In this guide, we review Google Sheets For Seo, Google Sites For Blogging, Google Tag Manager For Seo, Google Tools For Digital Marketing, Google Tools Used For Digital Marketing, and Google Trends For Seo.
Google Sheets For Seo
Tracking your SEO rankings is one of the most important things you can do to improve them. The problem is that tracking all of that data is a time-consuming task, and it’s not always easy to keep up with everything. Thankfully, there are some great tools out there that will help make this job easier! Today I’m going to show you how to use Google Sheets as an easy way to track your rankings.
Create A Sheet To Track Rankings
- Create a new sheet by clicking the “+” button in the bottom left corner of your screen and selecting “Google Sheets” from the drop-down menu.
- Add all of our keywords into one column, then duplicate this column and name it “Rankings” to keep things organized (you can also use other columns if you prefer).
- Set up your formula so that it will automatically update each time you enter a new rank value:
- Save the sheet as something descriptive (like “SEO Rankings”) and you’re good to go!
Create A New Sheet For Each Keyword Group
Now that you’ve got the hang of creating sheets, let’s move on to building a sheet for each keyword group.
You’ll want to create a new spreadsheet and call it whatever you like—like “Keywords” or “SEO.” I prefer to use the name of my company and then add “-SEO” as a short form, like “Odin-SEO.”
Next, create columns for each keyword in your group. In my example below, I have three groups: home page keywords (H1), product pages (P2) and blog posts (B3). You can see that I’ve made them bold so they stand out from other text on my sheet.
Add The Real Time Ranking Position
To find the real time ranking position, open up a new tab and go to google.com/webmasters/tools.
From there, click on “Traffic” and then “Search Analytics”.
You should see something that looks like this:
Next, you’ll want to highlight the URL of your website (in blue) and then right click it and select “Copy” or “Copy Link Address”.
Now that you have the URL of your website’s real-time ranking position in hand, let’s add it into Google Sheets so we can track our progress over time!
Manually Add Your Current Rankings
If you have a lot of keywords, it’s best to use the automatic method. If you’ve got a small keyword group, it may be easier to do it manually.
In order to manually add your current rankings, go to the “Add Ranking” section in Keywords Toolbar and choose “Manually Add Rankings”. Then type in the keyword name and rank (i.e., “Dog Walking” #1). You can also enter additional information like country, state/province, city or industry type if desired. This will prompt a new row for each keyword (or multiple keywords separated by commas) that was added manually.
Prepare For The Future With Custom Formulas
Custom formulas are one of the most powerful features in Google Sheets. With a combination of functions, you can create a formula to calculate anything from the weather to your next pay check. For SEO purposes, these formulas can help you track rankings in real time and even predict future positions.
Google has a lot of different tools that can help you track SEO rankings. Using Google Sheets is my preferred method because it’s so fast, easy, and gives me exactly what I need.
Google has a lot of different tools that can help you track SEO rankings. Using Google Sheets is my preferred method because it’s so fast, easy, and gives me exactly what I need.
- I want to know where my site ranks for each keyword in the top 10 search results on Google.
- I want to know how many pages are in the SERPs (search engine result pages).
- I don’t want to have to log into multiple accounts or use a tool that requires me to copy/paste URLs every time I run it (yuck).
Google Sites For Blogging
Considering using Google Sites to build your website? In our Google Sites review, we’ll help you decide if it’s a good option.
Google Sites can be a workable solution if you want a free way to build a very, very simple website. However, for most people, it would be worth investing a little time and money to use a more full-featured website building solution, such as WordPress or a true website builder.
👨💻 Keep reading our Google Sites review to learn more about how it works, as well as whether it can handle your needs or you’d be better off using a different option.
In the latter case, we’ll also share some other great tools to build a website and how you can get started with them.
📚 Table of contents:
Google Sites review: What does it do? 🤔
Google Sites gives you a simple way to build a simple website.
You’ll see the word “simple” a lot in our Google Sites review because that really is the best descriptor.
For some people, simple is okay. But for most sites, you’d be better off using a tool that gives you more flexibility, even if it does have a slightly higher learning curve.
You can build from a few pre-made templates or start from a blank slate. Then, you get a basic, but functional, drag-and-drop editor.
Google Sites relies heavily on other Google services to add features.
👉 For example, if you want to add a form to your site, you’ll use Google Forms. If you want to embed a map, you’ll use Google Maps.
Google Sites’ limitations
One important detail to understand is that Google Sites is very limited.
👉 For example, Google Sites doesn’t even offer a built-in blog tool, let alone eCommerce functionality. You can create a blog with Blogger and then link it to Google Sites, but that’s really not an ideal solution for any type of serious website.
Similarly, there’s no such thing as “plugins” or “apps” like you’d get with WordPress or website builders. This means you’ll struggle to add features or integrations beyond what Google Sites gives you.
With that being said, Google Sites can still be a helpful tool as long as you understand its limitations.
👉 For example, if you just want to build a basic web presence for a local business, it can get the job done. It’s functional enough for restaurants, service providers (plumbers, cleaners, contractors…), and so on.
However, if you’re planning to make search engine optimization (SEO) a part of your web strategy, you should go with a more full-featured tool, even if you fit into those categories.
How to build a website with Google Sites 🚧
To create a site, head to the Google Sites page.
If you’re already logged in to your Google account, you can get started right away.
1. Choose a template or build from a blank slate
To begin, click the option to expand the Template gallery:
Now, you can either choose one of the pre-made templates as your starting point or click the Blank option to build your site from scratch:
The template selection is very limited in comparison to other website building tools, but you might be able to find one that you like.
👉 For this example, I’ll choose the Restaurant template.
2. Customize your homepage
Now, you’ll be launched into the visual, drag-and-drop Google Sites editor.
Though it’s limited in terms of what it can do, the Google Sites editor is very simple and intuitive. This is one of the big advantages of Google Sites (as long as you’re building a simple site).
Here are some of the main things that you can do:
👉 For example, if you want to add a form, you would click on the Forms option on the right. You can then select a form from Google Forms. If you haven’t created any forms yet, you’d need to head to Google Forms to do that first.
Again, the downside is that the builder is limited in terms of the content elements and design options. A WordPress page builder plugin or a website builder like Wix will give you significantly more control over your design (though at the expense of adding some complexity).
3. Add new pages if needed
If you only want to create a single page, you can skip this step. It’s totally fine to create a single-page website, and many people even prefer that approach.
However, if you want to create multiple pages, Google Sites does support that. Just click the Pages option and then the plus icon at the bottom of the sidebar:
When you create a new page, it will automatically show up in your menu, and you can customize it using the same editor:
You can also add custom content to your menu by choosing the New link or New menu section options that appear when you hover over the plus icon.
This system is fine if your page has fewer than ~10 pages, but it can quickly get complex if you have more than that. If you’re planning to build 10+ pages, WordPress’ content management system is much more robust.
4. Edit your theme (optional)
Your theme controls the main colors and typography for your entire site. You can adjust it to quickly change those across your entire site.
If you’d like to do this, just go to the Themes tab:
5. Configure settings
If you click the gear icon on the top menu, you’ll open a popup that contains a few useful settings.
Most notably, this is where you can link a custom domain name and set up Google Analytics to track what’s happening on your site.
Google Sites does include some basic SEO settings. But again, it’s very limited, which is why Google Sites isn’t a good option if you want to use SEO to grow your business.
6. Publish your site
Once you’re happy with your site, all you need to do is click the Publish button in the top-right corner and your site will be live.
Google Sites pricing 💳
Google Sites is 100% free forever. We’d say that free is a fair price for Google Sites.
Beyond its simplicity, that’s pretty much the only other thing that’s attractive about Google Sites as a website building tool.
There are only two potential costs of using Google Sites, neither of which comes directly from Google Sites.
The first is if you want to use a custom domain – e.g., yoursite.com instead of sites.google.com/view/yoursite.
Google Sites does not charge you to use a custom domain, but you will need to purchase the domain itself. Typically, this will cost you around $9-$12 per year for a .com domain name if you use a cheap domain registrar.
The cheapest option is Cloudflare Registrar, which would cost you just $8.57 per year to purchase your domain name.
The second potential (but unlikely) cost is storage. The storage for your Google Sites websites is linked to your overall Google account. That is, the same storage that’s available to you in Google Drive and Google Docs.
Most websites won’t take up much space at all. But if you’ve already used up most of your Google account storage limit and you want to host some large files, you might need to spend a couple of dollars per month to increase storage (which would also increase your storage in Google Drive and so on).
Google Tag Manager For Seo
Just recently someone told me they stumbled upon the Google Tag Manager and had no idea how it worked or why it mattered. Believe it or not, this tool has been around since 2005 and it’s free, easy to use, and helps give you a little bit of control over your code snippets and tags (aka no more bothering the dev team). Needless to say it’s an excellent tool that, although it was slow to burn for some, is something just about every small business could use to propel their digital marketing efforts forward. If you need a small tutorial and a way to get familiarized, look no further.
Understanding Tags and Why They’re Needed to Help Your Website
Google Tag Manger is all about the tags and code snippets associated with your website, so it’s important you first understand the purpose of a tag, where you find tags, and how to use tags correctly.
A tag is essentially just a snippet of code that helps you measure traffic, monitor your online campaigns, and learn about user behavior. They essentially help give you all of the information you need to make successful decisions for your digital marketing strategy. A few popular tags include Google Analytics, AdWords, AdRoll, Crazy Egg, Floodlight, and any customized tags you choose to create. Unfortunately, all of these tags and different code snippets that are needed can get confusing, which is where the Google Tag Manager comes into play.
Having your tags and code snippets organized will help improve user experience and help keep your site up and running efficiently. According to Google, it’s easy to have redundant or incorrectly applied tags, which can distort your measurement and result in duplicate costs or missing data. With the Google Tag Manager you can eliminate these problems and run your campaigns when you need them.
A Quick Look at How the Google Tag Manager Works
The Google Tag Manager allows you to update two things:
The GTM helps save you time and helps you mange your code if you have several different tags associated with your website or if you need to debug your code if something wasn’t working right. It’s also worth mentioning that because placing tags on your webpages helps you have a cleaner code, your site speed could actually improve.
I also highly recommend checking out a video Google created that explains in more detail the Tag Manger and why it matters.
How to Get Started with the Google Tag Manager
If it seems daunting at first, don’t sweat it. Once you get started going through the setup process you’ll start to understand how it all works. Below is s step-by-step guide to getting started with the Google Tag Manager:
Step #1: Create an Account and a Container.
Sign in here. Once you type in the name of your business (or whatever you want to use to indicate your website) you will be asked to set up what is called a container.
As you can see in the little gray box below, most websites have a container for each website or mobile app. Containers include tracking tags like Google Analytics and AdWords. I always recommend including your domain, but if you have a blog or certain landing pages where you want to use the GTM, then you can put those URLs in this same container if they are subdomains of your website.
Step #2: Add Snippet of Code to Your Website
Once your account and container is created and you click the blue button, you’ll be shown a new page with a snippet of code. You use this code on your site just after the opening tag and it should be pasted onto every page of your website where you want to use the GTM. You will also notice that at the bottom of the page you have quite a few options to add tags. You can add them later, but I recommend at least adding Google Analytics right away, which brings us to our next point.
Step #3: Add Tags Including Google Analytics.
If you click on, for example, the Google Analytics button as shown above in the screenshot, you’ll be taken to a new page that asks you to fill in information about your Google Analytics account. This includes letting the tool know whether you have a Classic or Universal account as well as your Google Analytics ID (if you don’t know how to find your ID, it tells you how right on this page, which you can see below in the screenshot).
Remember: You will not need your Google Analytics code once you have the Google Tag Manager.
Step #4: Add a Firing Rule.
As you can see in the screenshot above, you can add what is called a Firing feature. This means that if you have certain rules you want your Tag Manager to know about certain pages, you can add them here. You can choose from existing rules, select All pages (usually a good option for beginners), or create a new rule.
Extra Suggestions: On this same page you can add what is called a Blocking Rule as well as go into Advanced Settings, which allows you to enable a custom tag firing schedule or add different versions to each container. The options you have go pretty deep, so I recommend checking out this link once you have a feel for how the tool works and are ready to move on to more custom and advanced features.
Step #5: Click Publish.
Lastly, the tool will show you a preview of what you have just setup and you can click Publish.
Then what? You can constantly go back to your GTM dashboard and add new tags or make changes to your containers at any time by simply signing in to your Google Tag Manager dashboard. In the above example we went through the Google Analytics tag, so that means that the code for Google Analytics will be working and information will be logged to your account.
The Takeaway
It might seem like a lot of busy work when you could just use Google Analytics (like you probably already had set up in the first place), but remember that you have options for all of your other tags. They’re all in one place, so the more you use the tool the more beneficial it will be.
Google Tools For Digital Marketing
Google sites for blogging
- What is a Google site?
A Google site is a website built on the same platform as Google Docs, Drive and Gmail. You can create your own site by signing up for one of many free options such as Blogger, WordPress or Wix (which also has paid options).
- How to sign up for a Google Site:
Go to google.com/sites and choose Get Started. If you don’t have an account with Google yet, click Sign Up For Free. You’ll be asked to enter some personal information and then choose whether you want to create a custom domain name or use the default google.com address for your new site (we recommend choosing custom domain!). Once that’s done, a window will pop up with several templates that you can start building pages from right away—or if none of them fit what you want exactly, click Create A New Page At The Top Of Your Dashboard And Start From There! We recommend checking out our guide which will show how to add new pages/sections as well as how users can edit these existing ones so they’re not just stuck with what
How to sign up for a Google site
- Go to sites.google.com
- Click “Sign in” or “Create site.”
- Choose a domain name for your new site, such as [yourdomainname] (make sure it’s not taken!). This will be the URL of your blog, so keep it short, simple and easy to remember!
- Write some content for your site—you can add text or images right away; Google Sites will let you know when it’s ready for more content once you’ve added some initial pieces!
Choose a domain name
Choosing a domain name is an important step in creating your website. It’s best to choose one that is easy to remember and short and simple, so you don’t have to type it out every time you want to share something on the web.
Here are some guidelines for choosing a great domain name:
- It should not be already in use by someone else (e.g., if you want “myblog,” make sure no one else has registered “myblogblog”).
- Keep it short—the shorter, the better! Short names are easier to memorize and they’re less likely to be confused with other sites or misspelled when typed by humans (like us). Shorter names also tend to load faster than longer ones do because there’s less data for your browser or search engine crawlers to process at once. As far as how long the URL should be… well… It depends on how complicated your topic is! If you’re writing about politics then maybe having lots of words isn’t necessary but if its about cats then yeah! Be descriptive!
Set up your site and choose a theme
Now, it’s time to set up your site and choose a theme. Start by choosing a domain name. You can do this through Google’s own Domain service, or use another provider like Namecheap. Once you have your domain name, head over to Sites and create a new site from scratch (or use an existing one). Add all of the details about your blog post, including title and description information as well as tags for search engine optimization purposes. Remember to add social media share buttons next to each post so that readers can easily share with their followers on Twitter/Facebook/etc., too!
Once you’re done setting up everything in “Site Settings,” go back into each individual blog post page by clicking on its URL link at the top left corner of any page within Google Sites (e.g., https://sites.google) where it says “Blog” beside it). Then click on “Portal” in order for this specific page’s layout options such as fonts used throughout text content areas; embeds such as videos embedded directly into posts using HTML code etc.; overall color scheme
Publish your blog post
When you are ready to publish your blog post, click the Publish button at the top of your page.
- Choose a Category: Select a category for your post from the drop-down menu. For example, if you want to share pictures of your trip to Hawaii on Facebook, choose “Family” as your category.
- Add Title and Description: Type in or paste in a title for your post and write some text describing what it’s about. This text will appear below all other elements on Google Sites such as images or videos when someone views this page online. You can also upload up to five images or videos here by clicking Add Image/Video next to each field where you enter content (such as “Add Image”). Click Save when finished adding all of these elements so that Google Sites knows where they need go within its design template system before publishing!
A blog on google sites is free and easy to set up.
Blogging is a great way to share your knowledge and expertise with others. You can use Google Sites to create a blog, website or portfolio for your business. It’s free and easy to set up!
Google Trends For Seo
Google Trends is a free tool from Google that provides data and graphs on the popularity of specific searches in Google and YouTube.
Google first launched Google Trends in 2006. The most recent version of Google Trends was released in May of 2018.
How to Use Google Trends for SEO
1. Find Search Volume Trends
Type a keyword into Google Trends…
…and see that keyword’s trend over the last year.
This feature is SUPER helpful.
First, you can easily find keywords that are becoming super popular.
That way, you can create content around keywords that more and more people are searching for.
For example, check out the trend for the term: “OMAD”.
(Fun Fact: OMAD stands for “one meal a day”.)
As you can see, this keyword is blowing up right now.
But if you only used a traditional keyword research tool, you wouldn’t see the trend. Just the raw search volume number.
In fact, Semrush says that this keyword only gets 18.1k search per month.
But thanks to Google Trends, we know that this 18k number is only going up and to the right.
That 18k will probably become 30k, 40k or even 400k over the next few months.
Which makes this an excellent keyword to get in on right now.
Second, Google Trends can help you AVOID keywords that are becoming less popular.
For example, let’s say you wanted to create a post about “business dashboards”.
Well, according to Google Trends, that keyword is fading fast.
So you probably want to go with another keyword.
Pro Tip: Expand the timeframe to the last 2-3 years.
By default, Google Trends data is from the last 12 months. But it’s hard to tell the difference between trends and fads. This is why I recommend looking at the trend over the last 2-3 years instead.
Expanding the date range also helps you avoid seasonal keywords. If you only look at the last 12 months, seasonal keywords can look like legit, trending terms.
But when you expand the timeline, you can spot keywords that have yearly seasonality spikes.
2. Find Related Keywords
This is actually my favorite feature inside of Google Trends.
Sure, it’s nice to see how a keyword is trending.
What makes Google Trends REALLY powerful is the fact that it bubbles up new, trending keywords.
First, run a Google Trends search just like you normally would.
Then, scroll down to the “Related queries” table:
This is Google’s list of keywords that they consider closely related to what you just typed in.
But these aren’t just any old search terms. They’re trending keywords.
In fact, Google will show you the exact % search volume increase for the related searches on the list.
3. Find “Breakout” Keywords
You might have noticed that Google sometimes replaces a % growth with the word “breakout”.
According to Google, “breakout” means that Google doesn’t have enough search volume data for a meaningful “before” and “after” % difference.
So for any search term that’s growing more than 5000%, they mark it as “breakout” instead of noting the exact percentage.
In my experience, these “breakout” keywords are some of the best keywords out there.
Because they’re not competitive yet!
This means you can get a foothold on Google’s first page before the keyword goes mainstream.
For example, look at the breakout search term “how to add hashtags to YouTube videos”.
Even though this search term is already super popular, it only has a keyword difficulty score of 1.
Then, when the keyword goes mainstream, you’ll be sitting pretty at the top of Google’s search results.
The downside of this approach is that some of these breakout keywords are fads. They’ll grow for a few months… and completely die off.
So I don’t recommend centering your entire business around a breakout keyword. But if you create a single blog post or YouTube video around a breakout keyword that ultimately dies off? Oh well. You at least got a few months of traffic from that content.
And if a breakout keyword continues to rise, you have an SEO first-mover advantage that’s going to make it tough for anyone else to come in and outrank you.
4. Uncover Related Topics for Blog and Video Content
I just showed you how to use Google trends to find related search queries.
But you can also use it to find related topics.
Google has a table next to “Related queries” called “Related topics”.
This is the same idea as “Related queries”. But instead of focusing on specific searches, this shows you which broad topics people are searching for.
For example, let’s look at the “Related Topics” results for OMAD.
These are all topics that Google considers closely related to the term you just typed in.
And you can create an entire series of blog posts, videos or social media posts on these related topics.
Of course, you still need to drill down for each of these topics to find specific keywords. But the topics help you find related topics that are hard to come up with on your own.
Pro Tip: Toggle “Rising” to “Top”.
“Top” will bring up topics that aren’t necessarily growing. But they consistently get a large number of monthly searches.