the ads, etc and the system generates a small piece of code that you paste into your website page. You may need your web developer to do this for you if you are not familiar, but it seriously will only take them a couple of minutes.
It takes a few minutes for the script to become live, and from then on, you have a mini Google money making machine on your website!

Google Adwords Keyword Tool
As I have mentioned on a number of occasions, the key to your website achieving a top listing on the search engines is strongly due to great keywords. If you’re not sure about the best keywords for your website, Google have provided the perfect little helper, the Adwords Keyword tool, which allows you to enter gyour website, or the main keywords you think are best, and it will provide a list of alternative commonly searched keywords and key phrases to suit your website. The perfect tool to help you get ahead of your competitors websites! As the name suggests, it’s main purpose is also to help you get the best possible results in Adwords campaigns.

Google Friend Connect
Google Friend Connect allows you to stay in contact with friends through your website. Kind of like a mini Facebook! Once you sign up to Friend Connect you simply add the snippet of code into your webpage and as your friends sign up and add themselves, their avatar will appear on your page, making it easy to stay connected to them. This works great as a business tool as well, creating a business network with related clients/businesses.

You can also use the Google Friend Connect to integrate to Google Talk

Google Talk
Google Talk is Google’s own version of a chat app similar to MSN or iChat. again, you use your Google account, Friend Connect or Gmail account to subscribe and join friends up, allowing you to easily connect either via text, audio or video chat. You can also generate a Google Gadget to add into your webpage so people can simply start typing from your website and they can Live Chat with you. Great for attracting clients, especially if they are international. Saves on those phone calls!

Google Translate
Google offers a range of Language Tools, allowing you to easily translate your website into a number of languages without the hard work of having to actually do each page in a different language.
The benefits of this are obviously great for businesses such as tourism websites or other international relations are involved. The visitor can simply click a graphic and the website text will translate to their own language of choice.

Google Alerts
If you want to keep your ears open for information on a particular product, service, topic or business, Google has a nifty service called Google Alerts. Google Alerts allows you to simply set up alerts for particular keywords so when they appear, either in Google, either from a website, blog, or even Twitter, you will receive an email containing a link to that alert. Great way to track a particular industry or service, or even a news story.

Google Local Business Listing
Ever wondered how the business listings get up the top of Google’s listings next to that Google map? Well that my friends is a Google Local Business listing. To set up a Local Business Listing you obviously need a business, a physical location, and a phone (preferably next to your computer). Log in to your Google account and then click here and you will be prompted to enter your business details for the free listing. Once you have entered your details you will be prompted to enter a number on the screen, which Google will phone you with, to verify you are the actual business. Once verified you will soon appear in the Local Business section next to that map, if someone searches for a particular type of business in your local area. The key to getting a good listing in local business is to make sure when you provide a business description in your listing you add all the main keywords that people may search for for your product or service.

Google Blogs: Bloggger and Blogspot
A great way of spreading your business services and to gain new followers is to create a Blog. But without web development experience, this may be a bit daunting. Google come to the rescue again with their service, Blogger. Blogger is a simple easy to use, but very powerful, free online blogging system allowing you to set up your own blog in a matter of minutes. The great thing about Blogger is that once you get an understanding of the system you can easily customize it exactly as you would like, add extra plugins, set it up for search engine optimization, link it to Twitter, you name it! You can even add in a Google Adsense script so you can make $$$ for simply writing posts (like this one I am writing now!)

Feedburner
So once you have your blog up and running, you need to promote it. An easy way to do this is with Feedburner. Feedburner allows web blog owners and podcasters the ability to manage their RSS feeds and send them out to services such as Twitter and Facebook. This may be a little technical for those not familiar with any of the terms I have just mentioned in the previous sentence, but once you understand it, it can be very helpful in promoting your blog as it it allows your posts to be transferred to RSS feeds, which then can be picked up by other Blog sites.

Google Maps
Google Maps is one of the handiest and easiest ways to not only find a location online, but to also add a location map to your website. Again, using your Google account, you can sign in and enter your business details and create a map to add into your website with a handy bit of code provided by Google.
But did you know you can also use the Google Maps system to make money easily? Your Google Maps account allows you to make custom maps, so for instance if you have more than one business you can create a custom map with all those locations on the one map, even include your logo on each location, and then add into your website. You also have a choice to make this map Public, meaning that not only will it be seen on your website, but if someone is searching Google maps, they may find your business listings through Google Maps. So to make some money, simply sign yourself up with an affiliate based program such as Hotelclub, or Hotels Combined, and you can create maps listing all the properties for that area, giving them a description in the text window box and then your affiliate link for that particular hotel to the listing. So when someone finds your map listings and clicks on it and makes a booking, you receive a nice little commission for each booking. It’s not impossible to turn over a good weeks wage in a single day using this principal.

Google Mobile Device Webpage Translator
With more mobile devices now being used for the web, the changes are one day someone will want to find you using a mobile device.
without going to the expense of setting up a whole new mobile friendly website, the best solution is to have them view it through the Google Mobile option. This simply takes your existing website and restructures it into a mobile device format. It’s not always perfect, but better than nothing!
Failing that, tell your friend to get a better web-friendly phone!

For more on what Google is up to, visit the official Google blog. They always have something new happening!

Article by Chris Bourke of Devision Design & Web SEO Coach
Devision Design are a leading web design and SEO company located on the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane. Chris has built many of the Sunshine Coast and Whitsunday holiday accommodation websites, achieving top results on all major search engines with amny of the Google tools mentioned above. Chris also runs Web SEO Coach, a service providing personal training in SEO, turning beginners into professionals.