Are These Google Tools Missing From Your Toolbox?

Guest post by Brian Lawrence

With so much information buzzing around about “Google-Tool-This” and “Google-Tool-That,” you might feel like you’re going in circles trying to make sense of it all, never feeling sure you’ve got everything you need!

That’s why we’ve simplified it for you. Here’s a look at some of what Google can offer your wedding business, with ways for you to access even more Google education from a wedding industry perspective. We want to make it so that the next time you look into your trusty Google toolbox, you’ll know exactly what to look for, and why.

Google Drive

First things first, have you heard about Google Drive? Google Drive is a nifty thing that allows you to create documents through your Google email account. You can easily share your work, and allow for multiple simultaneous editing with other Google Drive users (or keep entirely private), without ever having to use your email for communication at all.

With this great little gadget, you can create anything from a note, to a spreadsheet, to a form, to even a presentation. Plus, you can save yourself (and your co-workers and couples-to-be) hours of time by bypassing the need to use email to share information, make updates, or search endlessly for a detail lost somewhere in a distant email thread.

Looking (and acting) a whole lot like Microsoft Office meets Open Office (a free Office platform), here is your Google Office. Complete with a Cloud that will save work every 30 seconds (or when you make a change), as well as free 15GB of space to store your work (or all the way up to 16,000GB of paid space), Google Drive brings your behind-the-scenes work online, easily. You can even drag and drop documents on your computer right into Google Drive.

With free simple apps to add (including ones specifically designed for weddings, like this one we love: Floorplanner, which allows you to create floor-plans for events, or Forms for Google Drive, which allows you to easily create forms and surveys for your customers), Google Drive should be a part of your Google toolbox.

Google Analytics and Google Webmaster

Both of these tools are free services offered by Google. The only requirement- set up an account and add a small piece of code to your website. It is simple, and your web developer, or anyone with the FTP information of your site, should be able to add it without a hitch.

With Google Analytics, you can see the number of site visits over time, the average length of site visits, the geographic location of visitors to the site, the top visited pages on your site, and a whole lot more. This is a great tool to use if you want to make sure reaching the right population (like if you’re a Boulder-based wedding venue hoping to attract couples in the greater Colorado region).

Add Google Webmaster to this, and you’ve got a real power-tool duo. Webmaster takes the insights of Analytics to the next level, crafting a story of what is going on with your site, and how visitors are interacting with it.

While this little tidbit doesn’t cover everything you can get from Webmaster, pay special attention to the Search Queries report. With this report, you’re provided with a list that depicts what kinds of search your site is showing up in. Plus, it will tell you all about whether or not those searches resulted in people getting to your site. This is particularly great if you’ve listed your wedding business on platforms like WeddingWire and The Knot, where you’re hoping couples-to-be will see your business and make the decision to go with you. Now you can see if your business is getting the kind of attention you’re hoping for, and make changes to your online marketing accordingly.

Want to learn about more awesome Google Tools like these?

We’ve got some stellar reports available, for free, through our Facebook page.  All you have to do is “like” us by visiting facebook.com/sellthebride,  and click on “Free eBooks,”  to gain VIP access to all of our information and insights. We’ve kept it simple, but expanded it, to show you even more tools you can use for your wedding business. Just find us on Facebook!

About the Author

Wedding Industry marketing expert, Brian Lawrence is the founder and developer of Sellthebride.com a site with a searchable directory of almost 1000 different businesses that supply, serve and inspire wedding professionals and a 24/7 tool to use when thinking about growing your business, adding new suppliers, looking for industry focused services provides and making decisions on what to do with your advertising and marketing dollars.

Co-authored by Theodora Kimmel
With contributions from Erika Potter and Kimber Stancato