It’s already been 18 years since Google was launched and much has changed throughout this time. Since its inception Google has evolved in so many ways, and literally revolutionized the way we connect to the World and get access to information. Today, however, apart from being a giant search engine, Google provides a wide array of tools and services that make our lives much easier.
WordPress.com also partners with Google and helps you integrate all those great apps and services on your website in a matter of few clicks. There are a huge number of plugins out there that are aimed at bringing Google services to your WordPress website, but only a few of them deserve a shout-out for their quality, outstanding functionality and ease of use.
Listed below are the 8 best WordPress Google plugins, and make Google integration to your website a breeze.
The 8 Best WP Google Plugins
Google Analytics WD
Google Analytics WD is the official member of Google Analytics Technology Partners Program, and this is why it comes with the most advanced tracking and reporting functionality. It allows you to track the overall performance of your website from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard. You can get detailed reports on your website's real time visitors, its audience, browsers and devices, traffic source and site speed, and also view your AdSense, AdWords and Ecommerce accounts stats. If you want to get stats and reports on specific data that the plugin doesn’t automatically track you can configure custom reports on any metric and dimension.
The PRO version of Google Analytics WD also lets you track custom dimensions based on the logged in users, post types and categories, authors, etc. Its goal management features are a great way to track targeted activities with specified conditions. Google Analytics WD is responsive, highly customizable and comes with various filtering options to exclude specific data from tracking.
Google Maps WD
You can add responsive and highly customizable Google Maps to your website with Google Maps WD plugin. It comes with a built-in icon maker and allows you to add unlimited custom markers to the maps. You can give the maps a personal touch with the available map themes and skins, and see all the changes with the live preview function.
The plugin supports road, traffic, satellite, terrain and hybrid map styles, and allows you to draw rectangles, circles, polygons and polyline shapes on them. With its store locator feature you can make it easy for your visitors to find stores or other locations nearby.
It also identifies user location and provides directions between two locations in driving, walking, bicycling and transit modes. The maps are responsive and are easy to customize with the live preview option.
Easy Google Fonts
With Easy Google Fonts plugin you can integrate over 800 web fonts to your website and completely transform the style and design of its typography. And the best thing is that you don’t have to possess any coding or designer skills at all. The plugin also allows you to create custom font controls that are instantly available in the WordPress customizer area.
You can see the changes made to your website typography with the live preview function. The plugin provides automatic font updates immediately as new fonts are added to the the Google font directory. It’s a great way to change your website typography and provide better readability and user experience on your website.
Google Translate
Google Translate WordPress plugin adds a dynamic Google Translate widget to your website and lets your visitors translate its content into any language. As you get the plugin activated it displays a widget on the upper left corner of your website, where your visitors can choose the language into which they want to translate the page or the post.
You can set the default language for translation and even track the languages into which your content is most translated with its analytics integration feature.
Google Doc Embedder
Using the free Google Docs viewer, the plugin allows you to embed various types of files to your website with no additional viewing plugins or tools required. The added files are available for public access and downloading if you enable the option for it.
The plugin supports 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), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), PostScript (EPS/PS), OpenType/TrueType Fonts (OTF, TTF), XML Paper Specification (XPS) and Archive Files (ZIP/RAR) file formats.
Google Forms
Google Forms plugin lets you embed published and public Google forms in your posts and pages, or display them in a widget anywhere on your website. It’s a great way to display survey, application, registration and other types of forms to your visitors. You can give the forms additional styling features with CSS and have them best match your website look and feel.
Google AdSense
With Google AdSense plugin you can display ads on your website and make money from advertising. It’s the official Adsense plugin written by Google which allows you to easily integrate AdSense and Webmaster tools to your website.
With its point-and-click interface you can easily manage the ads, and manually insert them in any location. Also you can choose pages to exclude from displaying ads on them. The ads are mobile-specific to ensure the visitors using mobile devices do not miss out the any of the ads.
Custom Google Search
Ever thought of powering up the default search engine of your WordPress website? Custom Google search plugin is a great option to do that. It replaces the search engine on your website with the one powered by Google, and lets you provide better search results to your visitors.
You can add the search box to the sidebars of your website and display the results in three different ways: on the results page, with a pop-up or with a widget. You can also give custom styles to the search results.
Conclusion
Google has a great influence on our everyday life, and WordPress is not an exception. Its integration with WordPress makes blogging easier and helps us better serve our visitors.
The plugins mentioned above, bring essential Google services to your WordPress website and are packed with useful features and functionalities.
If you have other Google related plugins for WordPress in mind, please let me know about them by leaving a comment below.
from Onextrapixel – Web Design and Development Online Magazine http://ift.tt/2cNYUUY
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