Five years ago the world never could have imagined the places that Google’s search bar would take people.  In recent years, Google has set the bar so high for search engine technolgies that it doesn’t look like anyone will be exceeding their accomplishments in internet search anytime soon. The thing about Google is that it might have started with a simple search engine, however, today it has expanded into all various that help web designers with their websites.  The following are just a few of the exciting new capabilities Google has brought to the web.

1. Google has Web Master Tools that allow you to look at all your websites and see the top search queries for your site and who is linking to your site.  For instance we have 103 links to our Black Rhino index page – you can actually click and see who is linking to that particular page.  You can also see the most common key words Google sees.  Our top 5 is design, black, rhino, marketing, and logo. You can see where your website is linking to and how many people are subscribed to your website. You can also see  your site map and all the errors that exist within it. Furthermore, you can see crawler access, how often google has been crawling your site, how many pages per day, kilobytes downloaded per day, and time spent downloading a page.
2. Google also has Blogger which is a blogging system that people use. Most people are very familiar with Blogger so I’ll keep it short and sweet.  Basically, Blogger is a good addition to Google for web designers because blogging is a HUGE help with Search Engine Optimization.  By adding blogs to your website you not only make your website have more pages to be crawled by Google, but you also have more content for Google to connect users to. The more information you have on a topic and the more people you have going to your website the more important Google will think you are.
3. Feedburner is another important feature that Google has added.  Feedburner is a program that allows you to keep track of your subscribers. You can see who is subscribed to your blog, how they are subscribed, and which articles they are reading. It also has added tools to optimize, publicize, and monetize your site. In optimize you can make subscribing easier by applying clean visual format for your subscribers. You can also do SmartCast which makes podcasting much easier in feeds that normally cannot support it. It adds the elements that are required for a richer, more detailed listing in iTunes Directory. You also have SmartFeed which allows you to reach the widest possible audience while publishing a single feed on your blog. Publicize allows you to change your headliners, republish your blog on other sites, setup email subscriptions, and more. Monetize allows you to activate Google adsense for feeds and choose options that control how the ads are displayed in your feed.
4. Google Adsense is a program that allows you to sell advertising space for people’s ad’s on your website. These aren’t just any advertisements either, these are ads that Google chooses for you, but are completely relevant to your site’s content. It’s a free service by Google and you can earn money everytime someone clicks on one of your ads.
5. Google Analytics is an application that shows you how your customers found your site, how they explored your site, and how you can enhance your visitors experience. This will allow you to improve your overall site.
6. Then you have the Website Optimizer, which is Google’s free website testing and optimization tool. This tool allows you to increase the value of your exisiting websites and traffic by testing changes in your website content of your pages.
7. Then of course you have Google maps which I use on a majority of my sites. It allows you to put a map on your personal website of a location you want. It’s a nifty tool I must say!

Of course, there is much more … but I’ll leave that for you to Google.