While you can spend a whole lot on your SEO tools – and some of these gems are worth every penny – you don’t always have to drop a lot of cash to update your SEO toolbox. In fact, Google has five tools that are worth checking out right now. Google tools are generally powerful tools, so give them a look and make sure that you aren’t missing out.

1. Google Trends

Google Trends’ byline is “explore what the world is searching,” and it’s designed to track trending search queries, which makes it an excellent mechanism for conducting keyword research.

Explore New Keywords

Head over to Google Trends, and you’ll find a handy-dandy search bar where you can enter search queries to your heart’s delight. Whether you type in a specific term or a broad topic, Google Trends will supply you with a breakdown of how interest in the topic or term has played out over time. And while this data is informative, the real prize comes in the form of the Related Topics and Related Queries (found at the bottom of the page), which are set to “rising” and can give you a leg up when it comes to your future rankings.

You’re So Advanced

Google Trends has solid information to offer, but when you explore the advanced options across the top of the page, the benefits open up. Here, you can explore your keywords in relation to all of the following:

Specific Region – Specific region allows you to specify the geographic region you want to pull search data from, and it’s especially useful if your SEO project is local.
Category – Category relates to the category of goods or services you’re competing in, and it can help you dig deeper into those super-common queries.
Search Platform – Search platform is especially useful if you have an integrated SEO plan because it allows you to refine your own data in accordance with what is working on specific platforms, including Google Shopping Search, YouTube Search, Image Search, and News Search.

2. Visual Stories

Google lets us know that it sees its Visual Stories as “bite-size visual stories for busy marketers, driven by trending topics and data from Google.” In other words, Google values your time, and even if reading is out of the question, the goliath has interactive picture books available that highlight insights and data points in your industry. The bottom line is that you can count on Google to do its homework, and you can take the information shared in these visual stories to heart. Google shares a lot of information in this space, and there isn’t a huge time investment involved in accessing it, which really can be invaluable. Search around within your industry and partake in the incredible wealth of information that Google had mined, organized, and shared in this oh-so-easy slideshow format.

The Shopping Filter

For example, if you check out The Shopping Filter, you’ll learn all of the following:

Augmented reality is reinventing the digital store.
The pandemic has shifted shopping to the home, and consumers are digging the immersive experiences that many online enterprises are offering.
This augmented reality (AR) is more than just a gimmick – it is a research tool for our times, including social distancing, and it is generating higher conversion rates.
More than 90 percent of Americans have already either dived into AR shopping or are well-prepared to do so.
Using our cameras in this capacity isn’t a huge reach. We are, after all, highly visual creatures.

Visual Stories has a lot more to offer than you may realize, and if you haven’t tried a pair of glasses on virtually yet, it’s high time you do so.

3. Rising Retail Categories

The next e-commerce breakout success is impossible to predict, but Google’s Rising Retail Categories provide you with a welcome overview. This comprehensive compilation of retail-related data not only tees up those product categories that are currently trending but also outlines the searches that go along with them and where each is hitting those high marks. This can help you fine-tune your local offerings and, if eCommerce is your game, can help you firm up your game plan overall.

4. Grow My Store

Grow My Store lets you know that “you are in the right place to enhance your retail site,” and this is good all around if you have a brick-and-mortar business and/or are touting your wares online. With Grow My Store, you can test your site for those Google Identifiers that signify Successful Online Stores. The identifier categories that are taken into consideration include:

Product Information
Personalization
Store Details
Customer Service
Security

Google lets you know exactly what you need to do to improve your site – in your unique space – and it gets the party started with the following straightforward questions:

What is your domain?
What industry are you in?
What type of business are you running?

With this information, Google will give you an overall score that reflects how your online store is doing – along with some industry-related data. Once you create an account, Google will hit you up with a full report that comes complete with specific recommendations.

5. Test My Site

If you know anything about Google, you know that they like to test things over there, and Test My Site is a prime example. Here, you can test for three important metrics that matter a whole lot to Google – and, therefore, to you – including:

Experience
Personalization
Speed

You don’t have to be selling products (like you do on Test My Store) in order for Test My Site to benefit your website, and Google gets down to business when it comes to providing you with exacting details and specific recommendations.

Let Us Help You Explore Google’s Free Offerings

Google never ceases to amaze, and the resourceful digital marketing pros at The Web Guys are here to help ensure that you maximize those gratis services they offer – along with everything else relevant to propelling your business forward. We’re here to help you round the corner of serious business setbacks that have been experienced throughout the world of commerce, so please don’t wait to contact us at (317) 805-4933 today to learn more about us and our services that we offer.