G is for Google

It is true that Google is a huge operation. The capabilities of their network can seem staggering to a new comer. However, Google is a fabulous organization, they offer so many resources for us work at homers. Not only do they have a pretty great search engine, but you should sign up for an iGoogle account and access Google apps which include tools for documentation, email, request for information and contact forms. They are available for personal or business use. Google also has a lot of great website tools including: Adsense, Adwords, Analytics and last but not least are Webmaster Tools that you can use for bringing, monitoring and sharing traffic with your blog or website.

In a nutshell:
Adwords are advertisement for your business. They are definitely worth looking into if you are wanting to utilize SEM (Search Engine Marketing). As with almost all good advertising, it comes with a price. You definitely want to get your website established, and get your market research done before delving in to a powerful tool like Ad Words.

Adsense is an account that you setup and get code to put into your website to display little ads (from those people who use Adwords) of related content on your site, and then you get a little money for it each time someone clicks on your Google ads. But Beware: Do Not Click On Your Own Links. Google will know. Visit this post at darkbluesun.com for even more information about Adsense: Making Cents of Adsense

Webmaster Tools include:

Site configuration
Submit sitemaps, verify a crawler has access to search and index your site, and other settings here.

Your site on the web
Top search queries (what did someone have to type in to bring up your site in a search), Links to your site (which sites are linking to you), Keywords (the ones found most on your page) , Internal links (which sites are you linking to from your pages)

Diagnostics
Crawl errors (which you want to get fixed so google will visit you.), Crawl stats (the last time a Googlebot visited you), give HTML suggestions if your site code needs to be reexamined.

Labs allow you to fetch site info as a Googlebot and give malware details

Other search engine's Webmaster Tools:

You will also need to create accounts and submit your website to use these tools.


Bing Webmaster Tools(Similar to Google's webmaster tools minus a few features.)


Yahoo Site Tools (Yahoo is definitely the most thorough search engine when it comes to finding all of the sites that link back to you.)

Google Analytics measures how much traffic your website gets. And traffic monitoring conveniently leads me to my next tool.

D is for Documentation

Setting up your virtual filing system for all of your job listing interests, e-books and self written how to’s should be one of the first things you do when beginning online job research.


I love Google for the very reason that I can use the following tools to keep track of many important business documents:

1. Google's book search - with this, I have compiled quite an extensive library of e-books and business articles for small businesses and consulting.


2. Google reader keeps track of blogs I follow. (I recommend following Chris Brogan and CopyBlogger if you're into social media and blogging for business.)


3. And Google docs help me keep track of important documents. You can read, write, search and share all kinds of helpful office documents and templates.


4. Google Calendar is a great way to track when, how much and even where you do things. If it is a task you only do quarterly, bi-weekly or annually you should simply setup a recurring reminder!

Keep documents like e-mails that contain vital business information and file them in virtual folders for each client and business partner. The most important part of consulting is keeping track of your time and there are so many tools that can help you organize your information. My advice: try them out.

What tools have you found that work well for you?