Starting today, when you build a website with Big Cartel, Duda, Selz, Square, or Webflow, you can instantly connect a new URL to your service of choice using Google Domains—thanks to our new partner widget embedded in their websites.
Finding and purchasing a domain name through the widget takes just a few clicks, and Google handles most of the technical stuff (like DNS configuration and domain forwarding) so your site is connected automatically.
The widget makes it simple and seamless to get online with our partners, while providing all the benefits of Google Domains—including over 200 domain name endings and Whois privacy at no additional cost, plus the safety, security, and support of Google.
Google Domains partners who use this widget can make it easier for their users to add custom domains. One partner says, “Offering a domain from Google within our site builder helps us enable any seller to set-up an e-commerce site in minutes, while giving sellers more control over their online branding.”
Are you a business interested in partnering with Google Domains to use the widget? Adding it to your website is a breeze. Learn more at: https://domains.withgoogle.com/partners.
At Google I/O 2016, we launched a new Google Sheets API—click hereto watch the entire announcement. The updated API includes many new features that weren’t available in previous versions, including access to functionality found in the Sheets desktop and mobile user interfaces. My latest DevBytevideo shows developers how to get data into and out of a Google Sheet programmatically, walking through a simple script that reads rows out of a relational database and transferring the data to a brand new Google Sheet.
Let’s take a sneak peek of the code covered in the video. Assuming that SHEETS has been established as the API service endpoint, SHEET_ID is the ID of the Sheet to write to, and datais an array with all the database rows, this is the only call developers need to make to write that raw data into the Sheet:
Reading rows out of a Sheet is even easier. With SHEETS and SHEET_ID again, this is all you need to read and display those rows:
rows = SHEETS.spreadsheets().values().get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range='Sheet1').execute().get('values', []) for row in rows: print(row)
If you’re ready to get started, take a look at the Python or other quickstarts in a variety of languages before checking out the DevByte. If you want a deeper dive into the code covered in the video, check out the post at my Python blog. Once you get going with the API, one of the challenges developers face is in constructing the JSON payload to send in API calls—the common operations samples can really help you with this. Finally, if you’re ready to get going with a meatier example, check out our JavaScript codelab where you’ll write a sample Node.js app that manages customer orders for a toy company, the database of which is used in this DevByte, preparing you for the codelab.
We hope all these resources help developers create amazing applications and awesome tools with the new Google Sheets API! Please subscribe to our channel, give us your feedback below, and tell us what topics you would like to see in future episodes!
At Google I/O 2016, we launched a new Google Sheets API—click hereto watch the entire announcement. The updated API includes many new features that weren’t available in previous versions, including access to functionality found in the Sheets desktop and mobile user interfaces. My latest DevBytevideo shows developers how to get data into and out of a Google Sheet programmatically, walking through a simple script that reads rows out of a relational database and transferring the data to a brand new Google Sheet.
Let’s take a sneak peek of the code covered in the video. Assuming that SHEETS has been established as the API service endpoint, SHEET_ID is the ID of the Sheet to write to, and datais an array with all the database rows, this is the only call developers need to make to write that raw data into the Sheet:
Reading rows out of a Sheet is even easier. With SHEETS and SHEET_ID again, this is all you need to read and display those rows:
rows = SHEETS.spreadsheets().values().get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range='Sheet1').execute().get('values', []) for row in rows: print(row)
If you’re ready to get started, take a look at the Python or other quickstarts in a variety of languages before checking out the DevByte. If you want a deeper dive into the code covered in the video, check out the post at my Python blog. Once you get going with the API, one of the challenges developers face is in constructing the JSON payload to send in API calls—the common operations samples can really help you with this. Finally, if you’re ready to get going with a meatier example, check out our JavaScript codelab where you’ll write a sample Node.js app that manages customer orders for a toy company, the database of which is used in this DevByte, preparing you for the codelab.
We hope all these resources help developers create amazing applications and awesome tools with the new Google Sheets API! Please subscribe to our channel, give us your feedback below, and tell us what topics you would like to see in future episodes!
Whether it’s for entertainment, indulging a passion, or discovering something new, more people are turning to YouTube to watch video. In fact, growth in watch time on YouTube is up at least 50% year-over-year.1 Now, more than ever, businesses can connect with their customers through video advertising on YouTube.
But we know that creating a video ad can be challenging. To make it easier for every business—from a dog walker to a barber shop owner—to get started with advertising on YouTube, we’re launching the YouTube Director suite of products. Three products that make video ads more accessible to businesses.
Make a video ad right from your phone
With the free YouTube Director for business app (available for iPhone today in the U.S. and Canada) anyone can create a video ad for their business quickly and easily—right from their phone. No editing experience required. People like Woody Lovell Jr., owner of the The Barber Shop Club in Los Angeles, are already seeing positive results with YouTube Director.
Woody shot and edited a video ad by himself, uploaded it to YouTube, and worked with an AdWords expert to run a campaign. As a result, Woody’s business saw a significant increase in potential customers being able to remember and recognize his ad.2
We challenged five business owners—including Woody—to create a video ad in twenty minutes or less. Watch what happened and download the app to give it a try.
Get a professional to make your video ad
In select U.S. cities, we’re also offering YouTube Director onsite, a service that sends a professional filmmaker to shoot and edit a video ad for free whenever a business spends at least $150 to advertise on YouTube. YouTube Director onsite is available in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C.—and coming to more cities soon. Is your business an app? We can create a video ad for you too
YouTube Director automated video creates a video ad automatically from existing assets like logos and app screenshots in the App Store or Google Play Store, and is available globally. Reach out to a Google expert (1-855-500-2756) for more information.
No matter what kind of business you’re in, getting started with advertising on YouTube just became a whole lot easier. We can’t wait to see what you make. Happy filming.
1. Google Data, 2016 2. Woody’s YouTube Director video ad for The Barber Shop Club drove a 73% increase in ad recall among target customers on YouTube, and a 56% lift in brand awareness (AdWords Brand Lift Study, June 2016)
Did you know that nine out of ten people will leave a mobile website if they can’t find what they’re looking for right away?1 Now, think about your business’s site. Does it perform quickly on both laptops and smartphones? If not, you’re probably losing customers while the pages slowly load. But if you’re not sure how to make it run more smoothly, don’t worry – we’re here to help.
Today we’re introducing an easy way to measure your site’s performance across devices—from mobile to desktop—and give you a list of specific fixes that can help your business connect more quickly with people online.
You don’t need a lot of technical knowledge to understand your site’s performance. Just type in your web address and within moments you’ll see how your site scores. You can also get a detailed report to give you an idea of what to do next, and where to go for help at no charge. We recommend sharing it with your webmaster to help you plan your next steps and implement our suggested fixes.
Why you should test your site
Your customers live online. When they need information or want to find a nearby store or product, they grab the nearest device. On average, people check their phones more than 150 times a day,2 and more searches occur on mobile phones than computers.3 But if a potential customer is on a phone, and a site isn’t easy to use, they’re five times more likely to leave.4
To avoid losing out in these crucial moments, you need a site that loads quickly and is easy to use on mobile screens. The first step is seeing how your site is performing. We can help by scoring your site for mobile-friendliness, mobile speed, and desktop speed. Plus, it’s easy to share these scores. (By the way, if you’re a site guru, you may also want to visit PageSpeed Insights, which is the power behind the scores.)
What your scores say about your site
Mobile-friendliness: This is the quality of the experience customers have when they’re browsing your site on their phones. To be mobile-friendly, your site should have tappable buttons, be easy to navigate from a small screen, and have the most important information up front and center.
Mobile speed: This is how long it takes your site to load on mobile devices. If customers are kept waiting for too long, they’ll move on to the next site.
Desktop speed: This is how long it takes your site to load on desktop computers. It’s not just the strength of your customers’ web connection that determines speed, but also the elements of your website.
Test your site and find out what’s working, what’s not, and which fixes to consider.
The world’s gone mobile. Now, it’s your turn.
Posted by Yong Su Kim, VP SMB Sales Americas
1. Consumers in the Micro-Moment, Wave 3, Google/Ipsos, U.S., August 2015, n=1291 online smartphone users 18+ 2. Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, “Internet Trends D11 Conference.” May 2013 3. Google internal data, for 10 countries including the U.S. and Japan, April 2015 4. Google, Sterling Research and SmithGeiger, “What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today.” July 2012
Posted by Mike Procopio, Engineering Manager, Google Drive and Wesley Chun, Developer Advocate, Google Apps
WhatsApp is one of the most popular mobile apps in the world. Over a billion users send and receive over 42 billion messages, photos, and videos every day. It's fast, easy to use, and reliable.
But what happens when people lose their phone or otherwise upgrade to a new one? All those messages and memories would be gone. So we worked with WhatsApp to give their users the ability to back up their data to Google Drive and restore it when they setup WhatsApp on a new phone. With messages and media safely stored in your Drive, there’s no more worry about losing any of those memories.
Scaling for a billion users
One of the biggest challenges for an integration of this scope is scaling. How do you back up data for a billion users? Many things were done to ensure the feature works as intended and is unnoticeable by users. Our approach? First, we relied on a proven infrastructure that can handle this kind of volume—Google Drive. Next, we optimized what to back up and when to do the backups—the key was to upload only incremental changes rather than transmit identical files.
On the server side (backend), we focused on optimizing byte storage as well as the number of network calls between WhatsApp and Google. As far as deployment goes, we rolled out slowly over several months to minimize the size and impact of deployment.
WhatsApp & Google Drive, a seamless integration
If you have ever used WhatsApp, you know how it gets out of your way, and lets you get started quickly: no account creation, no passwords to manage, and no user IDs to remember or exchange. This sets a high bar for any integration with WhatsApp: for it to feel like a natural part of WhatsApp, it has to be as seamless, fast, and reliable as WhatsApp itself.
By using the Google Drive API, we were able to achieve this: no need to type in any usernames or passwords, just a few taps in the app, and WhatsApp starts backing up. The best part is that all the tools used in the integration are available to all developers. With the Google Drive API, seamless and scalable integrations are as easy to use for the user as they are for developers.
Are you ready to integrate your web and mobile apps with Google Drive? Get started today by checking out our intro video as well as the video demoing the newest API, then dig in with the developer docs found at developers.google.com/drive. We're excited to see what you build next with the Drive API—and we're ready to scale with you!
‘I love the idea of somebody Googling “Magnolia Abbey,” and being able to see my shop, and the interior, and know exactly where I am if they are local or coming through town,’ said Julianne Wall owner of Magnolia Abbey in Huntsville, AL. This National Small Business Week, Julianne was one of the many small business owners able to get her business on Google Search and Maps.
In celebration of National Small Business Week, Google and its local partner organizations hosted 888 free workshops helping 15,000 businesses from San Rafael, CA to Memphis, TN to Jersey City, NJ. Business owners learned about the benefits of adding photos to their listing, the changing landscape of mobile consumer behavior and how advertising online with Google can help them find new customers.
Last week, Google Agency Partners educated businesses about user trends and “The 10 Ways to Grow Your Business Online.” This interactive workshop was just one example of the hundreds held across the country for National Small Business Week.
National Small Business Week might be over, but there’s still an opportunity for businesses to attend workshops and access resources online. Google's Let’s Put Our Cities on the Map program works all year long to strengthen our communities by connecting businesses directly with local experts. Over 3,000 local partners host workshops and help businesses throughout the year to help them grow their business online. We also recently introduced online workshops so businesses can choose the lesson that’s right for them - whether it’s to learn how to get found on Google Search and Maps, get a custom email address, or promote their business with AdWords Express.
Google and our partners are #AllforSmallBiz and continuously support businesses in local communities, so it’s never too late to get your business online. Learn more at gybo.com/workshops.
If you own a small business, a visit to your website is only the first step to getting more customers. Whether they subscribe to your newsletter, make an online purchase, or click to email you directly, the next step a customer takes on your website is an important indicator of how you’re doing online. However, setting up tracking for the things you care about can be complex, especially for business owners with little time to spare.
That’s why we’ve introduced a new feature for tracking these goals in AdWords Express. AdWords Express advertisers can now access the power of Google Analytics right from their campaign dashboard. Connect a current Analytics account or set up a new one in minutes right from the AdWords Express dashboard. Once you set the goals for your website, you’ll be able to see how customers who click on your ad go on to interact with your website.
Analytics will show you how your ad is contributing to the website goals that matter to you
Google Analytics has been an invaluable resource for small business owners looking to understand these key interactions. For Carrie Sullivan, co-owner of Telaya Wine Co. in Idaho, understanding how visitors interact with her website has been key to her company’s success online. “Being a small business, we wear many different hats and we have a small staff, so we don’t have someone to just focus on our website. Google Analytics does that for us.”
With the introduction of this feature, we’re excited to bring all these benefits to AdWords Express advertisers. Take your performance to the next level by understanding how your online spending impacts the website goals you care about at google.com/adwords/express, or visit our help center to learn more.
Posted by Zhouzhou He, AdWords Express Product Manager
There are 9.9M women-owned businesses in the US (Small Business Administration) and many of those businesses are run by moms. To celebrate Mother’s Day, we want to recognize the impact moms have on all types of small businesses. We reached out to the Google Small Business Advisors, our team of small business owners and experts, to share the business (and life) lessons they learned from their moms. Here’s what they had to say:
We’re constantly investing in new tools and services to help developers build secure Android applications. This includes the application sandbox and Security APIs in the platform, Security APIs in Google Play Services, and even open source testing tools. Last year, Google Play also helped developers enhance the security of their applications by looking directly at the code they’ve written and offering suggestions for improvements.
The Google Play App Security Improvement Program is the first of its kind. It has two core components: We provide developers with security tips to help them build more secure apps, and we help developers identify potential security enhancements when uploaded to Google Play. This week, to help educate developers, Kristian Monsen, one of our engineers, gave a presentation about security best practices at the Samsung Developer Conference. And in 2015, we worked with developers to improve the security of over 100,000 apps through the program.
How it works
Before any app is accepted into Google Play, it is scanned for safety and security, including potential security issues. We also continuously re-scan the over one million apps in Google Play for additional threats.
If your app is flagged for a potential security issue, you will be notified immediately to help you quickly address the issue and help keep your users safe. We’ll deliver alerts to you using both email and the Google Play Developer Console, with links to a support page with details about how to improve the app.
Typically, these notifications will include a timeline for delivering the improvement to users as quickly as possible. Applications may be required to make security improvements before any other app updates can be be published.
You can confirm that you’ve fully addressed the issue by uploading the new version of your app to the Google Play Developer Console. Be sure to increment the version number of the fixed app. After a few hours, check the Developer Console for the security alert; if it’s no longer there, you’re all set!
The success of this program rests on our partnership with you—the developers of apps on Google Play—and the security community. We’re all responsible for providing safe, secure apps to our users. For feedback or questions, please reach out to us through the Google Play Developer Help Center. To report potential security issues in apps, please reach out to us at security+asi@android.com.
