Try These Five Google Tools for Your Website

Google provides a number of free tools that seamlessly integrate with Jetpack-powered WordPress websites. These tools can help you deliver even better experiences to your website visitors.

In turn, this can position you to accomplish your long and short-term goals, whether they’re increasing your site engagement, boosting your conversion rate, or successfully reaching a new audience segment.

Let’s take a look at five Google tools that can help cater to your site visitors’ needs, and position you to reach your goals faster.

1. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the gold standard of free analytics tools.

In addition to providing you with important data about your visitors’ sessions, page views, and time spent on your site, Google Analytics tracks the paths that these visitors take as they navigate from page-to-page on your website. You can even set up goal conversions to measure whether you’re successfully compelling your site visitors to take a certain action (such as signing up for your newsletter or reading related posts).

Based on this collected data, you’ll know whether or not to double down on your current strategies, or if you need to change something about your website if it’s not user-friendly. Maybe there’s a particular page that sees a high bounce rate (site visitors leave your website from that page). You’ll have the insight needed to edit the content on this particular page, perhaps making it more interactive with added images or video content.

Jetpack provides basic traffic stats for your posts, pages, and comments, using Site Stats; but configuring Google Analytics with a Premium or Professional plan gives you additional layers of useful insight, conveniently located right in your dashboard.

2. AMP on Google

Speed is one of the most important factors when delivering positive website experiences, especially on mobile devices. Your visitors expect your site to load quickly, and search engines prioritize websites that do this, according to MOZ.

AMP on Google developed from the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project, an open-source initiative that strives to deliver, “blazing-fast page rendering and content delivery.” If you’re not a site developer, you might not know where to start; but AMP on Google walks you through the process of preparing your AMP for Google searches, how to use Google AMP Cache to make AMP even faster, and how to track user interactions and page views on AMP with Google Analytics.

In Settings, you can enable AMP and even change the appearance of the AMP versions of your posts.

3. Google Photos

Some Google tools for your website will enhance your media workflow to improve how your site appears in Google search results. One of these tools is Google Photos, which allows you to link your devices and store your pictures in one central location.

Jetpack has taken strides to make Google Photos an attractive option for site owners looking for streamlined, automatic image backup and sharing options; but, if you think that Photos is only useful for professional photographers, think again. Google Photos can be used to manage your WordPress media, allowing you to access your existing photos from anywhere, so that you can embed them into your pages.

In addition to images, you also have a number of options for integrating Google account content into your site.

4. Google My Business and Google Maps

You probably want to put your best foot forward and rank well in Google search results whenever a prospective customer specifically searches for your website, or performs a general search for your services in the geographical region that you serve.

Additionally, you want your business listing to include accurate information. This way, when you appear in search results, those searching for your services can find and contact you directly.

This is why it’s imperative that you claim and update your Google My Business listing (if you have a physical location). This gives you control over the listing that generates from a Google search for your business. You can ensure that your contact and store location is accurate, so that customers don’t end up going to the wrong address by accident.

Once your profile is set up, you can embed your business listing into your Jetpack site by adding an interactive Google map to your site. A Google Map will show your potential visitors exactly where your store is based in relation to their current locations.

5. Google Search Console

Last but not least, there’s Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools). If you’re curious about how your website is performing in Google’s search index, then you can claim your site and analyze the wealth of information you’ll receive. This can help to ensure that your website is “Google friendly” and fully-optimized for search, as Google will alert you of anything that isn’t successfully understood by the search engine.

Verifying your website can be tricky if you’ve never used Google Search Console before, but Jetpack simplifies the process by including Google site verification within your Traffic settings.

Take a step towards delivering better site experiences

If you’re already using all five of the above Google tools for your website, it’s likely that you have a fast, well-performing site that delivers positive experiences to your visitors.

If you’re not using any of these tools from Google, it’s worth your time to investigate and try them on for size. With Jetpack, integrating them into your workflow should be a seamless transition.

Which Google tools do you use to enhance your website? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Victor Hammerle

I have over a decade's worth of experience in online marketing. I love to write. And Peticolas is the best.