Tag Archives: 2016

Updating Your Holiday Hours on Google? Easy as Pumpkin Pie.

Heather Mohorn, owner of Momo’s Tree House, adds special hours on Google to let last-minute shoppers know when her business is open. “The holiday hours feature makes it easy to communicate [changes in hours] to customers,” she says. “It reduces the number of phone calls we receive to ask whether we’re open, which is nice when we’re busy wrapping those last-minute gifts on Christmas Eve.”

With Google My Business, you can update your business info on Google for free to ensure that your phone number, address, and hours of operation are correct so customers can find you this season (and beyond).

To help you make the most of the season, we put together a holiday workshop filled with tips for using the web to connect with shoppers. Preview the section on updating your holiday hours above, or watch the entire workshop at gybo.com/livestream.

For a list of step-by-step instructions on how to update your hours on Google My Business, visit our help center

We hope this is one thing you can easily check off your holiday to-do list.

Cheers,
Emily Harris, on behalf of the Let’s Put Our Cities on the Map team

Traits that Spell Success

With the Rio Summer Olympic Games just around the corner, we thought we’d look at an uncommon, yet exceptional, group of business owners for our answer: Olympian small business owners. As it turns out, many of them start a second career by running a business of their own bringing the same spirit of passion, perseverance, and ingenuity from their athletic careers.

Passion
Judy Geer and Dick Dreissigacker – two USA Olympic rowers from the 70s and 80s – came to Vermont because it allowed them to combine their passion for active living and the natural environment into what is now known as the Craftsbury Outdoor Center. As Judy puts it, “It’s great that we help train Olympic athletes at our center, but it’s bigger than that. For me, it’s all about helping more people have great experiences, whether they’re getting exercise or just enjoying our surroundings.” Despite its remote location, Judy’s deep commitment to sustainability and lifelong sports practice keeps both local residents and aspiring athletes from across the country coming back. Customers can tell when business owners get out of bed in the morning because they love what they do.

Perseverance
Setbacks are common parts of the journey for any athlete or small business owner. The important thing isn’t the number of obstacles you avoid, it’s the way you bounce back from the ones you can’t miss. When four-time kayaking world champion Eric ‘EJ’ Jackson found his kayak designs rejected by manufacturers across the country, he didn’t give up – and his motto is “no compromising,” so buckling to tradition wasn’t an option. Instead, EJ’s relentless drive to create on his own terms resulted in Jackson Kayak, now a leading manufacturer within the industry. Jackson Kayak now sells products online and through dealers across the country.

Ingenuity
Since the beginning, four-time track and field Olympian and world record holder Michael Johnson has experimented with new ways to tell the story of his performance training center, Michael Johnson Performance. Because he wanted to attract local customers, moving some of his advertising budget online made sense so he could reach them with geo-targeted ads.

With more potential customers finding him on mobile, Michael Johnson also drove growth for his business with mobile ads. “Two-thirds of our customers find us through mobile,” says Johnson. “With Google AdWords, we can see exactly who we’re reaching and that’s invaluable to us.” Making connections with new customers is key to growing any business, and a willingness to experiment with new ways of reaching those customers is a vital part of any business owner.

Learn how all kinds of small business owners – mom and pops to all-star Olympians – are using Google AdWords to grow their businesses by visiting g.co/AdWordsGoForGold.

Posted by Claire Mudd, Head of Americas SMB Marketing

Go the Extra Mile with #SmallBizGames Challenges

Summer’s coming to an end, and with Fall just around the corner, small businesses are preparing for the upcoming season and looking ahead to the holidays. To help business owners brush up on their marketing skills at this key moment, we’re proud to share ten #SmallBizGames digital marketing challenges. Every day for the next two weeks, we’ll share a different digital marketing challenge aimed at improving your small business’ online presence – try your hand at setting up a Google My Business page, building your first AdWords keyword list, or creating a custom email address for your business. Each daily challenge is designed to hone your digital marketing skills and help you reach more customers online.

To participate or learn more, join the Google Small Business Community or follow us on Twitter. Best of luck in conquering the #SmallBizGames challenges!

Businesses are Growing Online with Google

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” This may have been a question you were asked regularly as a child. Today it seems as if any interest can become a career, thanks in part to the reach and accessibility of the web. From outdoor adventure guides and quilters, to toymakers and bowtie designers, at Google, we feel lucky to play a small role in how many people turned their passions into professions.

Last year, Google’s search and advertising tools helped provide $165 billion of economic activity for U.S. businesses—advertisers, publishers and nonprofits. Businesses are using the web to find new customers, connect with existing ones, and grow.

For example, Kathryn Jackson spent many years as a sales associate at a luxury department store. During that time she observed how quickly her clients had to re-sole their expensive shoes. She was inspired to create Protect Your Pumps, shoe sole protectors that help shoes last longer. Within two years, she turned her idea into a full time career. Today 40% of her sales come from Google Search. She’s expanded her product line to include shoe protectors for flats and men’s shoes, and has shipped products to more than 80 countries.
Michael Salvatore loves coffee and bicycles. Michael discovered many other people in his native Chicago shared those same interests. In 2011, he founded Heritage Bicycles, creating a space that offers delicious coffee and bicycles uniquely designed and manufactured in Chicago. Michael used the web and geo-targeted Google AdWords campaigns to build his brand and get local customers into his stores. He also created global campaigns in AdWords to encourage customers from around the world to visit his e-commerce store. Today, Michael has two stores in Chicago, 23 employees, a global customer fan base, and plans to expand to more locations this year.
These are just two examples of businesses using the web and Google products to grow their businesses.You can find more stories and explore Google’s economic impact state-by-state in our Economic Impact Report. Across the U.S., business owners are using the web and Google to grow their companies, operate more efficiently, and turn their dreams into reality. We’re proud to play a role in their success and are committed to building tools and programs to help them reach their goals.

Posted by Claire Mudd, Head of SMB Marketing

4 Things Small Businesses Should Know in A Mobile-First World

At the Google Performance Summit, we announced several new trends and product innovations that highlight mobile opportunities for advertisers. Here are the main takeaways for small businesses looking to make the most of the new mobile world:

1. Every year, there are trillions of searches on Google and over half of those searches happen on mobile.

More searches happen on mobile than on desktop computers – which is no surprise when we think about our own behavior as consumers. Throughout the day, whenever we want to buy, learn or go, we turn to our phones first.

2. Mobile is local. Nearly one third of all mobile searches are related to location, and that number is growing.

Whether they’re researching pizza delivery on Friday night or trying to find an orthodontist near their pre-teen’s middle school, consumers are using mobile to direct their actions in the local world. Thirty-two percent of consumers say that location-based search ads have led them to visit a store or make a purchase1. For small business serving customers in their area, mobile ads can offer a vital opportunity to connect with customers.

3. New local search ads help businesses bring customers right to their door.

As we announced at the Google Performance Summit, businesses using location extensions in AdWords can prominently display their business location when consumers search for things like “dentist” or “car repair shop near me” while on-the-go.

We’re also testing new local ad formats that make it easier for users to find businesses as they navigate on Google Maps. Consumers may start seeing experiments like promoted pins that allow businesses to strengthen their brand presence in maps.


4. AdWords is designed to help you succeed in a mobile-first world.

We also introduced innovations in both text and display ads to help AdWords work harder for you on smartphone screens. Look for these upgrades coming soon:

  • New expanded text ads in AdWords provide extra ad space so you can showcase more information about your products and services before the click. The key changes include more prominent headlines and a longer description line in your text ad.
  • Responsive ads for display will adapt to the diverse content, shapes and sizes of the more than two million publisher sites and apps on the Google Display Network. Just provide headlines, a description, an image, and a URL, and AdWords will create beautiful ads for you that looks good on every device and site.


To learn more about other exciting ads and analytics innovations announced at the Google Performance Summit, watch the livestream keynote here.


Posted by Soo Young Kim, Head of Marketing, Get Your Business Online

1. Google/Ipsos MediaCT/Purchased, Research: Understanding Consumers’ Local Search Behavior, May 2014

Launch of Google India Code to Learn contest 2016

In support of Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan, nurturing the spirit of scientific inquiry and creativity,  Google India has been running the Code to Learn competition. The winners of the 2015 edition were announced and felicitated yesterday at Shastri Bhawan by Smt Smriti Zubin Irani, Hon’ble Minister for Human Resource Development, Government of India. The minister also launched the 2016 edition of the contest.


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Have you ever wondered while using your Android phone as to how all those fantastic applications get developed? What about seeing cool animations and playing some very engaging games and wondering “how do they do it”? All of that and of course much more is possible with programming and those who are experts at it can truly work wonders with their code. Programming code is everywhere, starting from your computer to your favorite websites to inside your vehicle and it has changed the world in many many different ways.


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Traditionally programming has been associated with learning a programming language, writing lines and lines of code and spending a lot of time debugging it. But, at Google, we believe that students can actually be introduced to programming and Computer Science in a much more fun and engaging way. Several tools and methods for introducing programming to school students have been around but two of the most prominent of those are Scratch and App Inventor - both developed at MIT. By using Scratch or App Inventor, students can create a wide variety of projects that include Games, Animations, Story-telling and even Android apps; all of that without writing even one line of programming language code!


This summer we invite students in classes 5 to 10 from any school in India to participate in the Google India Code to Learn contest 2016. Parents or Legal Guardians of students can register on the students’ behalf on the contest website. Students can create their projects in Scratch or App Inventor and submit them on the contest site. Registration for the contest is open now. Project Submission will be open from 20-June-2016 and the last day to submit projects is 31-July-2016. There are links to online tutorials for both Scratch and App Inventor on the contest site and these tools are very easy to learn especially because one does not need to learn a programming language.


This contest has been adopted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India under the Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan. We thank the Ministry for their support for the contest and are looking forward to seeing the innovation and creativity that students will present to us via their projects. Who knows which one of the innovative students in India will go ahead to create something as revolutionary as a self-driving car!
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Code to Learn is co-organized by ACM India and IIIT Delhi. ACM is the worldwide society for scientific and educational computing with an aim to advance Computer Science both as a science and as a profession. IIIT Delhi is a research-oriented university based in Delhi.

Posted by Vineeta Dixit, Public Policy & Government Relations Manager and Ashwani Sharma, Head of University Relations and Computer Science Outreach