Google’s Free Tool monitors the progress of your SEO and PPC campaigns, as well as monitors the behavior of your website traffic. To use these Free Google Tools, you must sign up for each Google Platform by confirming your account by email. It is highly recommended you integrate one email address with all platforms. You can either create a Gmail account or use one of your business emails ( www.yourbusiness.co.za).
TOP 5 FREE GOOGLE TOOLS
GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
Google Search Console provides important statistics regarding your website’s performance on Google’s search engine. It alerts website owners of any issues affecting your search engine rankings, plus other useful information. Here are the Key Features of the Google Search Console:
The performance reports display the ranking positions of specific keywords people use to find your website. It also tracks website clicks, impressions, and clickthrough rates.
INDEX COVERAGE
The Index coverage provides information regarding indexing issues with your website. Google uses Spiders to crawl the internet to index websites. If the spiders cannot crawl certain web pages, Google will notify you of the issue so you can resolve it.
MOBILE USABILTY
Mobile usability determines how compatible your website is with mobile devices. Google will alert web owners if there are specific issues affecting the mobile user’s experience.
CRAWL REPORT
The crawl report provides information regarding the number of times Google crawled your website. Google is constantly visiting websites to crawl for new or updated information.
SITEMAP SUBMISSIONS
Sitemaps gives instructions to Google spiders for successful indexing. You can submit your XML Sitemap to this section to ensure Google has a map of your website and web pages.
SECURITY ISSUES
The Security Issues notify you of malware and viruses on your website. Websites with viruses will be placed on Google’s blacklist. Websites on the blacklist will be removed from Google until the virus threat has been removed.
MANUAL ACTIONS
Manual Actions notify you of any Google violations that your website has broken. There are 2 types of penalties: Temporary Bans and Permanent Bans. If you receive a permanent ban, your website may never appear on Google.
URL INSPECTIONS
URL Inspections provides errors or warnings regarding specific web pages of your website, as well as other indexing information.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Google Analytics provides information on how your users interact with your website. This Free Google Tool allows marketers to examine statistics and make important updates to improve the clickthrough rate, user experience, and conversions of a website. Here are the Key Features of Google Analytics:
Google Analytics allows you to view users on your website in real-time. The information displayed shows the user’s location and the web pages he/she visited.
AUDIENCE INSIGHTS
This feature allows you to view some personal details regarding your website visitors. The details display the age, location, gender, and device used by your web visitors.
ACQUISITION REPORTS
This feature informs you of where your website visitors came from and found your website. This can be Google Search, Direct Visits, Social Media Platforms, or Paid Ad Campaigns.
BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS
This is the amount of time your website visitors spend on your website and the specific pages they spend the most time on.
CONVERSION TRACKING
This feature measures the number of goals accomplished by your website visitors. These goals include telephone calls, contact form submissions, sales, and app downloads.
E-COMMERCE
This feature allows you to measure the success of your online store by viewing revenue statistics, and other vital stats such as the most popular selling products on your website.
EVENT TRACKING
This feature tracks important events on your site, such as the number of people who viewed your video on your site, or specific button clicks on a page.
CUSTOM DASHBOARDS
This feature tracks custom-made events that are important to your business. Measure the metrics that depend on the success of your website.
FUNNEL VISUALIZATION
This feature provides the steps taken to complete an order purchase. This tracks the progress from the Product Page to the Checkout Page.
GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNER
Google’s Keyword Planner provides important information on how keywords are searched on Google. It provides insights into the most searched and popular keywords which help marketers identify targeted keywords and build SEO and Google Campaigns. Here are the key features of Google’s Free Keyword Planner:
This section allows you to add one or more keywords to find popular search terms used on Google. It generates a list of keyword ideas and suggestions once you have entered your keyword.
SEARCH VOLUME DATA
This section informs you of the number of people searching for a specific keyword on average per month. Many keywords receive search volumes such as 100, 1000,10000, 100000, and more every month.
KEYWORD COMPETITION
This section informs you of the level of Google Ads competition associated with each keyword There are three Levels- LOW, MEDIUM, AND HIGH COMPETITION.
CPC (COST-PER-CLICK)
This section informs you of how much you would pay for each keyword that resulted in a click. The CPC price can vary between R1-R1000 per click depending on the industry and level of competition.
HISTORICAL DATA
This section informs you of the search history associated with each keyword. Several keywords have increased their search volume with time, and others have decreased their search volume with time.
LOCATION TARGETING
View the keyword stats associated with each country, city, or suburb. Select your desired location to find valuable keywords in a specific region.
AD GROUP IDEAS
Group your keywords into separate sections with the ability to import these keywords directly into your Google Ad campaigns.
FORECASTING
It predicts the number of clicks and impressions your website will receive from your budget. Its a great tool to determine traffic estimates with the amount of money you want to invest.
GOOGLE TRENDS
Google Trends provides insights into keyword trends over specific periods. People can do market research for multiple regions and determine the demand for certain products or services. Many markets are on the incline and decline, and Google Trends helps identify the progress of certain keywords and topics. Here are the key features of Google Trends:
This provides insights into the momentum of specific topics over a period. This will help identify popular or trending topics and avoid topics losing public interest.
GEOGRAPHIC INSIGHTS
This provides insights into the location of the most popular searched terms, which allows marketers to focus on specific regions in their SEO and Google Ad campaigns.
TRENDING SEARCHES
This provides insights into the high-trending topics happening in the present. This will help marketers stay on top of events and emerging trends.
RELATED TOPICS AND QUERIES
This provides insights into other popular keywords relevant to your targeted keyword, which helps marketers create content on other relevant topics.
COMPARING KEYWORDS
This provides insights into multiple keywords to determine which one keyword would be the most beneficial to target for your SEO or Paid Advertising campaign.
SEASONALITY AND TRENDS
This provides insights into seasonal trends for specific products and services. Many products are successful in only certain periods of the year. (Valentine’s Day)
DATA FILTERING
This allows you to filter searches to find more specific results. You can filter results by selecting a location, time frame, category, and search type.
REAL TIME DATA
This allows you to identify emerging trends in the current Global market. This allows marketers to seize opportunities that will help promote their industry.
PAGESPEED INSIGHTS
Pagespeed insights provide valuable feedback on the download speeds of a website. It tests the desktop and mobile versions of a site and assigns a performance score based on the loading times. Fast-loading sites rank much higher on Google than slow-loading sites. Here are the Key Features of PageSpeed Insights:
This is the performance score of a website download speeds ranging from 0-100. The higher the score, the better the website’s performance.
CORE WEB VITALS
The core web vitals measure the user experience when interacting with your website. This includes the download speeds of your site, the responsiveness of your site, and the unexpected layout shifts of your site.
FIELD DATA AND LAB DATA
The field data is collected by real users over time while the Lab data is data simulated to see how well a webpage performs.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
Pagespeed Insights provides recommendations to web owners on how to improve the download speeds of their websites, such as reducing the size of their images or removing unnecessary Javascript or CSS.
DIAGNOSTICS
The Diagnostics offers extra information regarding the overall health and well-being of a website by identifying issues with the content of your site. (Eg Faulty codes)
MOBILE VERSUS DESKTOP ANALYSIS
The Mobile versus Desktop Analysis compares the interaction
between the users and the mobile/ desktop website. You may find users are
performing better with the Desktop version of your site, which requires you to
make improvements to the mobile version of your site.
GOOGLE ALERTS
Google Alerts notifies marketers of new content being mentioned on a news, blog, or research site. This allows marketers to stay on top of industry trends, track their brand mentions, or even track their competitor’s marketing tactics.
This section lets you specify topics, phrases, or keywords you would like to receive notifications for. Specify one or more phrases to track.
EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS
Google will notify you by email once your topic or keyword has been mentioned in an article or post.
FREQUENCY SETTINGS
This section allows you to specify how often you would like to be notified. You can be notified immediately, once per day or once per week.
FILTERING OPTIONS
This section allows you to add specifics to your keyword or topic. You can decide on which language, country, and specific sources you would like to track.
MONITORING COMPETITORS AND TRENDS
This section allows you to keep track of brand mentions or current emerging trends in your market.