Google Web Tools: 7 Highly-Effective Ways to Grow Your Business

Many new technologies hit the scene each day and businesses are scrambling to keep up. Yet, a website is still considered a business’s central point of contact and the cornerstone for all related marketing. While it’s not necessary to master every type of new technology at once, learning to use the Google Web Tools and resources available at your disposal can be a highly effective way to reach more people online and turn those people into patrons.

The goal of this article is to provide you with a list of the most effective Google web tools you can use to capture more leads, convert more customers, and win more sales in 2024.

The easier you make it for people to find and interact with your business, the greater the potential to capture their hearts and souls. Google’s core business is advertising, but it offers an array of web tools, resources, and information for businesses that make it easy to get in front of more people organically, online.

Let’s kick things off!

Google Web Tools: Location-Based Services

Most of these tools fall under what we’d categorize as “Location-Based Services”. This is considered any type of service or tool you can use to provide locational information about your business to your audience online. Including location-based interactions and features in your website’s design and utilizing the tools and resources Google provides, is not only helpful to your site visitors and beneficial to your business. Depending on how you implement them, it can also provide your site visitors with entertaining and visually appealing ways to interact with your business. How you use them directly affects your website’s performance and your business’s reputation.

1. Google Business Listings

If you’re a local business owner but you haven’t yet activated your Google Business listing, or haven’t updated it in a while, you’re missing out on your opportunity to boost site traffic and reach more people. Google’s Business Listings provide a one-stop shop for you to post important information about your business. Addresses, website URLs, hours of operation. It’s also one of the first places people look for ratings and reviews of local businesses. Most importantly, it allows you to control things like shared photos, business descriptions, brand messages, and other key information. It’s something that top SEO experts suggest to all their local business clients.

How to Add or Claim Your Google Business Profile

Here’s an article on how to add or claim your Google Business Profile.

2. Google Maps

One simple way to do this is to embed an interactive Google Map with your website’s “pin” of your address. You can also include an option to provide one-click directions to your establishment. Or, if you’re a service provider – for instance, a landscaping company – you may try including a map of your service location.

How to Embed Google Maps Into Your Website

You may need to ask your website manager to embed the map for you, or if you have even a little bit of HTML experience, you can do this yourself. Here’s an article on how to embed a Google Map into your website.

3. Local Rankings & On-Site SEO

Local businesses can benefit the greatest from this type of content creation, which is known as “on-site SEO’. On-site SEO simply refers to any measures taken on your website to improve its search rankings. This may include writing unique content for each location you service or to which you ship your products. For instance, if your business is located in San Diego, California, you may try publishing a web page that specifically mentions the products or services you offer in San Diego. This, in turn, affects your Google rankings for local searches that match your search term.

How to Improve Your Local Ranking in Google

Here’s an article on how to improve your local ranking on Google.

4. Virtual Tours & Video Walkthroughs

Another great way to provide location-based interactions on your site might be to include a virtual tour or walkthrough of your location. This kind of overlaps with the next web design trend we’ll discuss, “Video On Demand”. Whether it’s a live stream of your location, a pre-recorded video, or a virtual interactive tour (great for museums, universities, busy restaurants, realtors, architects, interior designers, travel companies, hospitality-based businesses, etc.). This gives potential patrons an inside look at your premises without ever having to leave their homes. Integrating a virtual tour using virtual headsets or augmented reality is also becoming a more and more popular marketing tool.

However you choose to do so, implementing location-based integrations into your website and using multiple channels to reach your patrons will be an important thing to consider in 2024 and beyond.

Google Web Tools: Artificial Intelligence

5. Utilizing Google’s Artificial Intelligence Suite

Google, like many other search and advertising companies throughout the world, offers AI tools for businesses to utilize in virtually an unlimited number of ways. Online chatbots, automated email responses, smart scheduling, and automated sales forecasting are just some of the ways businesses are utilizing Google’s suite of AI tools and finding new ways to interact with patrons. You may have someone who “does it for you”, but familiarizing yourself with these technologies helps you understand how it works and how to make them work for your business. Google even puts on monthly workshops for startups and small businesses to learn more about AI and how to use it to their advantage.

How to Learn More About Google’s AI Tools

Here’s an article on how to learn more about Google’s AI tools by attending a monthly online workshop.

Google Web Tools: YouTube

6. YouTube & Video Embeds

Videos are one of the most effective forms of content marketing. Recent research suggests visuals are processed “60,000X faster in the brain than text” (Visual Teaching Alliance). In addition, “having video on the landing page of your site makes it 53% more likely to show up on page 1 of Google” (Forrester). Google’s buyout of YouTube back in 2006 foreshadowed the value and importance Google saw in video content. YouTube is now standing on its own as a popular search engine, and Google has seamlessly integrated YouTube videos into its main search pages. People prefer video over any other form of content.

How to Utilize YouTube and Video to Grow Your Business

The sky’s the limit when it comes to creative ways to utilize video as part of your business marketing plan. But, just in case you’re looking for some suggestions, here are some ways you can get started with videos today.

• Create reviews of your products or services
• Record videos of client testimonials
• Create specialized video ads
• Post helpful vlogs and informational videos about your products or services
• Promote your business by becoming an “influencer” in your industry
• Post video introductions of your team members and employees
• Give video tours of your premises or processes
• Never underestimate the power of a “check-in”

The first thing you should ALWAYS do when you’ve created a new video is to post it to YouTube. It’s the number one most visited video platform in the world. People use it to watch over 1 billion hours of content per day.

Once you’ve posted your video to YouTube, the next step is to embed it into your website. Whether it’s a blog article video, explainer video, or any other type of video, find a way to post it to your website.

Google Web Tools: Google Analytics

7. Bring It All Together With Google Analytics

Having a solid marketing plan and being great at executing your vision is the first step to running a successful business. But, what good is it if you’re not precisely aware of the impact it’s having on your business? One of the most popular Google Web Tools is Google Analytics. It’s a free tool Google offers that provides a bird’s-eye-view of various metrics related to your website and search rankings including page visits, search streams, total time spent on your website, bounce rates, and more. Data is king in this day and age, and it’s readily available to anyone keen enough to use it. You can even set up custom conversion goals and metrics inside Google Analytics, depending on your marketing requirements. Consistently analyzing this data and improving upon your efforts is a surefire way to gain an edge over your competition.

The Bottom Line: Why It’s Important to Start Using These Google Web Tools to Grow Your Business

It always comes down to convenience and the seizing of opportunities. Are you making it easy for your site visitors and customers to find and interact with your business, online? Are you taking advantage of the (mostly) free tools and resources that Google provides to grow your business? If the answer to either of those questions was “no”, it’s about time you start. Use this article as a starting part to explore new pathways of marketing. But, don’t allow it to be your final destination.

If you’re curious about more ways to grow your business using online web tools, get in touch with one of our Site Experts now.