 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 MONTHLY FEATURE Customers are up for grabs 
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 GOOGLE HIGHLIGHTSLife-saving information services
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Posted by Jenn Karakkal, AdWords Small Business Team
Showing posts with label AdWords. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AdWords. Show all posts
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Click: the AdWords newsletter for your small business
Posted by Jenn Karakkal, AdWords Small Business Team
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Spreading holiday cheer and regional cuisine through AdWords
[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.]
When we here in the U.S. think of Thanksgiving, many of us think of our favorite foods: perhaps a fresh-from-the-oven pumpkin pie, a sweet glazed ham or a succulent turkey. But thanks to Charlie Hohorst III of Lafayette, La., tens of thousands of Americans dream instead of a turkey... stuffed with a duck... stuffed with a chicken.
For the past 15 years, Hohorst has run food shopping site Cajun Grocer, which specializes in more than 1,000 different authentic Louisianan foodstuffs and delicacies. The “turducken”—a Cajun dish consisting of a de-boned turkey filled with duck, chicken and stuffing—is “the bread and butter” of his business, says Hohorst. He can attest to their growing popularity as he ships an ever-increasing number of turduckens to cities all over the country, from Los Angeles to Boston.
Cajun Grocer’s business has grown hand-in-hand with the use of Google AdWords. Before starting AdWords campaigns in 2002, sales were fueled primarily by word of mouth, and reaching the right audience at an affordable price was a challenge. “With a specialty product like a turducken,” says Hohorst, “who do you target and how do you target them?” Using AdWords, Cajun Grocer can show off their products alongside relevant searches on Google and measure every penny spent on advertising.
Cajun Grocer’s ad for “turducken” searches, using AdWords Product Extensions.
The process of hand-crafting all eight types of turducken for the Thanksgiving rush starts in April and continues through packing and last-minute shipping as late as November 23.
Aside from their role in spreading the culinary influence of his native Louisiana, what Hohorst really loves about turduckens is that, much like the Thanksgiving holiday itself, they give people a reason to come together. “They’re a gathering item. Many people have heard of them, and when someone they know has one, it can bring in 10 or even 20 people.”
Posted by Jim Prosser, Communications Manager
Friday, November 19, 2010
Great tech support and good karma found with Google AdWords online
When Uday Challu noticed a growing dissatisfaction with avenues for technical support, he was inspired to create a better way for people to get help with their tech troubles. So in 2007 he founded iYogi.com, India’s first direct-to-consumer remote technical support company. Founded on a belief in good karma, iYogi aims to mitigate frustrations with technical products and services by delivering a high-quality customer service experience.
iYogi Founder Uday Challu
iYogi provides round-the-clock, 24-hours service on a wide variety of technical products and issues, in Australia, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Uday uses Google AdWords to reach these international customers.
Uday says he saw search and, in particular, AdWords as a way to reach customers in need of technical support. He says, “iYogi services are currently available in multiple geographies and advertising with AdWords seemed like the most obvious way to reach customers who were turning to the Internet to find and fix their problems.”
With the intent of starting small and building to scale, Uday targeted his first campaigns to the U.S. only. Using location and language targeting, iYogi launched a U.S.-only campaign with general keywords related to customer support, and honed his campaign over time. “We gathered lots of intelligence from the Search Query Report, which helped us identify other keywords people in the U.S. were searching for,” says iYogi Vice President of Online Marketing K.R. Sreejith. “We also tested new ad texts and customized these ad texts to highlight popular keywords.”
Then, using lessons from his experiences in targeting the U.S., Uday expanded into the Canadian market. He found his experience in the U.S. helpful for the Canadian campaign, but didn’t see similarly high volume. After examining the global competitive landscape, he decided to expand to Australia and the U.K.
“We quickly learned that ads in the U.K., for example, had to be different than ads in the U.S.,” says Sreejith. “Using the Search Query Report, we noticed that the popularity of certain keywords was different in the U.K. and that there are differences in the spelling of these terms. We also learned from our sales teams that U.K. customers spend more time on the phone than do U.S. customers. So, we edited our ad texts and landing pages to reflect these different keywords and values.”
Today, iYogi is one of the fastest growing remote tech support provider in the world. As Uday continues to expand his business internationally, he’ll continue to use insights gained from his ad campaigns and to provide the rest of the world with similarly karmic technical support experiences!
Posted by Anand Devsharma, Team Manager, India
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
AdWords: 10 years of your success
[Cross-posted from Inside AdWords]
In 2000, just a couple of years after Larry and Sergey founded Google, we launched our online advertising program, AdWords. The story of AdWords is literally the story of you, our advertisers and partners. We’re all deeply inspired by your ambition, creativity and innovation as we’ve all worked to build this new online advertising world over these past ten years.
So we felt the best way to mark this moment was to applaud and honor AdWords advertisers by sharing your stories and successes with the world. This December, as part of our AdWords 10th birthday celebration, we’ll be publishing a global map featuring businesses who are happy to tell their stories. Join us by creating a short (three minutes or less) YouTube video or written piece (750 characters or less) telling us your story: who you are, what your business is about, how it’s grown, and the role AdWords has played in your success.
You can learn more at this website (including submission instructions and sample videos), and we’ll keep this blog updated with the latest AdWords 10th birthday news.
So, what’s your story?
Posted by Jason Shafton, Inside AdWords crew
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
SMB Week Canada Wrap-Up: What’s a Small Business to Do?
Chris O’Neill, Managing Director for Google Canada, recently spoke at the 10th annual Small Business Forum organized by Enterprise Toronto. In his address, he highlighted a few essential steps all small businesses and entrepreneurs should be pursuing to grow their business and reach new customers.
So before you get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays, take the opportunity to make sure you’re using every online tool available to you that can help you make the most of this shopping season. There’s no time like the present to engage in these five things:
So before you get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays, take the opportunity to make sure you’re using every online tool available to you that can help you make the most of this shopping season. There’s no time like the present to engage in these five things:
- Establish an Online Presence: 20 percent of searches on Google are related to location, so it’s important for local businesses to have a presences on the web. A website does not need to be complex to serve its purpose. Creating a user-friendly, well-structured website will also help search engines like Google find and index it easily. Google Webmaster Tools provides a free and easy way to make your website more Google-friendly.
- Use Free Marketing to Reach Customers: People search Google.com and Google Maps to find local business, so make sure your customers know where you are and what you’re all about by claiming your free Google Places business listing. In addition to sharing your location, phone number and business hours, use Google Places to engage with customers by providing photos, video, coupons, public responses and more. You can also take advantage of free marketing opportunities by posting content to social networking sites, such as YouTube.
- Know Your Customers: To understand why some visitors aren’t converting, get website analytics data and learn what potential customers are doing on your site. Google Analytics is one of these analytics products, and it’s a free and powerful tool that can help you answer questions about the effectiveness of your content, how engaged your users are with your site, where they abandon your shopping cart and much more. With the right data in your hands, you can make smarter website design decisions and also make sure that the money you spend on advertising is actually delivering the results you want.
- Advertise Online: Online advertising is targeted, measurable and flexible. Products such as Google AdWords allow business owners like you to connect with your target audience at the exact moment they search for your products or services online. With AdWords, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad is taken directly to your website. You also get actionable analysis and performance information, so you know how to refine your ad copy or the keywords that trigger your ad to appear on the search results page. Plus, any business can be up and running in 15 minutes.
- To find out about all our advertising tools and products, visit our Google for Advertisers site for Canadian businesses.
- Embrace the Cloud: Web-based applications, such as Google Apps, are helping to streamline productivity and ensure that your business is running efficiently. Your employees can collaborate on documents in real-time and access them from anywhere, whether they’re on the road or at the office. This suite of online products also helps businesses spend less time and money managing email and other IT services, giving them the ability to focus more on what they do best: creating quality products and services, and sharing them with customers. Best of all, you can get started with Google Apps for free!
Monday, October 4, 2010
Custom shoes made possible with custom AdWords campaigns
Mike Knapp and Michael Fox had always dreamed of founding a start-up. Jodie Fox (Michael’s wife) had always loved custom-made shoes. When her friends started asking her to design shoes for them and to bring these handmade shoes back from her travels, she, Mike and Michael saw a business opportunity. The trio founded their online custom shoe design company Shoes of Prey to share the design experience with the rest of the world.
The business first took flight in Australia, where the founders live and their company is headquartered. Their first customers were trusted friends, who tested the online creation tool and proudly wore their personalized designs. The ability to create custom shoes quickly went viral. It seemed that with each step they took, the initial testers received questions about where they found their fabulous footwear. Soon strangers began making purchases, and when the website spread to overseas locations, the team began offering different currencies to allow for international sales.
The team had already created an AdWords account to promote Shoes of Prey to online customers in Australia. As they expanded internationally, they created new AdWords campaigns targeted at English-speaking countries with currencies they could process. They used AdWords location-targeting to show ads in new locations: Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Michael says, “Despite being based in Australia, it took only a matter of days for our first orders to start coming in from the other side of the world. It was exciting to see!”
Currently, about 10 percent of Shoes of Prey’s shoe sales come from AdWords customers—and about 40 percent of those sales are from international buyers. One of the main reasons they’ve been successful in reaching international audiences is the ease with which they can edit ad texts for each location. “Gift certificates have been really popular on our site,” Michael says. “So we use AdWords to promote our gift certificates. Key events for us are Mother's Day, Valentine's Day and Christmas.”
Michael then uses Google Insights for Search to identify each country’s peak search traffic dates for these occasions. “We time specific AdWords campaigns to target each of these events. Mother's Day is on a different day in different countries, so AdWords lets us run ads at different times of the year for the various countries, and edit the ads so they speak to users in those countries. For example, we’ll mention the price of our shoes in euro in Ireland and in dollars in the U.S.”
After only a year of operation, the founders have hired three new employees and have formed partnerships with local firms in Japan and Russia to localize their offering in those markets. “Early on in the life of our business, AdWords showed us the potential our business has for growth outside Australia, so we now offer Japanese and Russian versions of our website, complete with local marketing and customer support in those markets,” says Michael.
With AdWords, Michael, Jodie and Mike have been able to share their passion for custom shoes with international customers who share their love for customization. Their next step is to inspire all shoe lovers to design their own footwear. Michael tells us: “We're starting to experiment with the Google Display Network to help us find those first customers while they're browsing the web.” And they’ll continue to use AdWords location targeting and ad text customization to reach new international customers who might not know just how much fun designing shoes can be!
Friday, September 24, 2010
Finding your hidden treasure: international campaigns with AdWords
[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]
In 2000, Antoine Assi founded Middle Eastern export website www.aldoukan.com—it was one of the first e-commerce business in the Middle East. He was just 20 years old and he made time to develop the business in between computer science classes at his university. He needed a way to advertise his website from the comfort of his own dorm room, so he decided to test out Google AdWords.
His friends didn’t believe him when Antoine said he was going to sell and advertise traditional Middle Eastern foods and goods online. However, by 2004, his business had grown so rapidly that he decided to take leave from school to run it full-time. He then started his second company, www.mosaicmarble.com, which sells handcut decorative tiles online internationally.
Antoine believed there was a gap in the mosaic market and he wanted to share these artistic and historic decorations abroad. He knew there was a market for these tiles internationally—he just didn’t quite know where the opportunity existed. To identify these international growth opportunities, Antoine built on his knowledge of AdWords: He ran several AdWords campaigns, each targeted at the location and language of the test country.
From there, Antoine measured sales and percentage of website traffic from each country and campaign. He ended campaigns for countries with low sales volume and invested in campaigns for countries with higher sales volume and greater return on investment. Where he saw steady product sales, Antoine even had the company website translated into the language of the successful host country. As you can imagine, translating the site to the language of a country in which he’d already seen success only further promoted sales in that location.
Antoine refers to his AdWords campaigns as his hidden treasure, telling us that “the second month we started advertising on Google, we started feeling overwhelmed by the orders and the inquiries... We had to hire new employees on a weekly basis.”
Mosaic Marble quickly grew from two employees and eight artists to more than 40 employees and 120 artists. And the company’s website is now available in seven languages: Arabic, English, Finnish, German, Italian, Portuguese and French.
In addition to helping him expand his business, these international campaigns helped Antoine and his colleagues share these cultural icons with a larger part of the world. There are now homes and public spaces adorned with these ancient Greek creations in more than 50 countries worldwide. “Due to Google,” says Antoine, “we have customers such as the President of Congo, the Dubai Minister of Internal Affairs, the Princess of Jordan, and the Royal Music Academy of London.”
In 2000, Antoine Assi founded Middle Eastern export website www.aldoukan.com—it was one of the first e-commerce business in the Middle East. He was just 20 years old and he made time to develop the business in between computer science classes at his university. He needed a way to advertise his website from the comfort of his own dorm room, so he decided to test out Google AdWords.
His friends didn’t believe him when Antoine said he was going to sell and advertise traditional Middle Eastern foods and goods online. However, by 2004, his business had grown so rapidly that he decided to take leave from school to run it full-time. He then started his second company, www.mosaicmarble.com, which sells handcut decorative tiles online internationally.
Antoine believed there was a gap in the mosaic market and he wanted to share these artistic and historic decorations abroad. He knew there was a market for these tiles internationally—he just didn’t quite know where the opportunity existed. To identify these international growth opportunities, Antoine built on his knowledge of AdWords: He ran several AdWords campaigns, each targeted at the location and language of the test country.
From there, Antoine measured sales and percentage of website traffic from each country and campaign. He ended campaigns for countries with low sales volume and invested in campaigns for countries with higher sales volume and greater return on investment. Where he saw steady product sales, Antoine even had the company website translated into the language of the successful host country. As you can imagine, translating the site to the language of a country in which he’d already seen success only further promoted sales in that location.
Antoine refers to his AdWords campaigns as his hidden treasure, telling us that “the second month we started advertising on Google, we started feeling overwhelmed by the orders and the inquiries... We had to hire new employees on a weekly basis.”
Mosaic Marble quickly grew from two employees and eight artists to more than 40 employees and 120 artists. And the company’s website is now available in seven languages: Arabic, English, Finnish, German, Italian, Portuguese and French.
In addition to helping him expand his business, these international campaigns helped Antoine and his colleagues share these cultural icons with a larger part of the world. There are now homes and public spaces adorned with these ancient Greek creations in more than 50 countries worldwide. “Due to Google,” says Antoine, “we have customers such as the President of Congo, the Dubai Minister of Internal Affairs, the Princess of Jordan, and the Royal Music Academy of London.”
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Strengthen your advertising strategies with the Train & Gain challenge
Today we’re announcing the first AdWords Train & Gain challenge.
You’ve asked us how to improve the performance of your AdWords account, so we’ve put together a series of simple steps to help you become more successful online.
Sign up for the AdWords Train & Gain challenge starting October 4th. You'll receive a weekly list of simple steps for improving your AdWords account. Sign into your account twice a week and take the suggested actions on how to better manage your account. At the end of four weeks, you’ll be armed with many different ways to improve your AdWords account.
If you complete all the steps and answer a short questionnaire to let us know what you’ve learned, you could win an Android Phone or a trip to meet with an AdWords consultant in Sydney, Australia for you and a colleague.
Here’s a sneak peek of the fast and easy tips you’ll get:
Improve ad text: Stand out from your competition by writing ads that highlight your most competitive features (low price, special services, free delivery, etc).
Use negative keywords: Specify which search terms you don’t want your ad to appear on. This will help you keep costs down because it prevents clicks from people looking for things you don’t offer.
Track sales and leads: See where your ad spend is working best and focus your money on the efforts that are generating business.
This challenge doesn’t take up a lot of time and it can make a big difference for your business. Learn more and see the official rules for details about the challenge, who is eligible to compete and how we’re selecting winners. Terms and conditions can be found here.
Also, if you’d like to learn more about your AdWords account, check out our brand new AdWords Small Business Center, which we announced in last week’s post. The site is a one-stop shop for small and medium businesses. It allows visitors to explore beginner, intermediate or advanced AdWords topics and connects you to the latest AdWords news and best practices.
Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Making AdWords Account Management Easier
As a small business, you may find that investing in marketing can be a catch-22; while you are looking to grow your business, your time is limited and budgets are tight. While AdWords has always been about making advertising as measurable as possible, we are well aware that time is money - especially when you are a small company. So, in an effort to help you preserve your most precious asset, we wanted to share a few of tools we’ve developed as part of our effort to make account management less time-intensive.
Use the Opportunities Tab to Find Customized Account Optimization Suggestions
Incorporating data from both user search behavior and the performance of your own account, the Opportunities tab is an excellent tool for garnering suggestions that can help you to improve targeting, expand your reach or increase the effectiveness of your marketing spend. To make improving your campaigns as easy as possible, the Opportunities tab lets you review ideas and apply them directly to your account. You can also save these ideas as “pending changes” in case you want to think about them and add them later.
The ideas shown on the tab are generated by our system just for your account, so look them over carefully before you try them. Some may not fit your own needs, but some may help to improve your campaign performance.
Simplify Bid Management with Automatic Bidding
Automatic Bidding is the easiest of the AdWords bidding options. With automatic bidding, the AdWords system automatically adjusts your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bids on your behalf. You still set your daily budget, but rather than specifying individual bids for ad groups, keywords, or placements, the AdWords system actively seeks out the most clicks possible within the budget you set.
Let Us Help You Gain More Conversions with Enhanced CPC
Enhanced CPC is an easy-to-use automatic bid management tool intended for advertisers already using conversion tracking who are looking to turbo-charge their return on investment. The tool automatically adjusts your Max CPC bid each time your ad is shown in order to maximize the likelihood of your ad will converting. As a result, your ad should receive more conversions while maintaining or reducing your overall cost-per-conversion.
To learn more about Enhanced CPC, you can visit our help center or watch a short video.
Monitor Account Changes with Ease Using Custom Alerts
You can create custom alerts in your AdWords account so you're automatically notified when certain behaviors and/or changes occur within your campaigns and ad groups. This enables you to constantly track increases or decreases in the metrics that matter to you or metrics that have reached a certain threshold you set. To learn more about this feature, please visit our help center.
Automatic Bidding is the easiest of the AdWords bidding options. With automatic bidding, the AdWords system automatically adjusts your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bids on your behalf. You still set your daily budget, but rather than specifying individual bids for ad groups, keywords, or placements, the AdWords system actively seeks out the most clicks possible within the budget you set.
Let Us Help You Gain More Conversions with Enhanced CPC
Enhanced CPC is an easy-to-use automatic bid management tool intended for advertisers already using conversion tracking who are looking to turbo-charge their return on investment. The tool automatically adjusts your Max CPC bid each time your ad is shown in order to maximize the likelihood of your ad will converting. As a result, your ad should receive more conversions while maintaining or reducing your overall cost-per-conversion.
To learn more about Enhanced CPC, you can visit our help center or watch a short video.
Monitor Account Changes with Ease Using Custom Alerts
You can create custom alerts in your AdWords account so you're automatically notified when certain behaviors and/or changes occur within your campaigns and ad groups. This enables you to constantly track increases or decreases in the metrics that matter to you or metrics that have reached a certain threshold you set. To learn more about this feature, please visit our help center.
For even more tips for saving time and improving AdWords performance, please visit our new Google AdWords Small Business Center.
Posted by Yael Davidowitz-neu, Sales Strategy Analyst
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Broadcast your business through the TV for All Contest
[Cross-posted from Inside AdWords]
Today we’re announcing the second annual TV for All contest, where your business has the opportunity to win $25,000 in national advertising with Google TV Ads and online video partner sites, including YouTube.
We originally launched this contest last year and received nearly 250 submissions. Three winners, including Owners.com, won free TV media through Google and successfully extended their brands across the nation.
“It’s always exciting to see what other marketers think of your work,” says George Karavaras of Owners.com about why the company entered TV for All in 2009. The best part, he says, is that “it doesn’t take a lot of time or money to create a high impact TV ad through Google’s creative network.”
Now it’s your turn! Entering is easy: simply create a video ad for your business, upload it to YouTube and submit it to our TV for All YouTube Channel between September 15th and October 12th. If you don't have a video ad or the tools to create one, professional tools by SpotMixer will be available for free to help you make a polished ad in just minutes.
Three winners whose ads best exemplify creativity and a compelling message will receive $25K, $15K, or $10K in national TV and online video advertising using Google AdWords.
If you've never promoted your business using TV and video, the TV for All contest is your chance to get started. For more details and to enter the contest, visit www.youtube.com/tvforall.
Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Introducing ‘Improving Online Conversions for Dummies’
[Cross posted from Inside AdWords]
Are you eager to optimise your Conversion Rate, but feel a little bit overwhelmed by all of the tools available to help you? Today we're delighted to introduce Improving Online Conversions for Dummies.
We have just released a simple, easy to follow mini book, in conjunction with John Wiley Publications, to help you get a better grasp of the conversion improvement tools offered by Google. Improving Online Conversions for Dummies explains how you can make sure your ads show on searches that are most likely to convert into sales. Understand which ad clicks and impressions lead to conversions, better apportion your marketing spend and even develop your own conversion attribution model. Discover the secrets to getting more bang for your buck with this ebook.
For more information, visit www.google.com/conversion/fordummies
Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew
Thursday, September 9, 2010
The AdWords Small Business Center: the key tips, tutorials, and updates you need for a successful AdWords account
[Cross-posted from Inside AdWords]
Today we're happy to announce the launch of a new website - the AdWords Small Business Center. Many of you asked for an AdWords resource focused on learning and the top tips for small and medium businesses, and we listened. This new central learning hub allows you to share AdWords best practices and provides the key information you need to know to run a successful AdWords account.
Learn the essentials
Whether you're new to AdWords or not, the AdWords Small Business Center allows you to explore insightful topics as a beginner, intermediate, or advanced user. It covers everything from strategies for writing great ads to ways to improve your website, all in an easy-to-navigate format.
Stay up-to-date
Stay in the loop by visiting the Inside AdWords blog right from this new site. It makes it easy to read about the latest trends and product updates and use them to grow your business.
Explore new possibilities
Want to discuss one of the tips on the site with another small business owner? Visit our recently launched AdWords Small Business Corner, a discussion forum in which other small and medium business owners who use AdWords exchange advice on the strategies that have helped them grow their businesses. Use it to share your AdWords experience or simply learn from others.
We hope you find the AdWords Small Business Center useful. Check it out today!
In the coming weeks, make sure you're also on the lookout for our blog post on AdWords Train & Gain, a challenge to help you become more successful with your online advertising. We'll be giving away cool prizes like Android phones and, for one lucky winner, a trip to Sydney, Australia for a free consultation with an AdWords expert. Sign up now or find out more details and official rules.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Get design tips to boost the impact of your display ad
[Cross-posted from Inside AdWords]
While the right text and placement of your display ad are always crucial, you should also make sure that your ad is well designed. But how exactly can you ensure that your ad stands out on a web page, looks professional and is consistent with your overall brand message?
On Thursday, September 2nd, we’ll be holding a short one-off live course on effective display ad design. The session will give you a set of practical design tips including key insights on using color, font and images. The focus will be on the Display Ad Builder tool, although the tips are applicable to display design in general. The course is suitable for anyone interested in display advertising.
The course will be held on Thursday, September 2nd at: 3pm - 4pm BST / GMT+1 (London), 10am-11am EDT (New York), 7am-8am PDT (San Francisco).
Sign up here to attend.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
How to Run, Get Online, and Promote Your Business with Google Tools
When first starting a business, everything is new and different. So what are the first things you need to do to turn your vision into reality? This process can be a bit intimidating -- and unnecessarily resource-consuming -- without the right tools and guidance.
Through a complementary suite of services, Google aims to help small businesses like yours navigate this uncharted territory. So as your business goes through the three phases of getting up and running, getting online and getting in front of customers, think of our products as tools designed to help you on your journey to success!
Run Your Business with Google Apps
Google Apps helps small businesses get up and running with email, calendaring, instant messaging, document, spreadsheets and presentations, site creation and video. The applications are hosted by Google, so you can just turn them on and get to work quickly. With this cloud computing approach, you don't need to worry about installing, maintaining or upgrading software, and you always have access to the latest technology. You can also use any device: PC, Mac, Linux, Android or iPad, if it has a web browser and a connection to the Internet you can access your information from anywhere. This is particularly helpful for people who need to work from various locations, like their office, home and car.
The cost savings are compelling, especially when you're on a tight budget: cloud computing is about 1/10th of the cost of on-premises software. It's also more secure than storing data on laptops and USB keys that are easily lost or stolen. But the biggest advantage of Google Apps is hardest to quantify: increased productivity through easier collaboration. Employees often work in teams, with colleagues in various locations. Web applications make it possible for them to share documents and files without attachments or version control issues because everything's online and up to date. They can also collaborate together in real time, which makes work more efficient. For more information, check out this video series on getting started with Google Apps.
Get Online with Google PlacesGoogle Places offers an easy way to establish and maintain an online presence even if you don’t have a website. It allows business owners to add a brand new listing to Google's local database, or to edit their existing listing that appears for free when potential customers search for them on Google.com or Google Maps.
By ensuring that basic information - like your business name, location, hours of operation and phone number - is up-to-date, customers can quickly and easily find you online. And with the option to provide additional details - such as photos, videos and coupons - business owners can stand out on the map to attract more customers. You can also edit and check your info at any time to discover how many people have seen and clicked on your free listing.
Promote Your Business with AdWords
AdWords is Google’s online advertising program that acts as a matchmaking service between businesses and customers. AdWords ads are displayed along with search results when someone searches Google using one of your keywords. That way, you'll be advertising to an audience that's already interested in your business.
No matter your budget, you'll only pay when people click your ads, and there's no minimum monthly charge with AdWords. Ad performance tracking reports are built right into your account, so you can tell what's working and what needs improving.
We look forward to providing additional tips and tricks for your small business on this blog, and hope these help to get you started. So what are you waiting for? Get your business going, establish your online presence and promote your business using any of our tools that you find helpful. Good luck!
Posted by Kat Eller, Small Business Blog Team
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Introducing the AdWords Small Business Corner, a new forum discussion category for SMBs
[Cross-posted from the Inside AdWords blog]
We’ve heard from many of you that you’d like to be able to easily share tips for developing a successful AdWords strategy with others like you. To help you do that, we’ve created a new category in the AdWords Help Forum: the Small Business Corner. The Small Business Corner is designed to give those of you who are running your own AdWords accounts the opportunity to share best practices in discussions with your peers so that you can make sure your AdWords account is doing all it can to support your business goals.
This new category is not about troubleshooting specific account issues, but rather about sharing and learning from the experiences of others. To give you a preview of the kinds of topics that we hope to discuss, here are a few conversation starters that we had in mind:
Getting started
To join the conversation now, just visit the Small Business Corner. If you’re new to the AdWords Help Forum, you may want to create a Google Profile (while signed in to your AdWords account), introducing yourself and your business before jumping in. In the meantime, you can check out the introductory discussion thread here.
We’ve heard from many of you that you’d like to be able to easily share tips for developing a successful AdWords strategy with others like you. To help you do that, we’ve created a new category in the AdWords Help Forum: the Small Business Corner. The Small Business Corner is designed to give those of you who are running your own AdWords accounts the opportunity to share best practices in discussions with your peers so that you can make sure your AdWords account is doing all it can to support your business goals.
This new category is not about troubleshooting specific account issues, but rather about sharing and learning from the experiences of others. To give you a preview of the kinds of topics that we hope to discuss, here are a few conversation starters that we had in mind:
- Choosing the right tools to measure results
- How to write great ads
- Finding the right frequency to sign in to AdWords
Getting started
To join the conversation now, just visit the Small Business Corner. If you’re new to the AdWords Help Forum, you may want to create a Google Profile (while signed in to your AdWords account), introducing yourself and your business before jumping in. In the meantime, you can check out the introductory discussion thread here.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Google goes to Boise
For years, we’ve focused on building tools like Google Places and Google AdWords that help small businesses grow and succeed online. The tools we build are often free or flexible for any budget, and are already being used by small businesses all around the world. However, we still hear, “Wow, I didn’t know you could do that!” from many small businesses we talk to. That’s why last week, a team from Google headed to Boise, Idaho.
Why Boise? Boise happens to be one of the fastest growing small business communities in the U.S. according to Forbes, CNN and bizjournals, but we also recently learned that Google played a role in helping make this happen. In 2009, we estimate that our online advertising tools generated over $72M in revenue for Idaho businesses.
During our two-day visit to Boise we met with more than 40 small business owners including Dakota Routh, who, in less than one year, opened three Body Renew gyms with the help of Google Places and Google AdWords. According to Dakota, he makes $3 in sales for every $1 he spends on Google AdWords.
Dakota Routh of Body Renew shows a few Googlers his Meridian, Idaho gym
We also partnered with the Idaho Small Business Development Center to offer free 60-minute seminars to more than 300 local small businesses interested in learning about online marketing tools and strategies.
AdWords Evangelist Fred Vallaeys speaking to small business owners at Boise State University
We hope to visit more towns across the U.S. later this year. If you’re a small business owner and are interested in having us visit you in your city, please let us know. For more information on how you can use Google Places or Google AdWords for your small business, checkout the Hire Google website.
Why Boise? Boise happens to be one of the fastest growing small business communities in the U.S. according to Forbes, CNN and bizjournals, but we also recently learned that Google played a role in helping make this happen. In 2009, we estimate that our online advertising tools generated over $72M in revenue for Idaho businesses.
During our two-day visit to Boise we met with more than 40 small business owners including Dakota Routh, who, in less than one year, opened three Body Renew gyms with the help of Google Places and Google AdWords. According to Dakota, he makes $3 in sales for every $1 he spends on Google AdWords.
We also partnered with the Idaho Small Business Development Center to offer free 60-minute seminars to more than 300 local small businesses interested in learning about online marketing tools and strategies.
We hope to visit more towns across the U.S. later this year. If you’re a small business owner and are interested in having us visit you in your city, please let us know. For more information on how you can use Google Places or Google AdWords for your small business, checkout the Hire Google website.