The Top 5 Google Tools I Use Every Day

Hello, my name is Hugh and I am Google’s slut.

It seems as though only yesterday when I discovered this crazy little search engine named Google, which eventually replaced Yahoo as my search engine of choice. Nowadays, Google is all grown up, with a ton of tools and applications, from email to spreadsheets and blogs. Here, in no particular order, I have listed my top 5 Google applications I use daily. Most all of them have a business application, all of them are free (we like free).

1. Search. The granddaddy of them all, and the primary engine behind Google’s future domination of the world. It is because of their excellence at search that they can branch into other fields, such as

2. Email. Gmail is simply the best email client I have ever used. Incredible search capabilities, near unlimited storage space, awesome filtering capabilities; all those are good, but the conversations feature, where all emails with the same subject line are grouped together (your email to me, my response, your response to my response) is a Godsend.

3. Pages. Bet you did not know Google had webhosting, did you? Yep. Up to 100 MB free. As in free, not as in, advertising supported. This is great if you want a one page website to test an offer, say, but do not want to sign up for hosting somewhere. Simply redirect the url you own to the Google hosted page, turn masking on, and you are set.

4. Blogger. I host this blog and this blog on my own servers with Wordpress technology, but my start, like so many others, was on Blogger. I still use it to test out concepts, try mini-blogs for a given subject, or for the free photo-hosting (think about that one for a moment.)

Still the most flexible of the free blogging platforms, it also can be used as a simple website (for example, check out my friend’s e-commerce site selling book repair supplies at www.sicpress.com). Nowadays, they even redirect your url to your blog, so you can give out your “real” url, instead of your blogspot one.

5. Browser Sync. Do you have a work computer and a home computer, but the bookmarks you need are always on the other computer? Browser Sync to the rescue. It is a simple extension you get for the Firefox browser (you are using Firefox, aren’t you?) that talks between the two computers and syncs your bookmarks every so often. Add a bookmark to your work computer, it is on your home computer when you get home.

Google is the 800 pound Gorilla of the internet these days. There are other great tools and playthings from Google, such as You Tube, Picassa and Analytics, but these 5 are my favorite. If you have any favorite Google tools, please leave me a note in the comments.

NOTE: Darren Rowse at Problogger.net (a very helpful site, dedicated to helping bloggers make money) recently put together a group writing project, where all you had to do to enter was submit a blogpost mentioning your “top 5″ whatever. I have found a ton of new blogs this way, and will be linking to my favorites over the next few days. In the meantime, go over there and check out some of the other entries.

Category: List of 5, small business 34 comments »