Since the moment it was launched in 1997, Google has been the number one search engine to find information on the internet. It helps individuals to search and find relevant information on a myriad of topics, facts, recipes, services, etc. However, Google has gone far beyond being only a search engine.
Over time it has improved and enhanced itself in a way that it now provides a full package of services and products that come in handy in every sphere of our life.
With Google integrated in our lives in one way or another, WordPress couldn’t have been missed out. Whatever niche or topic your website is focused on, I bet you’ll need to use some of the Google services to keep it running efficiently, be it an analytics tool or simple typography fonts.
There are lots of plugins in the WordPress directory that are built to bring Google services to your website, and I would like to give a shout out to the best ones out there. Below you can find 10 best WordPress Google plugins that make Google integration with WordPress a breeze.
WordPress Google Maps
One of the most popular Google services is Google Maps, that’s why WP Google Maps plugin comes first in the list. It’s an advanced WordPress plugin that allows you to add responsive Google Maps on your website. It supports road, traffic, satellite, terrain and hybrid map styles and allows you to add unlimited markers and overlays on the maps. You can give unique styling options to the maps with the available themes and map skins, and also use its icon builder for creating custom marker icons. The plugin allows you to add custom descriptions, images and links to the markers, and features advanced marker listing options. Its store locator and get directions features are great ways to help your visitors find and get directed to any location easily. The maps also support polygon, polyline, circle and rectangle layers, and allow you to live preview every single change you make to them.
WordPress Google Analytics
With your Google Analytics account you can get a full picture of your website performance. So, why not access all the stats and reports directly from your WordPress dashboard with Google Analytics WD plugin. It allows you to see your website’s real time visitors and get in depth reports about your audience, site speed, visitor behavior, browsers and devices used on your website while interacting with it, and countries where your visitors come from. You can also link your AdSense, AdWords and Ecommerce accounts to the plugin and get tracking reports for each service as well. If you want reports for specific metrics and dimensions, its custom reporting feature is right for you. Also, enable the trucking of custom dimensions to see which post authors are read the most, or to collect data based on the post publishing year, tags and categories. The tracking reports are displayed in line, pie and column charts, and can be exported to CSV and PDF formats. Google Analytics also comes with an outstanding goal management feature, which allows you to track targeted activities and get notifications whenever a specific activity is accomplished. The plugin is absolutely responsive and easy to use.
Google Doc Embedder
Google Doc Embedder plugin allows you to embed various types of files directly to the pages and posts of your website, using Google docs viewer. The best thing about it is that it doesn’t require you to use any other software to be able to view the content. The files are publicly available to everyone coming to your website. It supports a myriad of file formats, including Adobe Acrobat (PDF), Microsoft Word (DOC/DOCX*), Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT/PPTX*), Microsoft, Excel (XLS/XLSX*), TIFF Images (TIF, TIFF), Apple Pages (PAGES), Adobe Illustrator (AI), Adobe Photoshop (PSD), Autodesk AutoCad (DXF), XML Paper Specification (XPS), and many more.
Google+ plugin
Google+ is one of the most popular social platforms and its integration with your WordPress website will help you to stay connected with your Google+ audience. With the Google+ plugin you can add +1 button to your website and allow your visitors to add you to their Google+ circles. The plugin comes with 4 different button sizes and allows you to customize its position. It supports posts formats, so that you can post directly from your G+ profile to your website. Of course, you can choose which posts are displayed. Google+ plugin is analytics integrated and lets you track the number of +1s on your posts. The plugin also comes with Buddypress support, to make sure your community members are tuned up with your G+ profile.
Simple Calendar – Google Calendar Plugin
Google Calendar is also a widely used service and is a great way to manage and share events. Its Integration to your WordPress website comes easy with the Simple Calendar plugin. It allows to create, manage and display various events on your WordPress website, and comes with a Google Calendar Integration which gives you the power to import your Google calendar events to your website on the fly. The events preserve all the details, descriptions and settings they had in the Google Calendar. The recurring events will be displayed based on the recurring rate specified.
Google Translate WordPress
Who uses dictionaries these days when there is Google Translate? It’s the fastest way to get words, sentences, phrases and web pages translated to over 100 languages without the need of looking them up in the dictionary. Moreover, the service is free, and available to everyone with an internet connection.
Google Translate WordPress plugin is a great way to bring that super cool service to your website. It adds a Google Translate widget to the upper right side of your website and enables your visitors to translate its content to all the languages that Google Translate supports. The user has to choose the language from the drop-down list and click the translate button. One of its new features allows you to get analytics on which languages your content is most translated to.
Google Places Reviews
People trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. Positive online reviews have a great impact on the customers and users that intend to use a service or buy something. Reviews add credibility to any business and ultimately lead to increased sales and exposure. Google Places Reviews plugin enables you to feature reviews on your WordPress website with an intuitive and powerful widget. The widgets come with a selection of stunning themes to best match your website’s look and feel. You can add detailed information for any service or business, mentioning their websites, Google+ page, location, etc. The widgets are highly customizable and come with various review and display options. You can add the reviews to any of your website posts in pages with the available shortcodes.
Easy Google Fonts
Website typography matters a lot for the readers. It is absolutely essential for better user experience on your website and, quite obviously, affects readability and content consumption.
With Easy Google Fonts plugin you’ll add custom Google fonts to your website theme and be able to preview the font changes with the WordPress customizer in real time. It comes with over 800 fonts, and automatically updates the list as new ones are added to the Google fonts directory. The wide range of the available fonts allow you to take full control over the typography of your website.
Google Adsense
Witten by Google itself, Google AdSense plugin allows you to add AdSense and Webmaster tools on your WordPress website and make money from advertising. AdSense integration with the plugin is super easy as you don’t have to generate AdSense snippets manually and then paste them into your theme’s PHP. It does that automatically, and lets you easily manage your ads with its simple point-and-click interface. You can enable mobile specific ad layouts to better serve visitors using mobile phones. You can also manually choose the locations for ads, and exclude specific pages from having ads on them. Your website verification with Webmaster tools is just a matter of a few clicks.
Custom Google Search
If you want to power up the searching functionality of your WordPress website then Custom Google Search plugin is a great choice to make. It eliminates irrelevant search results and makes sure your visitors always find whatever they are looking for. You can give custom styles to the search box and have it best match your website theme. The search box can be also added to the sidebars using the built-in widget. The plugin allows you to enable the custom search not only on your website but on multiple websites at the same time. You can choose to display the search results on the search page, with the pop up, or on the sidebars of your website.
These super cool Google WordPress plugins provide a seamless integration of various Google services to your website and make it easy for you to blog and better serve your visitors. They are the best in their categories and work out of the box with any theme and layout. Give them a try and make your blogging experience a breeze.
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