Marketing Defined

Updated: September 2008

Don’t be fooled by the term “free” when referring to these excellent Internet Marketing and SEO tools the mighty Google offers us — its users. Google has become “THE’” dominant search engine on the Internet - AND - you’ve heard that common term; “being Googled” — applied daily, for just about any type of search carried out on the net.

Just as Google’s services and products are thrown at us at an exhilarating pace, their up sizing with the recent $1.6 billion purchase of “You Tube”, compounds their performance on the U.S. stock exchange and highlights the brilliance of their seemingly adolescent marketing/administrative team.

Yet! sadly, many new marketers have failed to make most of the free web marketing tools Google have laid at their feet to easily increase targeted website traffic. Discussed below, is a list of Google’s exceptional SEO and Marketing tools that will make any webmaster’s promotions easier and far more profitable.

1. Google Analytics

The premier marketing tool offered by Google - helpful to both the marketer and the webmaster.

The new Google Analytics makes it easy to improve your results online.   Write better ads,  strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites. Google Analytics is free to all advertisers, publishers, and site owners.

Test website and increase conversions by having direct access to Website Optimizer  from Google Analytics.  Find out which page designs, headlines, and graphics convert the most visitors.

LINK http://www.google.com/analytics/

2. Google Sitemaps

Webmasters can use Google Sitemaps to almost instantly place newly created pages on their site into the Google Search Index.

This is an XML file that is uploaded to Google as new pages are added on your site. Needless to say this can be a valuable service for any webmaster or marketer who wants to get their information on the web quickly.

You can also add the URL of any of your domains into the dashboard at Google Webmaster Tools and Google will give you a small meta tag to place into the head code of your site… which verifies you own the site. Thus alerting Google your site is ready to be crawled.

NOTE: Please make sure your Website Code is Valid and all links, both internal and external do work before submission. You do not want Google crawling a site that has broken links… the results can be costly.. and I speak from bitter experience.

LINK https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html

3. Google Alerts

Be notified when someone or another site lists your site or mentions your name. Great way to keep track of all your online activities. Great way to monitor all your online business interests and products.

LINK http://www.google.com/alerts

4. Google Froogle

Froogle is Google’s price directory! It simply lists all the cheapest prices for different products on the web.

For marketers and webmasters who are promoting products, it should be studied and analyzed. Optimizing your site’s content for Froogle may prove to be very beneficial.

Follow Froogle or Google directions exactly on how to list or display products on your site. Froogle will spider your site and display your prices and products to thousands of targeted customers. That, as they say, is priceless.

LINK http://froogle.google.com/

5. Google Checkout

Not exactly free but for those marketers who use AdWords - for every $1 spent on AdWords you can process $10 for free.

You can also place the shopping cart logo on your AdWords ad and take advantage of the prestige and trust the Google brand name has built up.

Over time marketers may find this tool to be very effective and valuable.

LINK https://checkout.google.com/

6. Blogger

Blogging has become vitally important to the health and functioning of a new web site. No site should be without at least one blog and RSS feed. Creating a blog [online journal] on the topic of your web site or product will bring in extra traffic and targeted customers. Blogger is a free blogging service that even lets you publish or post your blog files to your own web site server. [My personal recommendation is that you do choose to publish to your own webhost]/

LINK http://www.blogger.com

7. Google Toolbar - Enterprise Version

Try the new enterprise version of the Google Toolbar for your company or business. Integrates countless features with all your employees or corporate network. These could include a common customer database, company calendar or financial news…

Keep in mind, Google also ranks every page it indexes on a scale of 0-10. While it is important to know the Page Rank of your own pages, it is even more important to know the PR of your competitor’s pages. You can use the toolbar to get the PR of each page you’re visiting, how many backlinks it has and translate pages into a number of other languages on the fly. Extremely helpful information for webmasters and marketers to know when forming online linking or business arrangements.

LINK http://toolbar.google.com/T4/enterprise/

8. Google Groups

Every marketer knows the important of having a large contact list of people with a similar interest. Social networking will play an ever increasing role in your success on the web. Just look at the growing popularity of sites like MySpace and LiveJournal.

Google groups is another form of social and business networking that every marketer should be aware of and pursuing.

LINK http://groups.google.com/

9. Google Adsense

One simple way to monetize your web content is to use Google Adsense.   Just place the Adsense code on your site and receive a check from Google each month.  For webmasters who are not really into optimization and marketing [do such people exist!] - Adsense can be a painless way to earn extra income from your site.

Use  the two excellent Wordpress Plug-Ins:  Adsense de-luxe and Ad Rotator to effortlessly manage Adsense placement and rotation on a blog

For professional marketers using the Adsense system together with a professional Ad tracking system, can supply a tremendous amount of marketing information on the keywords in their particular niche.  It keeps the marketer informed on what keywords are being searched on… allowing the inclusion of these keyphrases into the content.

LINK https://www.google.com/adsense/

10. Google Writely

Writely is a full featured online writing editor with spellcheck and great collaborating features. It also lets you publish your content directly to your blogs.

One feature that may be of interest to marketers, it lets your save files in the popular download format of PDF.

Lets face it although video is taking over the web - the written word is still king on the net. It is the medium that markets, promotes and sells your content or products. Writely will help you write better.

LINK http://www.writely.com

Update: And now there’s..

Google Trends

This Google program will let you search popular trends, important for marketers searching for the latest hot product to promote. You can also break down these trends by different regions.

LINK http://www.google.com/trends

and finally the central point….

Google Accounts: Creating a Google Account is the central point to obtain most of these free services or programs, and also manages your Google Adwords account.   Some of these programs may have to be applied for individually.  But be assured, all these free Google marketing tools are well worth your time and effort. They will make your marketing easier and they will help any webmaster or marketer run their online business more efficiently.

Link: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

Here’s hoping that Google’s Top 10 Free Internet Marketing Tools will assist in marketing your websites.

Please share your experiences with any of these tools via the comments.  Or mention others you use with success.