The Google products you've not heard of (but should have)

Most of us know Google as the search giant who dominates queries and advertising on the web, but what if we told you they were much, much more than that? You may have heard that Google recently changed its name to Alphabet in an attempt to become a ‘more conventional’ company, and this is largely to do with the fact that they’re not all about searches and CTR’s – they have a whole host of other ventures on the go.

Whilst they continue to operate under the Google name for their most important projects, including search, changing to Alphabet will allow their other areas to be run by separate bosses. We are constantly amazed at how much Google does, and there are some great tools out there that we’ve stumbled upon that you might not be aware of that could help you with your business. Take a look below for our best of the rest from the Big G:

Google Apps for Work

Perfect for small to medium businesses, Google Apps allows you to use work emails in a Gmail format (so yourname@yourdomain.co.uk), use Google Drive with 30GB of online storage, all of their apps such as Sheets, Docs and Slides, as well as hold hangouts and various other features. This suite of tools is like Microsoft Office in the cloud, and fantastic to use if you’re used to using Gmail & Docs already. It was built with the cloud in mind, so it works and syncs seamlessly across mobile, tablet and desktop, meaning everything is always updated and backed up.

It costs just £3.30 per user per month, or if you’d like access to unlimited storage (or 1TB up to 5 users), advanced admin controls for the drive and access to the Google Vault, then it’s just £6.60 per user per month – bargain!

My Maps

My Maps lets you create custom maps which you can share and publish online. It helps you map out things like cycling or hiking routes, highlight certain areas of land, drop pins and style all these up with colours, icons and labels. You can see how this would be great for business who plans trips or outdoor activities, and thanks to the Google Maps API you can embed these maps on to your site – magic!

My Maps Pro lets you add up to 10,000 layers, allowing you to create maps to your heart’s content!

Google Fonts

The saviour of designers and web developers everywhere, Google fonts makes beautiful fonts available across the web. But it’s not limited to the creatives – anyone can go on there, download the font they need and use it in any application. The beauty of Google fonts is that we know that if we use them on websites then they’ll work across browsers and devices, so there are no nasty surprises when you open up your website on your desktop, tablet or phone.

They’re also FREE and open source, so when you’re looking at your next project why not pop on and have a look?

Find out more about Google Fonts.

Google Ideas

The Google Ideas team builds products to support free expression and access information for people who need it the most. Their team of engineers, researchers and geopolitical experts focus on problems faced by those living in oppressed environments, trying to make the internet more free and open.

Their projects include things such as Project Shield uses Google’s technology to help protect independent news, human rights and election monitoring sites from server attacks in order to keep them online. These attacks stop the flow of information from oppressed societies into the wider world.

Find out more about Google Ideas.

Google Ventures

Google Ventures is Alphabet’s venture capital arm, investing in up & coming companies and helping them in areas such as design, engineering, recruiting and marketing. You’ve probably heard of some of their companies like Uber, Nest, Medium, Periscope & HubSpot. It’s fascinating to see just how much money Alphabet are investing in various start-ups, with the aim of making our home, and the world, more connected.

Simply looking through the list of ventures could help you stumble upon something that could be incredibly useful to you, and you never know they may just invest in you!

So there you have it, a list of just 5 Google products you might not have heard of. Let us know if you use anymore on Twitter!