Do You Use Google Tools In Your Business?

Do you use Google Tools to help you with your small business? I use several since my business relies heavily on online tools, but even if your business is mostly conducted offline Google has some tools you could use if you think a little outside the box.

• Gmail is the most obvious. If you set up a Gmail email account you can use it whenever you need to give your email to an iffy source. If you’re not sure you want them to have your real email address, it’s a great way to filter out the scammers.

• Google RSS Reader is not just for blogs. Most major news sites have an RSS button so you can subscribe to their news releases. It’s also good to subscribe to a couple blogs in your niche. It’s good to keep tabs on the competition, and to be one of the first to know if anything new is happening in your industry.
• Blogger is a free blogging platform if you decide you’d like to promote your business by blogging. Blogger is very straightforward, which makes it great for beginning bloggers.
• Webmaster Tools can help you analyze your website.
• Google Alerts can be set up to let you know if anyone is talking about you, your business, or key words related to your industry.
• The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is useful even if you don’t use Adsense. Type in key words or phrases that you think people would use to search for your business. Google will send you back the number of searches that key word or phrase gets per month, and it also gives you other related key words and phrases.
• Google Docs are fairly good word processing and spreadsheet applications that can come in handy if you have to share documents online with several people adding input. I’ve been involved in a couple group projects with people from around the world where Google Docs came in handy.
• Google Groups is another application that’s wonderful for group communication when the group is not all located in one area.
• Google Local Business Center lets you list your small business for others to find online.

There are more, but these are the main applications I’ve used for business.

Did you know you can access all your Google Tools from the main Google screen? Just click on “My Account” and log in to have all your Google Tools at your fingertips.

What Google Tools do you use for your small business?