This is the first of a number of posts arising out of the Audiences 2.0 seminars, to remind course attendees of what was covered by Aileen O’Toole, and to provide a resource to those who couldn’t make it along.

Google’s aim is to sell us advertising, and being the enlightened organisation they are, they have given us a number of tools to help us realise how best to to spend our money, when we do buy their advertising.

However these tools are free, and in fact we can do a great deal with them to improve our websites, without parting with a penny. Over the coming months, posts on this site will go into use of these tools in greater detail, and within the context of organisations working in the arts. In the meantime, here are links to some of their free tools;

Google Analytics
Free, powerful and flexible website metrics – when you know how to use them.

Google Keywords
Use the Keyword Tool to get new keyword ideas for your website – when you figure out what words are most expensive in your area of operation, you can include these in the text of your website, in order to make your site more attractive to search engines.

Google Maps
Embed a Google Map of your location on your website, and you can add your organisation to Google Maps. Inclusion of a google map in your site can help bump your site up in the rankings.

Google Pagerank tools
Example of a Firefox add-on that displays the Google Pagerank of pages in your browser, including those on your own website.

Google Webmaster tools
Google Webmaster tools provides a free and easy way to make your site more Google-friendly. It can show you Google’s view of your site, help you diagnose problems, and let you share information with Google to help improve your site’s search visibility. Two key features of the Google webmaster tools are:

Submitting a Sitemap – this can help Google learn which pages are most important to you and how often those pages change.

Specifying your preferred domain – this tells Google which URL to use when indexing your site.

Feedburner
FeedBurner’s services allow publishers who already have a feed to improve their understanding of and relationship with their audience. Once you have a working feed, you can run it through FeedBurner and realize a whole new set of benefits.