Wide World Of Web Design

Adwords, Adsense, Analytics … Awesome!
Google has always been one of my favorite things about the internet, because it’s just so darned helpful. Besides establishing itself early on as the Search Engine of choice, especially since Yahoo began it’s gradual slide in the rankings, Google has consistently been at the forefront of web technology with it’s seemingly endless arsenal of tools and gadgets, almost to the point where Google has become synonymous with the term “internet”, or known by many simply as the web itself. Besides the obvious examples of internet dominance outside Google’s realm, such as Facebook and YouTube, Google really has become the hub of cyber activity, or Control Central for many a webmaster, web designer, or web developer. There’s just so many freely available and indipensable tools that come packaged conveniently under one roof …….. in what I like to refer to as the House of Google!

So if you’re still one of the uninitiated, here’s what you should do …… get yourself a Gmail account (google email) which comes with 6600 MB of storage space, then set up and customize an iGoogle page which you can use as your Base of Operations or HOMEPAGE. iGoogle was one of the first and best examples of Ajax technology at work on a web page, with things like drag n’ drop modules and instant tabbing, and here is where you can also add tons of nifty Gadgets and store things like all your favorite RSS Feeds and Podcasts. Then, once that’s all set up, the real fun begins!

You can keep expanding your Google Account to include some really valuable tools, in particular Adsense, Adwords, and Analytics. With Adsense you can display relevant advertising on your web pages which in turn can generate income for you, based on how many times visitors click on those strategically placed ads. So, given that the payout is only a few cents per click, there is definitely a lot of motivation to improve your site’s SEO. Take the best case scenario of website entrepreneur Markus Frind whose Dating Site PlentyOfFish.com now attracts 1.2 Billion Page views per month, and at last count is making him somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000 per day, or $10 Million annually.

With Adwords you can avertise on Google’s network, and your exposure is determined by the budget you decide on when configuring your ad campaign(s). You can compose and customize your own ads, choose the keywords that will trigger your ads, and set up custom reporting to be emailed to you at selected time intervals.

Analytics , my personal favorite, is the complete toolset for collecting all manner of site statistics as Charts, Graphs, and Reports, all in the name of tracking visitors and trends so you can better monitor your web traffic, and I mean in ways I didn’t even know were possible … like what color shirt the guy from New Jersey was wearing when he visited your site for 53 seconds using a Mac with Safari web browser … while eating an apple !

Anyway, I strongly suggest you check these out, and if you aren’t impressed than perhaps someone should check your pulse. But wait, that’s not all, because in addition to these there are some other spiffy features that also can be accessed from your Google Accounts Product list, and they include things like Picasa, so you can share your images online, and Docs, where you can compose and share documents such as spreadsheets online, and Google Talk which lets you talk PC-to-PC, Instant Message, and transfer files. Sure, these last three features are also available from Flikr, Campfire, and Skype, but it’s also the convenience of having everything accessible under one roof instead of bookmarking several websites, and for that reason I say, what could be better than The House of Google ?