As a small a medium size business you always have to be on the look out for services that you can use to make your hard earned dollar go further. Everyone knows Google is the king when it comes to search engines but did you know that they also offer some great services that will help you grow your business online. Here a list of a few of my favorites that you can integrate quickly to your online activities.

Google Adwords

Most business owner know by now what Google Adwords is. For those of you who don’t it is the ads that show up on the top and right hand side when ever you do a search on Google. They also show up on the content partner web sites when ever that page is shown. This is a huge network and reaches up to 80% of online users according to Google. This is a Pay Per Click model of advertising and you only pay for an ad when someone clicks on it. If you don’t have an account you can always sign up at http://adwords.google.com

Google Analytics

Having such valuable information like what keyword phrase someone searched to find your web site or what web site they came from to visit you could be priceless if you know what to do with it. Google Analytics enable you to track this type of important details of your web site visitors. It is also integrated with Google Checkout and Google Adwords to make your life a little easier. This service is free to use with your Google Adwords account. To find out more information on it go to http://www.google.com/analytics/ you can sign up for it inside your Adwords account.

Google Website Optimizer

This is a new tool that is still in beta but should be available Q1 of 2007 for everyone. With Google Website Optimizer you can use the power of Multi-variate testing to optimize your web site. Instead of using the traditional A/B split testing you can test several things at once giving you more information for your marketing dollar. This will be a very a great tool for those who decide to integrate it onto their web sites. You can visit http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/index.html to sign up and get additional information about it.

Google Local Search

Local searches are on the rise and Google current handles about 30% of them. If you have a business that caters to a geographical region then you will want to be listed with them. With more and more people every month searching for specific things in their local area it can be a vital tool for your business growth that currently not a lot of businesses are taking advantage of. You can go to http://local.google.com then look for “Add/Edit your Business” link to put your business online.

Google Checkout

If you are wanting to add some type of online payment processor but don’t want the hassle of setting up a merchant account then this could be a good solution for you. This will help you easily add features to help you accept money online. Since they are wanting to compete with such online payment processors like PayPal you can get some great deals for processing your payment through them. At the time of this writing they also will give you Adwords advertising credits for using Google Checkout. To get more info go to https://checkout.google.com

Google Radio ads

This is a brand new service that is only available to select advertisers but look for it to be available to the general public early 2007. This essentially will allow advertisers to buy radio spots just as easily as you put up your Google Adwords ads. This will make it so that you can track not only your online ads but also your radio ads as well. Google bought dMarc Broadcasting in January of 2006 to help them facilitate the transition to radio ads. If this takes off as well as the PPC ads did you will begin to see Google’s influence in the offline marketing arena shortly. When it does become available to the general public you will be able to find it at http://audioads.google.com

This by no means is a complete list of all of Google’s services but this are the ones that I like. If you keep an eye on what they do you can find some very interesting trends. Make sure you start by taking advantage of what a billion dollar company has to offer you and help grow your business today

**This is an article that I wrote a few years ago when I first started my Tampa SEO Company. I thought it would be useful to republish**

Most people know what 411 is and most kids don’t care that it will cost you money. Currently Google is looking at ways that it can ad this to its ever growing list of off line services. By dialing 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) you can be connected to what ever business you want.

Since this is still in the experimental stage it’s not always going to be available, but you can try since the price is just right…free. The service works the same way as the normal 411 call but it does make you wonder how Google will try and make money off of this venture. With all the different types of businesses they have been snatching up in the last couple of years you can only wonder what is over the horizon.

If you still want all the facts on the program check it out http://labs.google.com/goog411/