Announcing Reviews in Google Places for Business

People come to Google to search for information about local shops and restaurants so they can make the best plans and purchases. That’s why as a business owner, you want to make sure you put your best foot forward online. With a quick search, locals -- or even people new in town -- can read reviews from your regulars to find the right place for a romantic dinner, a prize-winning turkey, or the perfect (last-minute) present for Mom.

Today, we’re introducing Reviews in Google Places for Business. Now you can learn what your customers are saying about your business on Google and across the web, in one place. If you have a verified business listing, you will now see your customer ratings and reviews in the easy-to-use review inbox.

Read and respond to customer reviews in the reviews inbox

Easily respond to customer reviews
Reviews also allows you to start a conversation with your customers by directly responding to comments left by users on Google. Are your customers happy with your service? Thank them for the kind words so they recommend you to their friends. Do they mention some areas for improvement? Ask them for suggestions so they visit you again.

And if you feel your business deserves more good reviews, or if you are missing feedback on your work, all you need to do now is to encourage your customers to post reviews on your Google+ page.

Business owners using the new Places for Business interface can now find the Reviews tab when they log into their dashboard as usual.

Not verified yet? Seize the moment and get started now at www.google.com/places.

Posted by Qasar Younis, Senior Product Manager

Create offers in minutes and reach customers on Google Maps with Google Offers

Back in July we announced new ways for consumers to discover offers with Google. Today we’re introducing an updated self-service tool for all businesses in the U.S. to easily create offers and attract customers to their stores. Using the simple offer creation tool, businesses can create their offer in minutes and showcase it to local customers across Google, including Google Maps.

Create your offer in minutes and see it go live in just a few hours
With the updated creation tool, which is rolling out within the next week, you can create your offer in minutes. Simply choose the type of offer you’d like to create and assign a budget.

Unlike traditional promotions or coupons, Google Offers will show your offer to customers based on their location, what they like, and what they're looking for. You'll only pay when a customer saves your offer, and you keep the full value of the sales you make.

Reach the right customers, at the right time, now through Google Maps
With this launch, your offer can reach customers on Google Maps when they are searching for places nearby or looking for local businesses like yours. Your business will be prominently displayed with a blue tag icon next to it, alerting customers to your offer.

Once a customer saves your offer, we’ll bring them to your door by sharing an offer reminder when they are near your store. We can help remind them when your offer is expiring too, through email and mobile alerts. Just create the offer; we’ll take care of the rest. To get started and drive more traffic to your store, visit Google Offers.

Posted by Gayathri Rajan, Director of Product Management, Google Offers

Saying thank you to our Google Top Contributors

Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog.

Every day, Google Top Contributors from around the world share their product expertise with people in Google’s official forums, from sharing helpful tips to answering burning user questions. Top Contributors not only help users directly, they champion user feedback, which gives our teams valuable insight on opportunities for improvement across various products. They contribute to 250 product communities in 26 different languages, and their expertise touches hundreds of millions of users each year. These Top Contributors are a critical part of the Google family and we brought many of them together at this year's Top Contributor Summit to say thank you.

Building on our first summit in 2011, we kicked off the second Top Contributor Summit last week near Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Over three days, Top Contributors came together to discuss their favorite Google products, meet with our engineers and product managers, see demos of new products and collaborate with fellow Top Contributors.

Sebastian Miśniakiewicz, Top Contributor in the Webmasters Polish forum, talks with Program Manager Oahn Nguyen and Map Maker Program Manager Nicole Drobeck

Top Contributors met with product managers and community managers to learn the latest about some of Google’s products, and had the unique opportunity to give their feedback directly to the product team. They also sat down with designers and support team members to discuss the long and short-term vision for various products. Multi-product Top Contributor Manny Barwin (known as “The C Man” in our forums) said, “what impressed me most was the interest taken in our feedback.”

Yogi Anand, Docs Top Contributor from Michigan, tries Google Glass

Top Contributors also got a sneak peek at recently released Google products. After hearing a presentation directly from the Google Glass team, each Top Contributor was given the opportunity to try Glass for themselves. AdWords Top Contributor Adam Briggs said, “I found the best part was being able to try out Glass; it's such an awesome product and I'm really looking forward to it becoming public."

We also put on several social events where the group was able to meet Googlers, chat with their fellow Top Contributors, and have a little fun!

Top Contributors play air hockey during a social event at the San Jose Convention Center

Photograph by Paciano Triunfo

We had a great time at the summit saying thanks to our Top Contributors for all they do for our users. If you’re interested in becoming a Top Contributor, get started by becoming active in your favorite Google product’s forum or learn more about the Top Contributor Program.

Top Contributors and Googlers show their excitement on campus

Photograph by Paciano Triunfo

Posted by Sarah Claxton Deming, Top Contributor Summit Organizer

New Learn with Google Fall Webinars

We’re excited to share our fall series of Learn with Google webinars. These web events will demonstrate how to use digital marketing to build brand awareness and give you the tools you need to drive sales. This season we’re focusing on Search and Display, two fundamental building blocks for digital marketing. We will be introducing new tools, as well as providing tips for existing ones. Every webinar is led by Google product experts and includes time for live Q&A. Sign up to start becoming a smarter digital marketer today.

Upcoming webinars:

October
17 [Wallet] Maximize mobile conversions with Google Wallet Instant Buy
22 [Search] Automate your AdWords bids to achieve your Target ROAS (return on ad spend) Goal
23 [Shopping] Google Shopping - Mobile/Local
29 [Mobile] Driving More Revenue from App Installs

November
7 [Display] A Creative Approach to Engage with Your Customers Online
13 [Search] Measuring Conversions Across Devices
14 [Display] Three Strategies to Increase Customer Engagement with Your Brand
19 [Mobile] Building Multi-Screen Websites
21 [Search] Increase Relevancy with New Ad Formats and Extensions

December
3 [Search] Using Your Cross-Device Conversion Data
11 [Search] Improving Search Ad Relevance with Creative Optimizations

Webinars are held Tuesdays through Thursdays at 10am Pacific/1pm Eastern,

Visit our webinar site to register for any of the live sessions and to access our large library of recorded content. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by adding our Learn with Google calendar to your own Google calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars.

Learn with Google is a program to help businesses succeed through winning moments that matter, enabling better decisions and constantly innovating. We hope that you’ll use these best practices and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to seeing you at an upcoming session!

Posted by Matt Ludwig, Marketing Coordinator, Learn with Google

Helping small businesses grow on the web: Teaming up with Chase for Mission Main Street Grants

We know that every small business has big ideas for what they want to do next. Maybe you’d like to expand your store, hire more employees, or launch a new product line. Today, we’re working with Chase’s Mission Main Street Grants program to help small businesses across America bring some of those ideas to life. Twelve businesses will each get a $250,000 grant from Chase, as well as a Chromebook Pixel, and a trip to Google for a two-day small business marketing workshop with Google experts.

We know how important the web can be to help small businesses grow, so we worked with Chase to provide a Social Media Toolkit on www.MissionMainstreetGrants.com. The toolkit shares tips that every business can use, like best practices for digital marketing and social media, as well as how to make the most of online advertising and analytics. Small businesses can also take advantage of a special AdWords Express offer to help them reach new customers.

The program is open to current businesses that have been operating for at least two years and have less than 100 year-round full-time employees. Businesses must receive at least 250 votes to be eligible for a grant. The deadline to apply is October 31, 2013, and voting is open from October 1-November 15, 2013. You can find out more information about the program and eligibility requirements at www.MissionMainstreetGrants.com. There you can also check out a Google Hangout with some of last year’s grant recipients sharing how they used social media to rally support and improve their applications.

The web opens up countless opportunities for small businesses to grow and reach new customers, and we’re excited to see your great submissions. Good luck!

Posted by Jon Kaplan, Vice President of US Sales & Operations

Get answers to your AdWords Express questions in the AdWords community

Calling all AdWords Express advertisers! Now there’s a place to ask questions, post answers, and learn from other advertisers: the AdWords Express section of the AdWords community.

Whether you need a how-to guide for changing your ad text, or you want to get into the nitty gritty of online advertising strategy, you can join the discussion in the new community section. In addition to help from other advertisers and Top Contributors, you can also get answers and support from the Google team.

The AdWords Express section is currently available in the English language AdWords Community.

See you there!

Posted by Zuzana Stierankova, AdWords Community Lead

Crowdsourcing Solutions in the AdWords Community for the Back-to-School Season

Back-to-school season — the second biggest retail event of the year — is upon us, and over on the AdWords Community, we’re getting back to the ABCs of AdWords with our “Boost Your Account” optimization series.

In the series, you can join users from the AdWords Community forum in sharing solutions with certain businesses looking for help addressing challenges with their current advertising plan.

Got ideas for improving conversion rate on video campaigns or selecting the right landing page for your ad? Share them with Bill directly on this Community thread and learn more about his unique challenges in this Hangout on Air.


Check out another business featured in the series here and come back to the AdWords Community throughout this month for new installments. If you're interested in having your business featured in the series, please fill out the interest form here.

Posted by AdWords Community team

AdWords Site Policy Starter Guide

Quite often advertisers at conferences, or on the AdWords Community ask us “What can I do to avoid violating Google's site policies?” We thought it would be useful to create a compact guide sharing some best practices on how some common site policy mistakes can be easily avoided.

In the AdWords Site Policy Starter Guide we take a look at some of the most common site policy violations policies such as ‘bridge page’, parked domain, information harvesting and help you avoid some common pitfalls. We hope that this guide helps you better understand some of our site policies.

For more information on our site policies, please visit our AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Joshua Singh, Ads Quality Operations

New Learn with Google Summer Webinar Series

At Google, one of our goals is to help make the web work for you. Today we’re announcing our summer series of Learn with Google webinars, which will teach you how to use digital to build brand awareness and give you the tools you need to drive sales. Each of our sessions gives you deep-dive educational content, across a breadth of products and marketing objectives, in a format that’s convenient for you. Every webinar is led by Google product experts and includes time for audience Q&A. Sign up to start becoming a smarter digital marketer now.

Upcoming live webinars:

July
[Shopping] Google Shopping 101: Overview of Shopping & Product Listing Ads
[Search] Improving Your Search Campaigns with Remarketing Lists for Search Ads
[YouTube] Driving Direct Response with Video

August
[Shopping] Google Shopping 201: Product Listing Ad Optimization Essentials
[Shopping] Google Shopping 301: Advanced Optimization Tactics
[Search] Taking Advantage of New AdWords Features
[YouTube] Building your Business with YouTube Video Ads
[Social] Kick-Starting Social with Google+

September
[Display] Planning Display Campaigns with the New Display Planner in AdWords

Webinars are held Tuesdays through Thursdays at 10am Pacific/1pm Eastern.

Visit our webinar site to register for any of the live sessions and to access our large library of recorded content. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by adding our Learn with Google calendar to your own Google calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars.

Learn with Google is a program to help businesses succeed through winning moments that matter, enabling better decisions and constantly innovating. We hope that you’ll use these best practices and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to seeing you at an upcoming session! Posted by Erin Molnar, Marketing Coordinator, Learn with Google

Creating your next channel just got a lot easier

Cross-posted with the YouTube Partners & Creators Blog.

Previously, every channel you created needed to have its own Google account login. If you’re a creator that manages many channels, you might even have a spreadsheet to organize the various email addresses and passwords you use to log in to your channels.

We made a significant improvement to the multiple channel management experience recently when we launched the option to connect your existing channels with a Google+ page. Google+ page connected channels have enhanced channel management features that allow you to manage up to 50 channels with a single login, and multiple individuals can manage your channel with their own logins.

Now, when you sign up for a new channel you’ll have an option to create this new channel connected with a Google+ page. This will allow you to create new channels using a Google account that you already use to manage your other channels and Google+ pages. This is a significant simplification of the channel signup process, so we encourage you to take advantage of this when you’re creating new channels going forward.

Create a new channel connected to a new Google+ page

1.Sign in to a Google account that you use individually - maybe it’s a Google account you already use to manage other channels and Google+ pages, or it’s the Google account you use in the YouTube Content Manager.

2.Go to www.youtube.com/channel_switcher and click Create a new channel.

3.Provide a name for your new channel and Google+ page, and click Done to complete the signup process. Remember, channels connected with Google+ pages can have names that include spaces and punctuation if that’s what you want.

Create a new channel connected to an existing Google+ page

1.Sign in to a Google account that is the manager or owner of the Google+ page with which you want your new channel to be connected.

2.Go to www.youtube.com/channel_switcher and click the name and avatar of the Google+ page for which you want to create a new channel.

3.You’ll be asked to confirm you want to create a new channel for this page, so click OK to complete the signup process.

Additional tips for your new channel

• You can add others as a manager of the new channel and page (instructions). Remember, we encourage everyone to use their own logins to manage channels, rather than using shared logins!
• Your new channel URL will look something like the URL below, so if you’d like a custom URL that is easier to remember, follow these steps.

Posted by Brett Hobbs, Staff Software Engineer, recently watched Anchorman - 8 Bit cinema!

Google Databoard: A new way to explore industry research

Cross-posted with the Google Research blog.

It’s important for people to stay up to date about the most recent research and insights related to their work or personal lives. But it can be difficult to keep up with all the new studies and updated data that’s out there. To make life a bit easier, we’re introducing a new take on how research can be presented. The Databoard for Research Insights enables people to explore and interact with some of Google’s recent research in a unique and immersive way. The Databoard uses responsive design to to offer an engaging experience across devices. Additionally, the tool is a new venture into data visualization and shareability with bite-sized charts and stats that can be shared with your friends or coworkers. The Databoard is currently home to several of Google’s market research studies for businesses, but we believe that this way of conveying data can work across all forms of research.


Here are some of the things that make the Databoard different from other ways research is released today:

Easy to use
All of the information in the Databoard is presented in a bite-sized way so that you can quickly find relevant information. You can explore an entire study or jump straight to the topics or data points you care about. The Databoard is also optimized for all devices so you can explore the research on your computer, tablet or smartphone.

Meant to be shared
Most people, when they find a compelling piece of data, want to share it! Whether it’s with a colleague, client, or a community on a blog or social network, compelling insights and data are meant to be shared. With the databoard, you can easily share individual charts and insights or collections of data with anyone through email or social networks, just look for the share button at the top of each chart or insight.

Create a cohesive story
Most research studies set out to answer a specific question, like how people use their smartphones in stores, or how a specific type of consumer shops. This means that businesses need to look across multiple pieces of research to craft a comprehensive business or marketing strategy. With this in mind, the Databoard lets you curate a customized infographic out of the charts or data points you find important across multiple Google research studies. Creating an infographic is quick and easy, and you can share the finished product with your friends or colleagues.

The databoard is currently home to six research studies including The New Multi-screen World, Mobile In-store shopper research and Mobile search moments. New studies will be added frequently. To get started creating your own infographic, visit the Databoard now.

Posted by Adam Grunewald, Mobile marketing manager

Maketing 101 - Free Class on Creating Your First AdWords Campaign

Want to reach potential customers online, but not sure how? We’ve got good news. Starting July 22, the AdWords Guides to Success Team willl be offering Marketing 101, our first-ever massive open online course (MOOC). Register now!

The free course is for businesses who haven’t yet started advertising online or are just learning how it works. Over the course of three weeks, the class will help you understand the basics of online advertising, how it can help your business, and prepare you to start an online advertising campaign with AdWords.

Course highlights include:

• Help thinking about your potential customers and business goals, and how to translate those goals to an online advertising campaign
• Examples of businesses that can use online advertising
• Interactive office hours with AdWords experts and opportunities to connect with other students

The course will also offer videos, quizzes, a worksheet, and links to additional resources and help. Here are the details:

What: Marketing 101, a massive open online course
Audience: New advertisers
When: July 22 - August 9
Requirements: Email address and a computer

Interested? Sign up for the course here.

Posted by AdWords Guides to Success Team

Analytics Hangouts on Air Series: How AdWords and Analytics Work Together

AdWords Specialists hosted a Hangout on Air earlier as the first installment of the Analytics Hangouts on Air series.

During the Hangout, we talked about how to link AdWords and Analytics so that you can view Analytics data in AdWords and view AdWords data in Analytics. To further differentiate yourself in the marketplace, we talked about how to use bounce rates and other important Analytics data to optimize your AdWords account. Lastly, we looked at how to important goals from Analytics into AdWords.



To watch the full 23-minute Hangout on Air, visit the Google Business YouTube channel.

To learn more about Analytics, visit our AdWords Help Center, visit our Analytics Help Center, or call us at 866-2-GOOGLE if you already have an AdWords account.

Posted by AdWords Specialists Derek Werdenberg, Tiffany Ho, and Joe Abernethy

America's businesses are growing. The web is helping.

Cross posted with the Official Google Blog.

Michael Edlavitch was a middle school math teacher in Minnesota when he started a website with free math games to engage his students. With free online tools, a passion for math and an initial investment of just $10 to register his domain, www.hoodamath.com was born. Eventually Michael’s website became popular with more than just his students. So Michael gave Google AdSense a try as a way to earn money by placing ads next to his content. As word spread and traffic grew, the revenue generated from his site allowed Michael to devote himself full time to Hooda Math. Today, www.hoodamath.com has more than 350 educational games and has had more than 100 million unique visitors to the site. Beyond building a business for himself, Michael is helping students everywhere learn math while having fun.

Over in New York, Roberto Gil designs and builds children’s furniture—loft beds, bunk beds and entire custom rooms. Casa Kids’ furniture is custom designed for the family to grow along with the child. Roberto works out of his Brooklyn workshop and doesn’t sell to large furniture stores, which means the Casa Kids website is an essential tool for him to connect with potential customers.To grow even further, Roberto began using AdWords in 2010. In the first few months traffic to his site went up 30 percent. Today, two-thirds of his new customers come from Google. Meet Roberto and learn more about how he is making the web work for Casa Kids:



These are just two examples of how the web is working for American businesses. According to a McKinsey study, small businesses that make use of the web are growing twice as fast as those that are not on the web. That’s because the web is where we go for information and inspiration—from math games to practice over the summer to someone to design and build that perfect bunk bed for your kids. Ninety-seven percent of American Internet users look online for local products and services. Whether we’re on our smartphones, tablets or computers, the web helps us find what we are looking for.

Here at Google, we see firsthand how the web is helping American businesses grow and thrive. Through our search and advertising programs, businesses like Casa Kids find customers, publishers like Hooda Math earn money from their content, and nonprofits solicit donations and volunteers. These tools are how we make money, and they’re also how millions of other U.S. businesses do, too.

In 2012, Google's search and advertising tools helped provide $94 billion of economic activity for more than 1.9 million American businesses—advertisers, publishers and nonprofits. This represents a 17 percent increase from 2011. Check out the impact made in each state, along with stories of local businesses using the web to grow.

Whether it’s building skills or building furniture, Google helps to build businesses. We're thrilled to be part of such a vibrant industry and are committed to continuing to help make the web work for people and businesses everywhere.

Happy Small Business Week.

Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog.

Our first AdWords customer was a small business selling live mail-order lobsters. It's been a long time since then, but a majority of our customers are still small businesses, who play a vital role not only for Google, but for the American economy. More than 60 percent of new jobs each year come from small businesses.


This Small Business Week, we want to celebrate you. We're grateful to you for everything you do for us and our communities. Whether you fix people’s cars, offer music lessons to aspiring musicians, or make the world’s best homemade ice cream—when you do what you love, our lives get better.

As part of the celebration, we’ll be highlighting some amazing small businesses across the country, so keep an eye on the Google+ Your Business page. And in the meantime, check out some of the Google tools that are designed to help you take care of business.

Happy Small Business Week.

Posted by Lisa Gevelber, VP Marketing, Americas

AdWords Enhanced Campaigns Upgrade Center

AdWords specialists Nina Cruz, Leslie O’Bray and Kaylyn Frazier hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday about the new Upgrade Center. Nina and Leslie demonstrate how to use the upgrade center to quickly and easily upgrade and/or merge your legacy campaigns. Starting on July 22, 2013, we will begin automatically upgrading all campaigns to enhanced.

Our specialists navigate through their AdWords accounts so you can see exactly what the interface looks like when making bulk upgrades and merges. They also demonstrate how to review changes before submitting the final upgrade.

You can view the full Hangout on the Google Business YouTube channel.


Stay tuned for our upcoming Google Analytics series, which will be held every other Thursday at 11 AM PST!

Posted by the AdWords team

Hangout on Air: Roundtable with AdWords Community Top Contributors

Courtney Pannell and Alys Donnelly from the AdWords team hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday with Tommy Sands and Moshe Avichai — two Top Contributors from the AdWords Community.

During the roundtable discussion, Tommy and Moshe gave their advice on best practices for creating effective ads, using tools in the AdWords interface, measuring ad performance, and much more.

Watch the full 35-minute Hangout on Air below, or, visit the Google Business YouTube channel.


To learn more about how to get started with AdWords, visit our Help Center, check out the AdWords Community, or call us at 866-2-GOOGLE if you already have an AdWords account.

And remember to stay tuned for upcoming Hangouts on Air!

Posted by the AdWords team

Explore the Future of Digital Marketing with Google and Industry Executives on June 4th

On Tuesday, June 4th we’ll host our annual digital leadership summit, thinkDoubleClick, with provocative conversations about the future of digital marketing and media, and you’re invited to join via live stream by registering here!

Hear executives from advertising, agencies and publishers discuss some of the big questions in digital such as:

• How do creatives leverage, but not be overwhelmed by, technology to deliver next-generation consumer experiences?
• What unique experiences are publishers developing that add value to consumers and advertisers alike?
• How do CMOs best use social with other marketing channels to build strong brands?  

The full agenda for the thinkDoubleClick event is listed below.  You can join in the conversation on June 4 by using the #thinkDCLK hash and commenting during the live stream at www.youtube.com/doubleclick.

Register here for the thinkDoubleClick summit

June 4, 2013

9 am - 12:15 PDT

9:00 - 9:30 am	Connecting Digital, Accelerating Growth Neal Mohan, VP Display Advertising, Google
9:30 - 10:00 am	The Coca-Cola Company's Liquid & Linked Marketing: How a 127-year-old company is pivoting for success in a real-time, socially-connected world The Coca-Cola Company sells over 500 brands in 207 countries, with over 700,000 System associates and 1.8B+ servings of their beverages everyday.  Hear insights and lessons learned on how the world's most valuable brand is remaining relevant by becoming more connected, transparent and nimble in real-time. Wendy Clark, Senior Vice President, Integrated Marketing Communications and Capabilities, Coca-Cola
10:00 - 10:35 am	Advertisers Must be Inventors This year, Volkswagen and Deutsch LA partnered with Google to work on a briefto re-imagine how to build a stronger, bigger community around its brand.  In today’s connected world, telling stories alone isn’t enough; we need to create tangible value and utility to bring the brand’s promise to life. In this session the creative team from Deutsch LA will be talking about the process for developing more rewarding and shareable experience. Winston Binch, Partner/Chief, Digital Creative Officer, Deutsch LA David Kim, Group Creative Director, Deutsch LA
10:35 - 11:15 am	Time to Rethink the Marketing Mix? Emerging trends in digital marketing -- including new ad formats, the rise of social media, and proliferation of channels -- are creating new challenges and opportunities for brand marketers. What are the key trends marketers should be concerned about -- and how should they respond? AdAge deputy editor Michael Learmonth poses the hard questions in an executive dialogue on what’s next for brand marketing. Fireside chat with: Michael Learmonth, Deputy Managing Editor, Advertising Age Lorraine Twohill, VP, Global Marketing, Google Jonathan Nelson, CEO, Omnicom Digital
11:15 am - 12: 15 pm	New and Native: Extending the Conversation Technology has had a profound impact on the media industry. This disruption, though, has brought along significant opportunities for creative publishers to thrive. In this session we’re bringing in three executives to show how they’ve leveraged the digital revolution to deliver more engaging content and differentiated solutions to advertisers. Randall Rothenberg, President & CEO, Interactive Advertising Bureau  (provocateur) Jim Lanzone, President, CBS Interactive Peter Horan, President & Chief Operating Officer, Answers Meredith Kopit Levien, Group Publisher & Chief Revenue Officer, Forbes Media

We look forward to seeing you on June 4th at thinkDoubleClick.

Spruce up your business for spring

Springtime is in full swing; can you feel it? In the grand tradition of spring cleaning, we’ve got a few ideas for freshening up your business online. We believe that a tidy online presence can go a long way in kicking off a season of growth for your business.

First day of spring Google Doodle

Tidy up your website
Does your business have a website? If not, check out our Help Desk Hangout with Get Your Business Online to get started on the web. If you’ve already got a website, do a quick check to make sure your contact details, like business name, phone number, and address are accurate and current. You might also update seasonal hours, if it’s relevant for your business, or refresh the branding for your business if it’s changed recently.
Extra Credit: Learn about analytics and to measure and grow your website’s success.

Dust off those social channels
Are you connecting with customers and potential customers online? It’s easy to do so using social media, and we’ve got some Google+ tips to help you get started. You can post updates about your business easily or engage in conversations with customers. If you’re already set up with social media, it might be a good time to check your channels to make sure you’ve posted recently. If not, check in with those communities.
Extra Credit: You can learn how to use Google to measure social performance by watching our webinar, Social that Adds Up.

Clean up the Google listing for your business
Are you using Google Places for Business to manage the listing for your business on Google Maps? If not, you should become a verified business owner. This will allow you to manage the listing on Google Maps for your business and update it as needed. We’ve got some tips to help make sure the listing stays healthy, too.
Extra Credit: If you spot inaccuracies on a page, click on Report a problem on the right hand side of the page to let us know.

Posted by the Google and Your Business blog team

A fresh look for AdWords Express

Cross-posted with Inside AdWords.

Today, when you log into AdWords Express, you’ll notice a brand new look. We’ve listened to your feedback and worked with a lot of small businesses to streamline the AdWords Express experience. It’s part of our ongoing efforts to make Google products more beautiful and efficient.

Clearer stats and reporting graphs
Small business owners have told us that they’re busy and that they don’t want to spend time looking for the information they need. We redesigned the dashboard to show you at a glance how many views, clicks and calls your ad has generated. There’s a simple pie chart for tracking your monthly spending, and you can also compare results over time with the new performance graph.

A faster, simpler signup
We’ve made some significant improvements to the signup experience. Now there are just 3 steps to start advertising: select your audience, create your ad, and select your budget. Getting your ad set up shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

Real-time ad previews
With the new real-time ad preview box, you can now see your ad created right as you type. Just hover over the icons to preview all the ad formats that are available based on the text you provide. Try it out by creating an ad at google.com/adwords/express.

We’re constantly working to improve the AdWords Express user experience to make it easier for small businesses to get their ads online. Keep the feedback coming!

Posted by Cinthya Mohr and the AdWords Express User Experience Team

Local businesses get new rating system

People across the world use Google to find the freshest coffee, friendliest service, and fastest delivery. With today’s launch of the new Google Maps, we’re making it easier than ever to choose the right places to eat, drink, shop and play.

Users who opt-in to the new Google Maps will now rate businesses on a scale that ranges from one to five stars. The system maintains the precision of the former 30 point scale while improving the readability and accessibility of the business listings. Your customers will be able to find up-to-date, accurate information on your business faster than ever. As a business owner, you’ll notice that past ratings have been mapped to the five star system.

These updates will continue to roll out on Google Maps, Google Maps for Mobile, Google search results and Google+ Local in upcoming months. Zagat reviews are still available throughout Google, and you’ll continue to see Zagat throughout Google products with editorial reviews and curated lists awarded to notable places

For more information on the score changes, join us on the Google and Your Business Forum.

Posted by the Google and Your Business blog team

Bringing it all together for Google Apps customers: 30GB shared between Drive and Gmail

Cross-posted with the Google Enterprise blog

Life gets a bit easier when your Google Apps products work well together -- whether that’s inserting a Drive file into an email or sharing Docs and photos from Drive on Google+. As that experience becomes seamless, having separate storage doesn’t make as much sense anymore. So over the coming weeks, you’ll get 30 GB of unified storage to use as you like between Drive and Gmail. Just as before, files created in Docs, Sheets and Slides don't count against your storage quota. Storage will also be shared with photos you upload to Google+ larger than 2048px.

With this new combined storage, you can use your storage how you need to. If your business or school is like most, you know how many important emails and attachments you receive every day. As a result of today’s storage change, Gmail inboxes for Google Apps customers are no longer limited to 25 GB -- any additional storage you purchase can be shared and used by Gmail. Or alternatively, if you’re only using a few gigabytes of email storage, but have a lot of large documents and files stored in Google Drive, you can now use your storage primarily for Drive.

If you want to know how you are using your storage, check out our recently updated Google Drive storage page. Simply hover over the pie chart to see a breakdown of how your storage is being used across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.

This update will roll out to Rapid Release domains over the coming weeks.

Posted by Clay Bavor, Director of Product Management, Google Apps

Hangout on Air: Ad Disapprovals and Review Process

AdWords Specialists Joe Abernethy, Alec Fox, and Kaylyn Frazier hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday about Ad Disapprovals and the Ad Review Process.

To watch the full 20-minute Hangout on Air, visit the Google Business YouTube channel here.


After sharing some interesting, Googley facts about themselves, Alec and Joe explain some of the top reasons for disapproved ads. Alec reminds us of the important policies regarding URLs in ads. Joe explains why we have editorial standards, and discusses guidelines for using symbols, punctuation and capitalization.

Alec and Joe use screen share to show us exactly where to re-submit ads that are disapproved, check on statuses of ads and view important policy details about ads in an AdWords account.

Take a look at the article on Editorial Standards that Kaylyn references in the Hangout.

To learn more about how to get started with AdWords, visit our Help Center, check out the AdWords Community forum, or call us at 866-2-GOOGLE if you already have an AdWords account.

And remember to stay tuned for upcoming Hangouts on Air!

Posted by Joe Abernethy, Alec Fox, and Kaylyn Frazier, AdWords Specialists

New Learn with Google Webinars to Help you Become a Smarter Digital Marketer

At Google, one of our goals is to help make the web work for you. Today we’re announcing a new series of Learn with Google webinars, which will teach you how to use digital to build brand awareness and give you the tools you need to drive sales and grow loyalty and retention. Each of our sessions gives you deep-dive educational content, across a breadth of products and marketing objectives, in a format that’s convenient for you. Every webinar is led by Google product experts and includes time for audience Q&A. Sign up to start becoming a smarter digital marketer now.

Upcoming live webinars:

May
[YouTube] Driving Direct Response with Video
[Shopping] Google Shopping 101: Google Shopping for Beginners
[Research] New Research: How US Shoppers use Smartphones in Stores
[Mobile] Driving Deeper Engagement with your App Users
[Mobile] Driving Brand Engagement with Mobile Rich Media
[Analytics] Measuring Success in a Multi-Device World


June
[Mobile] Understanding Mobile Ads Across Marketing Objectives
[Shopping] Google Shopping 201: Merchant Center Deep Dive
[YouTube] Building your Business with YouTube Video Ads
[Analytics] Metrics for the Mobile App Ecosystem
[Search] What's New & Next in AdWords
[Analytics] Unleashing the Combined Power of Google Analytics & AdWords
[Social] Growing your Business & Engaging your Audience with Google+
[Shopping] Google Shopping 301: Creating & Optimizing Product Listing Ads
[Social] Launching & Amplifying your Impact Across Social Channels
[Display] Reaching the Right Audience with Remarketing
[Research] Creating Custom Infographics with the New Google Databoard


Webinars are held Tuesdays through Thursdays at 10am Pacific/1pm Eastern.

Visit our webinar site to register for any of the live sessions and to access our large library of recorded content. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by adding our Learn with Google calendar to your own Google calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars.

During our last series of webinars, attendees had the chance to win a Nexus 7. Clint Wilson was our lucky winner and he’ll soon be enjoying all of the tablet’s cool features. Check out our upcoming webinars for another chance to win!

Learn with Google is a program to help businesses succeed through winning moments that matter, enabling better decisions and constantly innovating. We hope that you’ll use these best practices and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to seeing you at an upcoming session!

Posted by Erin Molnar, Marketing Coordinator, Learn with Google

Enhanced Campaigns Hangouts on Air: Optimizing Mobile Strategy

On April 25th, AdWords Specialists hosted a Hangout on Air as the last installment of the Enhanced Campaigns Hangouts on Air series.

To watch the full 20-minute Hangout on Air, visit the Google Business YouTube channel.


During the Hangout, Wes explains how to adjust bids for mobile devices. He does an account walk through, demonstrating how to adjust bids for the time of day, location and device. For example, if a user is on a mobile device near your store during regular business hours, it may make sense to increase the bid. Wes explains how to calculate the actual bids when using multiple bid adjustments at the same time.

Andy then explains how to create mobile preferred ad texts and mobile preferred ad extensions. He emphasizes the importance of sending users on mobile devices to optimized mobile websites, and briefly touches upon ValueTrack parameters. This blog post further explains how to use ValueTrack parameters to manage URLs by device.

To learn more about how to get started with AdWords, visit our help center, check out the AdWords Community Forum, or call us at 866-2-GOOGLE if you already have an AdWords account.

And remember to tune in to the live stream of our next Hangout on Air at 11 a.m. PDT, Thursday May 9th, when our specialists discuss the ad approvals process in detail.

Posted by the Adwords team.

Award-winning partners share tips for SMB success

We’re always looking for ways to share helpful tips with our readers, so we asked a few of the recent winners of our 2012 Premier SMB Partner Awards to share some words of wisdom with small businesses for digital success.

1) Love your customers
“There are two main items we focus on to create great customer relationships. The first is frequent customer contact. If you talk to your customers often, you’ll become aware of the little issues before they become big issues. The second is what we call ‘showing the love.’ When a customer knows they’re important to you, the level of trust is much deeper. Try and ‘show the love’ with everything you do.”
—Brenton Rose, Director of Ad Operations & Duncan Scarry, CEO, Haystak Digital Marketing - Winner of Highest Customer Satisfaction Award (North America)

2) Use a mix of tools to meet your unique goals
"Every business is different, and there's no one size fits all for AdWords campaigns. Think about what your customers are looking for and what actions they might want to take, and craft your ads with the right features and extensions to be most relevant."
­ —Kris Van Peteghem, Project Manager, Roularta Media Group - Winner of Highest Customer Satisfaction Award (EMEA)
Learn more about enhancing your ads with different types of extensions.

3) Make your site mobile-friendly
“When you consider the smaller screen sizes of most mobile devices, it’s important to have a mobile-friendly website. If not, visitors viewing your site from a mobile device are likely to have a poor, and perhaps confusing, experience.”
—Louis Gagnon, Chief Product and Marketing Officer, Yodle, Inc. - Winner of Mobile Champion Award (North America)
See how your site looks in mobile and give it a mobile makeover.

4) Make it easy for customers to get in touch
"People on the go are often looking for something local - be it a business in the area, directions, or a phone number. Offer your customers more ways to easily communicate with you, whether that’s through your website, via phone with call extensions, or with location extensions to bring them into your physical location."
—Alessandro Giuliano, Head of Product Management, Omnimedia AG, part of Ringier Digital AG - Winner of Mobile Champion Award (EMEA)
Find out how to set up location extensions.

5) Maximize potential from the get-go
“In order to reach potential customers, SMB’s need to increase their online visibility. Google AdWords campaigns enable businesses to derive tangible value from their online marketing efforts."
—The team at goudengids.be and pagesdor.be - Winner of Largest Increase in Active Advertiser Base Award (EMEA)
 Learn how AdWords Premier SMB Partners can help you maximize your AdWords potential.

The Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner program connects trusted and experienced AdWords partners with small businesses to help them create, manage and optimize their online advertising campaigns. Here’s the full list of winners:

North America:
Best Quality Accounts: Dealer.com
Largest Increase in Active Advertiser Base: Dex One
Mobile Champion: Yodle
Display & YouTube Champion: Dealer.com
Highest Customer Satisfaction: Haystak

EMEA:
Best Quality Accounts: Interinfo
Largest Increase in Active Advertiser Base, Emerging Partner: Truvo Belgium (goudengids.be)
Largest Increase in Active Advertiser Base, Established Partner: Begun
Mobile Champion: Ringier Digital AG
Display Champion: Trudon
YouTube Champion: Agora
Highest customer satisfaction: Roularta
Posted by Todd Rowe, Managing Director of Global Channel Sales

Posted by Todd Rowe, Managing Director of Global Channel Sales

Improving the look and feel of Google Places for Business

Hundreds of millions of people around the world use Google Search, Maps, Mobile and Google+ to find and discover great local businesses -- either in their hometown or in the places they’re headed. We’ve been able to deliver more comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information to help these people find what they’re looking for thanks to you, the many business owners who manage your online presence through Google Places for Business.

Today, we’re introducing an upgrade to the look and feel of Google Places for Business that will roll out to business owners over the coming weeks.

Easier to use
The upgraded interface is simpler and more intuitive, so the process of updating your business information is quick and easy. There’s also a widget that helps you understand at a glance how much more you need to do to complete your business profile.

Edits go live faster
When you make changes to your business, your customers want to know about it right away. Most edits made via the upgraded user interface now appear on Google Maps and our suite of other services within 48 hours. As before, we may continue to moderate changes to ensure the highest quality local experience.

Better integrated with Google products
Through this upgraded interface, you will be able to access your local Google+ page to take advantage of social features like sharing photos, videos, or posts. For businesses who also use AdWords Express and Google Offers, managing your ads and promotions is easier than ever. You can check results and make edits directly from your upgraded Places for Business dashboard.

What to do next
If you’re an existing user of Google Places for Business, this new interface is coming soon. You’ll receive an email notification once we’ve upgraded your account, and see the new interface once you sign in as usual. If you haven’t yet verified your business listing, now is the time to do it!

Posted by Qasar Younis, Senior Product Manager