Google® has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. It would be hard to imagine a web without Google®. For that matter, it would now be hard to imagine a world without Google®. As frightening as that may seem to many people, it is none the less true.

For better or worst, Google® has permeated into almost every aspect of our everyday life. Being Googled is now a common expression and an act carried out by millions of users around the world each day. New Google® products and services are coming on stream at a frightening pace, further increasing Google’s impact on our lives.

Despite this dominating presence, many people still don’t realize Google® offers some excellent free marketing tools for marketers and webmasters. Marketing tools which can prove extremely valuable to any webmaster or marketer trying to promote their sites or products online. Useful tools that will make your promotions easier and much more profitable.

Don’t be fooled by the ‘free’ label, these marketing tools might be free but there are also valuable. One even wonders why Google® would be giving away these tools and services for free? It probably makes good business sense in the long run, by providing these free tools Google® is fostering a lot of company good-will and building up the Google® brand name in the process. Good PR is good business.

Every marketer and webmaster should be taking advantage of Google’s good-will and snapping up these professionally run services and marketing tools. Here’s a quick run-down of the 12 most valuable free Google® Internet marketing tools:

1. Google® Analytics
   Perhaps the premier marketing tool offered by Google®. It will prove helpful to both the marketer and the webmaster. Google® Analytics gives you a daily snapshot of your web site. Google® Analytics analyzes your traffic, where it comes from and what it does once it enters your site. You can monitor up to three sites for free. Google® Analytics is extremely valuable in analyzing your marketing funnel, it tracks all the steps leading up to your sales or checkout page. Vital information for raising your conversion rate and ROI. You may be placed on a waiting list for this highly in demand service from Google®.
2. Google® Sitemaps
   Webmasters can use Google® Sitemaps to almost instantly place newly created pages on their site into the Google® Search Index. This is an XML file that is uploaded to Google® as new pages are added on your site. Needless to say this can be a valuable service for any webmaster or marketer who wants to get their information on the web quickly.
3. Google® Alerts
   Be notified when someone or another site lists your site or mentions your name. Great way to keep track of all your online activities. Great way to monitor all your online business interests and products.
4. Google® Froogle
   Froogle is Google’s price directory! It simply lists all the cheapest prices for different products on the web. For marketers and webmasters who are promoting products, it should be studied and analyzed. Optimizing your site’s content for Froogle may prove to be very beneficial. Follow Froogle or Google® directions exactly on how to list or display products on your site. Froogle will spider your site and display your prices and products to thousands of targeted customers. That, as they say, is priceless.
5. Google® Checkout (see the Smugglers Bay Example)
   Not exactly free but for those marketers who use AdWords for every $1 spent on AdWords you can process $10 for free. You can also place the shopping cart logo on your AdWords ad and take advantage of the prestige and trust the Google® brand name has built up. Over time marketers may find this tool to be very effective and valuable.
6. Google® Blogger (see the Smugglers Bay Example)
   Blogging has become vitally important to the health and functioning of your web site. No site should be without at least one blog and RSS feed. Creating a blog (online journal) on the topic of your web site or product will bring in extra traffic and targeted customers. Blogger is a simple free blogging service that even lets you publish or post your blog files to your own web site server. Keep in mind, each blog has that all important Google® Blog Search bar.
7. Google® Toolbar
   Try the new Google® Toolbar for your company or business. Integrates countless features with all your employees or corporate network. These could include a common customer database, company calendar, financial news,etc. Keep in mind, Google® also ranks every page it indexes on a scale of 0-10. While it is important to know the Page Rank of your own pages, it is even more important to know the PR of your competitor’s pages. You can use the toolbar to get the PR of each page you’re visiting. Extremely helpful information for webmasters and marketers to know when forming online linking or business arrangements.
8. Google® Groups
   Every marketer knows the important of having a large contact list of people with a similar interest. Social networking will play an ever increasing role in your success on the web. Just look at the growing popularity of sites like MySpace and LiveJournal. Google® groups is another form of social and business networking that every marketer should be aware of and pursuing.
9. Google® Adsense
   One simple way to monetize your web content is to use Google® Adsense. Just place the Adsense code on your site and receive a check from Google® each month. For webmasters who are not really into online marketing (do such creatures exist?) Adsense can be a painless way to earn extra income from your site. For professional marketers using the Adsense system can supply a tremendous amount of marketing information on the keywords in their particular niche. It keeps the marketer informed on what keywords are being bid on and how much advertisers are willing to pay. Adsense also has an excellent real-time tracking system you can use to keep track of all your important web pages.
10. Google® Writely
    A recent addition to Google’s stable of free products. Writely is a full featured online writing editor with spellcheck and great collaborating features. It also lets you publish your content directly to your blogs. One feature that may be of interest to marketers, it lets your save files in the popular download format of PDF. Lets face it, until video takes over the web in four or five years time - the written word is still king on the net. It is the medium that markets, promotes and sells your content or products. Writely will help you write better.
11. Google® Calendar (see the Smugglers Bay Example)
    It may sound a bit odd that I’m claiming you can use your Google Calendar for a marketing tool, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! These are some of the ways I use Google Calendar in my client work. Let’s say your company puts on a regular event that your customers want to know about but you often hear excuses like, “my email spam filter must have caught it…” And so your event goes okay, but not stellar.   You can continue to send out emails. That’s a good idea. But you also could start using XML feeds from a calendar format to let people know what’s on your schedule. This is just another way to let people access your information – via an RSS/XML feed. Public Calendar feed: You can make your calendar available in XML so that anyone with a feedreader can grab it and keep up to date. Embed the calendar on your website. With a few clicks, you can insert your upcoming events in a calendar form on your website. Shared calendars: Now this tip goes in two ways, private and public. One, you can share your calendar privately with a select set of people. You give them the url and they can go see it, but that person could also share the URL with someone else and they could see it too. So private is not exactly accurate. You can make the calendar totally public and people can add it to their own calendar (as I’ve done with the above example) or also grab the XML feed. You could also create a public service option, too, and help announce other local events. All the while keeping your brand and ideas in front of your local community.
12. Honorable Mention - Google® Trends
    This Google® program will let you search popular trends, important for marketers searching for the latest hot product to promote. You can also break down these trends by different regions.
    
    Final Note
    Please take note that signing up for a Google® account will usually help you in obtaining most of these free services or programs. Some of these programs may have to be applied for individually. But be assured, all these free Google® marketing tools are well worth your time and effort. They will make your marketing easier and they will help any webmaster or marketer run their online business more efficiently.