Top 10 Google Apps. for Small Business

by Andrew Patricio on November 27, 2009 · Comments

googleapps (1)

I love google apps. They’re a great free resource for small business. Here are 10 of my favourites:

  1. Google Analytics – The information you can get from Google Analytics is really useful and it’s free. It helps you analyse website and blog traffic and gives you important information that can help you improve your marketing. So get your webmaster to install it on your website
  2. Gmail - I love Gmail because you can retrieve your company email from anywhere, it has a great spam filter and it’s free
  3. Google Alerts – Is really handy as a research and information tool. Let’s say you’d like to know what’s being written about small business training. You create a Google Alert and it will email you an update on what relevant news has appeared that day about your chosen topic. You can monitor a developing news story, you can find out what your competitors are up to and much more
  4. Google Docs – I like Google Docs because you have access to your files from anywhere, you can work on documents from any computer, you can share documents,  you can edit documents from anywhere, and it’s free .
  5. Google Reader – In my business I don’t have time to visit as many blogs as I’d like but I need to keep up to date in order to succeed. I use Google Reader to read hundreds of blogs in one place. I love it and I know what’s going on in  my industry.
  6. Google Calendar – Get organised use Google Calendar to share your schedule, you have access to it from any computer and you can set it up to send you reminders via email or text messages
  7. Google Maps – You can’t live without this. Use it for directions, research, to check out street views and much more.
  8. Google Translate – I was recently on a business trip to Russia and used Google Translate to translate some websites in Russian I was visiting to do my research. It was really handy and free.
  9. YouTube – Use YouTube to educate your customers, to do product demonstrations and do it now.
  10. Google Local – Use Google Local to advertise your business, share promotions, coupons and much more.

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  • Starting using Google Reader because of this post and it's great so far. Even use it now to subscribe to this blog. Thanks!
  • Kelvin Duncan
    These are all great tools, but don't rely on Google Analytics too much as I am sure there are plenty of people like me who block such intrusive web activity recording using Ghostery, or similar or even by using proxy sites! I take great care over releasing personal details on the web. On iGoogle I also use Easy Notepad, Wolfram Alpha and Expenses Manager, plus a lot of news feeds. My iGoogle page is cluttered, but extremely useful.
    Don't forget advertising on Google, too - a great way of getting targeted exposure.
    Google docs is great for simple word processing and spread sheets. I use it for keeping directors and shareholders informed - even as a Share Registry.
    Finally, Linux users probably already know you can right click on the panel on the desktop and get all sorts of goodies permanently displayed: local weather, TomBoy Notes, essential system info and heaps of others.
  • Great list, thanks for sharing (and we've RT'ed)

    I would Google Apps (standard edition) as well - get GMail, Calendar, Docs PLUS Google Sites for $0

    http://www.google.com.au/apps/intl/en/group/ind...
  • Good list. As Google continues to roll out new offerings, this is a great building block you'll have to update. Just recently started using Wave, and when that's released en masse it's going to change the game in terms of everything from customer and internal collaboration to email. You can also use Google tools like Google Voice and Google Talk as your PBX and/or call center - http://www.onstate.com/virtual-call-center/goog...
  • mhill
    Great list Andrew. I just started using Google Calendar and it really makes it easier to work with other people when they can see your calendar. Google Insights is great to see search patterns.
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