Every now and then, Google re-brands its portal designed for journalists. They just put out a press release announcing the Google News Lab, so I had a reason to look at the site again. In no particular order, here are the reasons why you—yes, you, non-journalist—should go look at the News Lab.

First, it’s designed from the user’s point of view rather than a Google engineer’s POV. What a concept!  To start with, the shortened URL to get to the site is a mobile-friendly g.co/newslab. While you may not have had the foresight to register a three-letter domain like Google did, consider creating short, customized URLs for any site you want people to get to easily.

The front page offers multiple ways to engage with the site. There are four large graphics that offer brief tutorials for the various Google platforms, organized by Research, Report, Distribute and Optimize. Each of these areas features five to 10 tutorials on very focused, targeted activities relevant to journalists—everything from using Google Earth to creating consumer surveys and shaping stories to encourage binge watching.

There are also links across the top of the page, breaking out the content by type, including Tools, Data and Programs. The Tools link takes you to all the tutorials; the Data links offer examples of innovative ways that journalists and news organizations have created insight using Google’s data sets, and Programs highlights partnerships Google has with media organizations and the journalist community.

Much of the material in these lessons could be of use to solopreneurs as well. Do you know how and when to use Google’s reverse image search? Are you tagging your YouTube videos (webinars, podcasts, etc.) so that they are easily findable by your audience? Have you checked out Google Public Data Explorer‘s data sets and data viz tools to spice up a presentation?

Beyond raising your search and analysis skills, look at the News Lab for ideas on how to present your services or products in ways that make sense to your user community.