7 Simple-Yet-Effective Google Tools all SEO’s should know

Not getting results? Or maybe you’ve done everything you’ve read on SEO industry blogs but you’re still not finding results, or at least you’re not seeing the results you’d like to see. Well then quit you’re whinging, grab a cup of strong coffee, switch off your phone and get ready to take some notes.

Lets paint a scenario some of us know so well; you’ve been working on your site for weeks or months, building links, participating on social web 2.0’s, fixed and audited every possible problem that you could find on your site, but the results are minimal, and at worst its downright depressing – like having your two terabyte hard drive crash on you and knowing that you’ll never ever retrieve all your precious music, games, work backups and who knows what else.

Now this blog post is not about how I’m going to solve all your problems, nor is it that I have found a tactic that has never been found. This post brings to light that if you want to rank and perform well in Google then maybe, just maybe, it makes sense to utilise most of the TOOLS that Google makes so easily available – it’s just that you don’t know about it yet or haven’t read about it on your favourite SEO blog. These days it’s easy to become consumed by information overload, so grab your mouse and bookmark this freaking legendary post before you leave for YouTube to look at funny videos of celebrities falling off a stage.

Here it is in no particular order:

Google Product Search

Google Product Search

http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/products/submit.html

Now here’s the punch line that I love – “Increase traffic to your store with Google Product Search – for free”, and of course FREE being the operative word. These days even the most novice of internet users knows that Google product search takes thousands upon thousands of products which are sold on high end shopping sites, indexes them and shows you the consumer what’s available based on your searches.
As taken straight from their site: “Google Product Search helps shoppers find and buy products across the web. As a seller, you can submit your products to Google Product Search, allowing shoppers to quickly and easily find your site”. And my personal favourite: “Your products will appear on Google Product Search and may even be displayed on Google.com, depending on your items’ relevance.”

Take Action – All you need to do is upload your products with a data feed and Bob’s your uncle.
View success stories here.

Google Product Reviews Program

After submitting a data feed it only makes sense to use Google’s review program to create leverage through high quality user reviews that helps draw traffic to your products. “On Google Product Search, for example, we’ll feature your logo alongside representative reviews from your site, increasing brand exposure for your web store at a key point in the conversion process.” And this is all for Free!!

Take Action – All you need to do is become a client of one of these two reviews platform providers namely; Bazaarvoice or PowerReviews and contact them to let them know you would like to submit your user reviews to Google.

Submitting Your Content: Google News

Google News

http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=40787

Now I already decided to write about using Google News as a platform for creating traffic and it just so happens that SEOmoz literally just did a great post on how they gained 1000’s of visits from Google News, which pretty much covers everything I wanted to discuss and more – Way More!!

That said here is a bit from Google itself: “If you’d like your news site or blog to be included in Google News, please send us the URL and we’ll be happy to review it. Please note, however, that we can’t guarantee we’ll be able to include your site in Google News.”

Take Action – Get started using Google News here and BAM!! You’re in business.

Panoramio

It seems that Google is using images for places and areas with tags taken from Panoramio, so it goes without saying to try and take your own photos of your office building, restaurant or shop, upload it to Panoramio and optimise the images with the relevant tags to it.

Here is an example for reference: Here is the link to the original picture:

Panoramio

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/32614959

Take Action – Get started with Panoramio here. Please be gentle – no pictures of your friend’s mom!

Add and Ping your Blog

Taken from Google – “The Google Blog Search Pinging Service is for bloggers who wish to have their blogs crawled by Google and have them updated in Google Blog Search”. If you’re not on some of the bigger blog directories then this option is definitely worth the effort.

Add and ping your blog

Take Action – Add your Blog here: http://blogsearch.google.com/ping and access the Ping FAQ’s here: http://www.google.com/support/blogsearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=91323&rd=1

Google Video Sitemaps

If you’re into videos (Ok well who isn’t, really? Let’s be serious here) then this is definitely something that you need to look into ASAP.
Taken from Google – “Video Sitemaps are the best way to tell Google about your online videos so that they can be included in search results”.

Google Video Sitemaps

Don’t believe me? Fine, well then check out how much success my favourite TV Channel had through using Google’s Video Sitemaps technology. Read Discovery’s success story here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/videositemaps/casestudy-discovery.html

Take Action – Get started using Video Sitemaps here. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Aaaaaaaand Action!

Rich Snippets Tool

For those who don’t know, the snippets we’re talking about here are those little bits of descriptive text right under the Urls in the search results. The keywords displayed here are completely dependent on what the searcher types into the Google search box.

Rich Snippets Tool

These little snippets are crucial deciding factors in whether or not a searcher will click on your site. Google’s Snippet Tool lets you use structured markup to give you that extra bit of leverage you need.

Taken from Google – “By using structured markup to describe a business or organisation mentioned on your page, you not only improve the Web by making it easier to recognise references to specific places, but also help Google surface your site in local search results.”

Take Action – Get started using the Rich Snippets testing Tool here. http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
Resources:
http://maps.google.com/help/maps/richsnippetslocal/
http://knol.google.com/k/google-rich-snippets-tips-and-tricks#

Implementing just some of these tools is bound to make a significant difference in your overall marketing strategy. Remember to always stay on topic, focused on your keywords, and keep it simple.

[box type="info"]For more information please refer to these resources: http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/index.html http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/industries.html http://maps.google.com/help/maps/mapcontent/ http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/content_types.html http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/tools.html [/box]