What Are the Best Free Google Tools?
We asked professionals from various industries to share their favorite free Google tools they find most useful in their work. From exploring the world with ease with Google Maps to teaching online with Google Classroom, discover the top 11 tools recommended by marketing managers, CEOs, and co-founders alike.
- Google Maps: Explore with Ease
- Google Forms: User-Friendly Surveys
- Google Keep: Organize Your Life
- Keyword Planner: SEO Specialist’s Tool
- Google Trends: Research and Discover
- Google Search Console: Optimize Websites
- Google Docs: Collaborate Seamlessly
- Google Sheets: Manage Data Efficiently
- Google Hangouts: Simple Communication
- Google Charts: Visualize Your Data
- Google Classroom: Teach and Learn
Google Maps: Explore with Ease
As someone who loves to explore new places, I have to say that Google Maps is an absolute lifesaver. Whether I’m in my hometown or traveling to a new city, I always turn to Google Maps to help me find my way around. Not only does it provide accurate directions to my destination, but it also shows me different routes I can take depending on traffic conditions. Plus, the street view feature is amazing—it allows me to explore a new area virtually before I even get there! And let’s not forget about the “explore nearby” feature, which helps me find great restaurants, cafes, and attractions near my location. I can’t imagine navigating the world without Google Maps—it’s an indispensable tool for any adventurer or traveler.
Natalia Brzezinska
Marketing and Outreach Manager, ePassportPhoto
Google Forms: User-Friendly Surveys
My favorite free tool from Google has to be Google Forms! This exceptional and incredibly user-friendly platform allows anyone to create custom surveys, questionnaires, contact forms, polls, and more in just a few clicks. It also allows for easy data sharing for collaboration efforts, as it works seamlessly with other Google services such as Drive, Docs, and Sheets.
The design process is super intuitive, with its drag-and-drop functionality that makes creating custom forms quick with no coding or design knowledge. You can even add images, videos, and GIFs to your form, which creates an interesting visual experience for your users—all at no cost!
What’s really brilliant about Google Forms is that you can choose how you want the data collected (e.g. short answer or multiple choice) while collecting data in real-time through participating computers or cell phones so you don’t have to wait until the end of a survey/form submission period before finding out your results.
Travis Lindemoen
Managing Director, nexus IT group
Google Keep: Organize Your Life
Google Keep is a favorite free tool at home and in the office. I can organize all of my lists, to-do’s, notes, and other important info within the app. I can access it by sharing it with clients or family members. It’s very user-friendly and makes it easy to keep my life together in a low-lift way.
Alli Hill
Founder and Director, Fleurish Freelance
Keyword Planner: SEO Specialist’s Tool
As an SEO Specialist and Content Writer, Google’s Keyword Planner is invaluable to me! With a quick input of potential keywords, I can easily see search volume, change over time, and level of competition. This helps me decide whether the keyword is worth optimizing for with SEO or worth creating content around. I can also easily see the estimated cost for the keyword if SEM would be a good fit. Why waste your time optimizing or writing content around a keyword or phrase that gets little to no volume or has so much competition that organic traffic is less likely? By using Google’s Keyword Planner, I can learn a wealth of information quickly to help me make the best decisions with marketing strategies. It helps me work smarter and not harder with significant results!
Beth Gillem
SEO Specialist, Dogwood Media Solutions
Google Trends: Research and Discover
Despite having been available for some time, Google Trends remains one of my top free tools offered by Google. It enables me to explore both current and past trends across various subjects, such as news or entertainment. By doing so, I can keep abreast of the latest developments and prominent topics being discussed online.
Google Trends also serves as a valuable research tool, allowing me to delve into the history of specific trends and observe shifts in public opinion. It facilitates the comparison of search terms and trends across diverse countries and regions.
In summary, Google Trends is an indispensable asset for anyone seeking to stay informed or to examine a particular subject.
Dilruba Erkan
Consultant, Morse Decoder
Google Search Console: Optimize Websites
My favorite free tool from Google is Google Search Console. It is an incredibly powerful tool that helps webmasters and SEOs track and improve their website’s performance in Google’s search results.
With Google Search Console, you can monitor your website’s performance, track impressions, and clicks, verify your website’s ownership, submit sitemaps, and more. It’s a must-have tool for anyone looking to optimize their website.
Jaya Iyer
Marketing Assistant, Teranga Digital Marketing
Google Docs: Collaborate Seamlessly
My absolute favorite free Google tool is Google Docs. It’s a powerful, user-friendly word-processing platform that enables seamless collaboration with team members in real time. The autosave feature, version history, and easy sharing capabilities make it an essential tool for creating and editing documents, whether you’re working alone or with a team, boosting productivity and streamlining workflows.
Max Desiak
Co-founder and Marketing Strategist, Spreadsheet Daddy
Google Sheets: Manage Data Efficiently
Google Sheets is a powerful cloud-based spreadsheet application that allows users to create, edit, share, and collaborate on spreadsheets. It’s an excellent tool for managing data, budgeting, or collecting and organizing data sets. The ability to create filters, conditional format, and leverage formulas makes it an advanced tool that can be used in various ways across many industries.
Gabriel Bogner
Co-founder, Mate Fertility
Google Hangouts: Simple Communication
One of my favorite free tools that Google has is Google Hangouts. This platform is created in such a simple format, which makes it easy to use and learn how to operate. It’s difficult to find a platform that works with all devices and is accessible (and free!). Google Hangouts can be used by anyone, which ensures I always have ongoing communication with my team. Since we use Google Docs a lot, it simply made sense to incorporate this other platform as our primary form of messaging. It beats using emails and ensures we all receive and send messages quickly.
Allen King, CEO, Fun Join
Google Charts: Visualize Your Data
Frequently overlooked by Google users, Google Charts is an efficient tool for creating visual charts and tools that display data on websites. This is a valuable marketing resource provided by Google that is commonly used on web pages with JavaScript embedded in them. Excel charts and tables look unprofessional, and Google has provided the ultimate solution.
Marco Genaro Palma
Co-founder, TechNews180
Google Classroom: Teach and Learn
Using Google Classroom for both in-person and online learning is highly recommended. Google Classroom is simple to use, learn, and share with other teachers, students, and families. It has a lot of features and is frequently updated with fresh integrations that provide users access to a variety of cost-free solutions made to improve teaching and learning.
Google Classroom has quickly established itself as a new method of managing and teaching in the online and distance classroom and is growing more potent than ever.
With the help of these tools, instructors may produce interesting digital learning resources that are also interactive and paperless. Assignments and group projects can be completed by students collaboratively, whether in class or at home.
Alex Constantinou
Managing Director, The Fitness Circle
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