Metal nanostructures exhibit special optical resonance modes originating from the subwavelength confinement of conductive electrons in the material. These resonance modes represent a strong research focus due to their application potential in optics and sensoric. In this short review recent achievements of our group in this field are highlighted. A wet-chemistry approach synthesis of advanced metallic nanostructures will be introduced and their exact positioning and manipulation by electric field is shown. Next, the application of these nanostructures for a detection of small molecules will be described in several examples. Also, it will be shown that metal nanostructures can be used for sub-wavelength light focusing and for efficient energy coupling into polymer chains.