All of us use Google Search all the time, but Search is only one of dozens of tools in Google’s online arsenal.  Here’s a rundown of 9 Google tools—many available to real estate professionals at no charge—that can help you market homes and build business.

1. YouTube.  Yes, we’re starting with the one you probably know best.  There are real estate professionals who use YouTube to show off properties, but it can be used in many creative ways—market information reports, homeowner how-to videos, behind-the-scenes portraits of your brokerage. There are so many possibilities.
2. Google Voice. With Google Voice you never have to miss another call and you don’t have to widely distribute your cell phone number.  That’s because this service lets you choose a phone number that will ring on your cell phone, your home phone, your office phone, or all three simultaneously, depending on the settings you choose. It can screen your calls, transcribe your voicemail messages and even allow you to set up different outgoing voicemail messages, depending on who’s calling.  You can port your existing cell number and use it as your Google Voice number or your can choose a new, separate number to keep from having to publicize your cell number indiscriminately.
3. Google Apps for Business. What if your brokerage didn’t have to buy software or servers?  What if you didn’t have to hire an IT consultant or fiddle around with upgrades, yet you and your team could have up-to-date software, customized e-mail, shared calendars, and cool collaboration tools? That’s what Google Apps for Business is all about.  For a modest monthly fee, you access the software and the business tools you need online.  Spend your time working rather than worrying about technology.
4. Google Calendar. Google Calendar helps you stay organized by offering you a desktop calendar that syncs automatically with the calendar on your smartphone.  You can make your calendar available to business partners and family members, and you can receive event reminders as e-mail or text messages.   It syncs with Outlook on Windows and iCal on the Mac so everyone can use it.
5. Google Places. When someone searches on Google for you—or another real estate company—Google pulls whatever it can find on the web and presents it to the searcher.  But you can take control of what Google displays by registering for Google Places.  Google Places lets you personalize what the searcher sees.  It’s like a Yellow Pages ad but better because you can include photos, information about how you market homes, or whatever else might be relevant to your customers.  It’s got great backend tools too, that let you analyze who’s searching for you.  And like so many of Google’s products, it’s free.
6. Google Alerts.  With Google Alerts, you can know what bloggers, the press, or the general public is saying about you or your brokerage.  Enter a search term in Google Alerts.  Whenever a news story, blog post, or video is added to the Internet that would appear among the top ten search results, Google alerts you.  Use it to find out what people are saying about you, to find out what your competitors are doing, or to keep abreast of changes in the industry.
7. Adwords. Write an ad. Choose the Google search terms (also know as “keywords”) that best suit your brokerage. Have your ad appear alongside Google search results when someone searches for your chosen keywords.  Pay only when someone clicks on your ad up to your budgeted amount.  It’s simple to use and has the potential to drive lots of new visitors to your site.
8. Gmail Canned Responses. If you frequently send the same information to people who e-mail you, you might want to try Gmail Canned Responses.  Canned Responses lets you compose a message, save it, and send it over and over again as needed.  For example, if you frequently send the same e-mail response to prospects asking about a home you’re marketing, you could put that information in a Canned Response and send it out as needed with just a few keystrokes. It’s even possible to set up Gmail filters so that a Canned Response goes out automatically in response to certain e-mail messages.  What could be easier?
9. Google Docs. Google Docs lets you store documents in the cloud and access them wherever you happen to be from any computer.  No need to carry files around on a flash drive or move them around from one computer to another.  Instead, upload your PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, or forms to Google Docs and access them whenever you need them. Google Docs also lets you give share your stored files with others and work on them together in real time.

So, what’s your favorite Google tool?