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Guest post by: Karri Flatla Become an Author

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As business owners we often are so buried by the never ending avalanche of advice and to-dos that we fail to see the really valuable, useful information that is right under our noses. Sometimes we even pay for the same useful information when it's in fact FREE and available elsewhere. We just didn't know how or where to look. An obvious example of this would be Google, specifically, it's suite of tools designed to help regular old biz folks market their website.

While Google may be the giant that casts a long shadow over everything we do online, it's actually pretty friendly to "small."

Google's corporate motto is "Don't be evil." Let's look at how to leverage the Internet giant and its free tools for good then, shall we?

Before you can access all the goodies, remember that you need to get a Google account.Once you have your Google account, there are 3 web tools that you should be using no matter what kind of website you have. You should be able to access, figure out, and start using these inside of an afternoon (seriously):

1) Google Analytics: You have a website because you want people to see it and do something while they're there, yes? In other words, you're seeking some kind of "conversion" or action from your web traffic. In turn, you want to know where your web traffic is coming from and what they're doing when they reach your site. Maybe they're clicking here and there, maybe they're leaving as soon as they arrive, maybe they sign up for your newsletter before they bolt. Fact, is, there is no way to understand traffic patterns-and the almighty conversion-without a decent analytics program in place.

Getting started with Google Analytics is a matter of copying and pasting a unique tracking code into each page of your website. If you avoid the "back end" of your site like the plague, any decent web developer should know how to do this for you and for relatively little expense. Within a day or two you can log in to your Google Analytics dashboard and get an inkling of what your web traffic is doing (or not doing). There is much more that you can do with Google Analytics, but just get it set up in the first place. It amazes me how many websites have no analytics in place; all that precious historical data lose forever. What a shame!

2) Google Alerts: The voyeurs in the crowd will like this one even more. Google Alerts allow you to monitor what is coming up on a Google search for a specific topic of interest. You just tell Google what keywords or topics you want to monitor and the alerts automagically arrive in your inbox. (I think it will go to your Gmail account but you can set these emails to forward to your regular email client if you prefer.)

There are so many ways you can use Google Alerts to stay on top of your web space. For example, you can monitor what comes up when someone Googles a competitor's name or pet search term; you can monitor searches on your name or business name; you can even get as granular as "monitoring a developing news story" (per the Google Alerts page). This is a low-tech, high-impact way to keep one finger on the pulse of what's happening in your sphere of influence. It will also help you be more proactive in widening your sphere of influence because you gain continuous access to "as-it-happens" news, events and conversations. (And yes, there is actually an "as-it-happens" setting in Google Alerts should you be capable of watching your inbox minute by minute.)

3) Google Places: If you want a better chance of being found locally, list your business in Google Places. You'll need to verify your listing via phone (or post card if you, um, don't have a phone). This is a good thing because it ensures the local listings displayed by Google are created by real people and not spam bots. Once you list your biz in Google Places, your site (or just the name of your business if you don't have a site) will show up in the Local business results for specific search terms. So write your description carefully when creating your listing and keep it simple. Often the associated Google map will supplement the search result.

Note that sometimes a locally defined search does not return this type of local result, supplemented by a map. Sometimes you have to click the Maps option (left hand column of the Google search window) to get this kind of result. Either way though, if you're not showing up in these searches, you could be missing out on valuable local traffic to your site.

Google Places now also shows how many impressions your local listing is getting which could be indicative of local market potential for your offerings. Good information to have!

Google has myriad more tools and gadgets for the online business owner, but these are 3 that I use and recommend to clients. They're not complicated or "techie" or confusing. And they require very little know-how beyond what I've outlined here. So, now that you KNOW, you can DO better with your marketing. No more excuses...at least for today.

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