So Google has tons of tools...from maps to blogs, google groups, etc... what is your best find from among Google's tools and have you used it in anyway to gain any extra traffic or gain any SEO advantage?
personally,..all tools from Google seem to be my best find. Google Mail - To keep in contact with my clients Google Talk - Informal, quick way to keep in contact with clients Google Calendar - To set goals for my site Google Notebook - To keep track of cool SEO notes or ways to improve my site Google Analytics - To understand patterns and learn from my visitors on how they ingest my content Google Sitemaps - To get indexed better Google Maps - To find that place im going to since im horrible with directions Google Earth - Just because its awesome and you can see the world if you cant travel As for SEO improvement - Definitely Google Analytics and Google Sitemaps. Have i used these tools to gain traffic? Yep, im an analytical freak. i constantly monitor my traffic. Understanding your traffic and knowing what is working on your site and what doent from your stats can mean 100 uniques or 10,000 uniques. seriously. ive grown over the years and im increasing visitors constantly from tweaking my site dependent on my analytical stats from google. As you can see Google owns me. But i honestly couldnt live with out them...well i could..but still.
I agree with everything that timallard mentions and may I add Google Docs. They just keep pumping out great stuff!
I find G sitemap very useful. Whenever I launch a new site, I always submit my sitemap there. Also they can show you internal and external links now, that's great! Never use analytics though, I use other trackers such as countomat and statcounter.
i use the analytics and webmaster central. i don't use much of tools. anyways, i like the google groups! they have a group for every tool that they make!! cheers
I would like to add Google Suggest here. It is a fantastic tool that gives you related keywords. No doubt about Google Analytics. Always handy to know your traffic pattern. Google sitesmaps are good for new sites, to let google know of all the pages. Google products are always quality products...
Has anyone found any improvements to PR and rankings after they have registered (if the site is applicable) with google local? I mean the full postcard in the mail process and stuff. I think this may be an untapped way of gaining some fairly easy authority for sites, but I also understand that not all sites can get official registered. --ryanj
Very difficult to say. It would not make your site an "authority" as you suggest, but I do believe it does add an element of trust. The fact that there is a real brick & mortar location would be in my view, somewhat valuable info for G. /*tom*/
I like TiSP personally www.google.com/tisp But actually my favorite "tool" is the search engine itself!
It is just pertaining to your site. It doesn't show related keywords and search volume like wordtracker.