Many of us use Google as our search engine of choice these days. In fact a staggering 304 million searches per day are handled by Google.Google is keen to keep its place at the top of the search engines and so they have been very busy making sure that people continue to find what they are looking for when they use their search engine. They know that serving up relevant websites for their customers will keep them coming back for more of the “Google Experience”.This is especially great news for businesses because Google has been creating many free tools to help website owners to improve the quality of the traffic to their websites. Google wants to put you and your customers together because a happy customer for you is a happy customer for them.Did I use the magic words “free tools”? Yes I think I did.Google has lots of free tools that you really should be using if you are serious about your business. I’ve listed them below.Google ToolbarIt seems everyone wants you to use their toolbar for your web browsing and I generally avoid installing toolbars onto my browser. However I make an exception for Google. Their toolbar is quite good and it has one very useful feature.Their toolbar shows you Google’s page rank of the page you are currently viewing. This is great for those who are looking for sites to get links from or even when you are checking out the competition.It’s free and you can download your copy through the following link.http://toolbar.google.com/Google Analyticshttp://www.google.com/analytics/Google Analytics is a fantastic tool. I amazed at how much they have packed into this free tool. You get a really in depth view of the traffic coming to your site and not just from Google.With Google Analytics you can see:what keywords people are using to find your site,what pages they are arriving at your site (most people wrongly belief that all their visitors arrive at the home page first),where in the world their visitors are coming from,which sites are referring visitors to the site,and much, much more.I urge anyone who is serious about their website to try Google Analytics. It’s free but do be warning you can happily spend hours looking at the results. I did!Google Webmasterhttp://www.google.com/webmasters/Google Webmaster is a great tool for giving you an overview of how Google sees your website.Want to know when you were last indexed?What to know who’s linking to you?Want to know if Google is having problems indexing your site?Google Webmaster will tell you this and much more.Google AdWords EditorIf you use Google AdWords then you might want to consider this free tool. Google AdWords Editor allows you to download your AdWords campaigns to your computer and make changes offline. You can apply multiple changes across campaigns and adgroups rather than having to enter each one separately.I’ve only recently started to use it and the interface is a little unfriendly. However I’m sure they will refine it over time. I certainly found the duplicate keywords feature very useful. Follow the link below to download and try it yourself.

What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.

As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.

That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.

Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.

Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.

Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.

Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.

That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.

Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.

Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.

My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.

Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.

And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.

All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:

• Farm eggs

• Fresh vegetables

• Cow’s milk

• Freshly baked bread

• Coal for our open fires

Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.

Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.

Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.

Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.

My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.

The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.

Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.

Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.

People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.

In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.

Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.

• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.

• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.

• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.

On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.

Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.

We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.

Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.

My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.