"Discover What You DIDN'T KNOW About Your Favorite Search
Engine -- And How You Can Use This Information to Grow
Your Business!"
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Less than seven years ago, a tiny company of 10 employees
launched a web search engine...
Today, that search engine attracts more than 81.9 million
different visitors each month! Of course, the search engine
I'm talking about is none other than Google.com.
Visitors can access Google's web site in over 100 different
languages (including Klingon, Pig Latin, and, a personal
favorite, Elmer Fudd).
Search results are generated from over eight billion indexed
web pages and one billion images. And over 50% of the
traffic to Google.com comes from outside the US.
Google has some impressive financial numbers, too. In
mid-August 2004, they went public with their stock opening
at $85; less than one year later, it is trading at just
under $300 a share.
They have been profitable month after month. In fact, in the
first quarter of 2005, they made over $1 billion.
Quarterly profits are not what motivate Google, though.
Google is very much focused on long-term development and
will forego short-term revenue for it.
In fact, it's widely reported that when Google first
launched one of their biggest search products, Google News,
they forgot to put advertising on it! They were more focused
on developing a high-quality product with the user's best
interests in mind.
As you can imagine, it takes a lot more than 10 employees to
hold down the Google fort these days. As of the end of 2004,
Google employed over 3,000 people.
As the company has grown in numbers, it has also grown in
scope. While Google is staying true to its philosophy of
"doing one thing really, really well," it has expanded its
reach in all kinds of different directions.
If you haven't looked beyond the clean, simple interface of
Google's main page, you are missing out on a LOT of great
services and tools that can help you enhance your own
business.
Google has a huge variety of services, tools, labs, and
advertising avenues that every online entrepeneur should
know about. Yet many people are unaware that Google is so
much more than "just" a search engine.
So let's look at some of the key resources you can use to
benefit your online business.
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Enhance your business with Google services
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The six most well-known services Google offers are easily
accessed from Google's main page. Beyond the main page,
there is a wider world of Google services that are less
familiar to most people.
The "more" link on the main page will give you access to
some of them; for others, you'll have to dig a bit deeper...
We'll take a look at the "big six" from the main page,
explaining what they are and how you can use them in your
business, and then point you towards a few of the other
services your business can benefit from.
1. WEB SEARCH:
http://www.google.com When people think of Google, web search is what comes to
mind first. Google has harnessed the power of many computers
to index eight billion web pages and then use a complex (and
secret!) mathematical formula to determine the relevance or
importance of each page.
When you enter a "keyword" or search term into the search
box, Google searches for web pages containing those words
and lists the pages in order of importance.
As a web site owner, you need to make sure that your own web
site is optimized with keywords, high-quality content, and
inbound links so that Google ranks you above your
competitors in search results.
Use Google search to monitor whether or not changes you make
to your web site are helping you beat your competition to
the top of the search results list! But don't expect changes
to take effect immediately -- it may take days or even weeks
for your changes to make a difference to your ranking.
2. IMAGES:
http://images.google.com Google caches over one billion images that are searched in
exactly the same way web pages are. Typing your search term
in the box and clicking on "Search Images" gives you
thumbnails of images related to the keyword search term you
used.
Each of the thumbnail images is linked back to its original
page, where you can view the larger size. This can save you
tons of time in locating an image that suits your purpose,
since you don't need to sort through the standard search
results to find a web page that might contain the image you
need.
NOTE: Make sure the image is not protected by copyright
before you download it. And, if one of YOUR images is
protected and you prefer that it does not come up in
Google's search results, you can request that it be removed.
3. GROUPS:
http://groups-beta.google.com Within Google Groups, you can find communities of people
discussing all kinds of different topics. Any member can
join or start a group. This is a great way for you to
discover what your potential customers are interested in.
If, for example, your products promote natural and holistic
health, you might find some great ideas for new products and
markets by reading messages posted in the Natural Health
group. You'll read about problems people have, which might
spark a great idea for a way that you can solve that problem
with a product of your own.
You can also get the word out about your products to the
targeted audience in the group.
4. NEWS:
http://news.google.com Google News is a terrific way for you to stay on top of
events. You can customize the news you get so that it comes
from a specific region or source. You can also trace a
particular story's history to see how it has developed over
time.
These can be really useful and time-saving ways to do
research in your area. Rather than wading through oceans of
news, tell Google to give you news on specific topics from
your target area.
Unfortunately, unless you are a news organization yourself,
you can't add your own news story as a way of marketing your
product. Press releases don't show up on Google News either.
5. FROOGLE:
http://froogle.google.com Froogle is a search engine that looks only for products that
are for sale online. It helps buyers find a web site that
sells the things they want to purchase.
The search results are completely "organic"; in other words,
online sellers can't "buy" a higher ranking in the search
results by paying Google more money than a competitor.
If your web site isn't already listed in Froogle's search
results, you'll want to make sure it gets listed because the
people who search through Froogle are there to buy
something! You can submit your site at:
https://www.google.com/froogle/merchants/welcome
You can then use Froogle's "Product Feed" to automatically
update your listing every time you make a change to your
site. You can -- and should -- submit your product feed
regularly so that Froogle always has the most current
information about the products you are selling.
6. LOCAL:
http://local.google.com Google Local is a quick way of limiting your search results
to a specific region.
When you click on the "Local" link on the Google main page,
you get two search boxes labelled "What" and "Where." You
can quickly and easily search for things like local
suppliers and potential business contacts.
In April of this year, Google integrated Local Search with
Keyhole, a 3D mapping technology that gives a local business
a "flag" on the map that accompanies search results.
The businesses that are included in search results are ones
that are already indexed by Google or that exist in one of
the databases that Google accesses, like YellowPages. If
your business is not showing up in search results, you can
submit it to Google here:
https://www.google.com/local/add/login
Now, let's move beyond Google's homepage to the wider world
of Google tools and resources.
7. GMAIL:
http://gmail.google.com Gmail is Google's free web-based e-mail service. It offers
2GB of storage space and the ability to send image files up
to 10MB in size, which is much more than any of the other
free webmail services offer.
Gmail also offers new ways of storing, organizing, and
archiving e-mail files. But the really unique thing about
Gmail is that it "reads" each e-mail message it receives and
matches ads to keywords it finds in the message. These ads
are then displayed alongside the message.
This is a great system for advertisers, of course, because
their ads are being shown to a highly targeted group.
Google's Privacy Policy and sensitivity filters assure Gmail
users that their e-mail messages are secure and that the ads
placed beside them will not be in poor taste.
However, Google cannot guarantee that your competitors' ads
won't show up on an e-mail you send to your customers.
Gmail is still in beta, though, and it is likely that the
number of people on your e-mail list who use it is very
small.
8. MAPS:
http://maps.google.com Google Maps works in tandem with Google Local, adding an
interactive element to searches by location. You can toggle
between street and satellite views of an area, and you can
get directions simply by choosing "Directions" and typing an
address in the search box.
Your customers will easily find your brick-and-mortar
business or the directions to an event you're sponsoring
with a link to your own Google map right on your web site.
All you have to do is navigate within Google Maps to the
view you want your customers to see and click "Link to This
Page." You'll get a URL that you can add to your web site's
HTML.
You also have the option to embed the map itself on your
site. To do this, you'll need to sign up first:
http://www.google.com/apis/maps/. You can then add
functionality and interest to the map on your site by
overlaying information boxes and directional lines.
9. ZEITGEIST:
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html Google Zeitgeist is a way of keeping on top of patterns,
trends, and surprises in how people search on Google. It
gives you a one-page snapshot of the top-ranked search terms
over the past week and month, with links to the search
results pages. "Zeitgeist Around the World" gives you
similar tidbits organized by country.
If you are interested in tracking keyword use related to the
hottest trends online, this is a useful page for you to
bookmark. And there are archives that go back to January
2001, too!
10. PLUS MORE...
http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ There are a lot more Google services to explore! Just for
starters, have a look at Google Print to search the complete
text of books, Google Mobile to search with your cell phone,
and University Search to find links to the web sites of
educational institutions.
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Save time -- and money -- with Google's free tools
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In addition to its many valuable services, Google offers you
several really useful -- and free! -- tools. You might be
using some of them already, but you might not have
considered how to really make them work to enhance your
business.
1. TOOLBAR:
http://toolbar.google.com
Google's free toolbar is a great way of adding functionality
to your web browser.
It can be a real time-saver as it spellchecks your URLs as
you type them, autolinks addresses to maps, and jumps to
searched words on a page. It also, of course, puts a handy
Google search box right at your disposal, no matter where
you are on the Web!
2. PAGERANK:
If you're familiar with the Google Toolbar, then you know
that PageRank is the green bar and number that give you an
instant sense of a web site's importance (ranked from 0 to
10).
Google determines the "importance" of your site by
monitoring how many other sites link to you and how
"important" they are. PageRank is just one of the indicators
(along with relevant links and high-quality content) that
Google uses to place your web pages in search results.
By monitoring your PageRank -- and that of your competitors
-- you can get a general sense of how well-optimized your
pages are for search. PageRank can also indicate the quality
of a site you're checking out as a potential link partner.
3. BLOGGER:
http://www.blogger.com
Google's free blogging tool is an excellent opportunity for
you to develop a web presence with dynamic content and an
RSS feed. The growing importance of RSS will change how new
pages are optimized -- news goes out to readers rather than
readers coming to look for news.
According to a recent issue of Planet Ocean's "Search Engine
Watch," in the not-so-distant future, it will become more
important to have large numbers of sites pulling your RSS
feed than it will to have a high rank in search results.
Blogger is an easy way to get the jump on your competition!
Google, itself, uses Blogger for its own blogs -- have a
look at --
* http://www.GoogleBlog.blogspot.com
* http://www.AdWords.blogspot.com
* http://www.buzz.blogspot.com
* http://www.code.blogspot.com
4. CODE:
http://code.google.com
If you're a bit of a techie, then you'll appreciate Google
Code! This is a site that Google has for external developers
who want to try their hand at improving Google's products.
There are currently several projects that are being
featured, all related to different aspects of projects that
are actively being developed at Google. Google's engineers
decide which ones to release as open source for public
development and welcome knowledgeable input.
5. DESKTOP SEARCH:
http://desktop.google.com/
Desktop Search is a free tool that you can use to search
your own computer. You can locate files, previously visited
web pages, e-mail, and more by installing Google's search
bar on your desktop.
If your business is growing and you want to be able to
search several computers, you can use the free Enterprise
edition of the Desktop Search box.
6. GOOGLE EARTH:
http://earth.google.com
For pure fun, you HAVE to take a look at Google Earth. It
lets you swoop around the Grand Canyon, zip over to your old
neighborhood, and have a look at the area around that resort
you booked online.
You can zoom in and out and rotate the view. While you won't
be able to see your dog wagging its tail in your backyard,
it will give you a great sense of terrain, architecture, and
landmarks.
7. PLUS MORE...
http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/
Google offers a number of other tools like Hello, which is
an instant messaging system with images, and Translate,
which lets you view web pages in other languages.
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Get a jump on your competition in Google Labs
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Google devotes about 70% of its efforts to developing its
web search and targeted ads, which are the core of its
business, and about 10% on developing products -- like
Blogger -- that are fun, interesting, and useful, but only
peripherally related to web search.
The remaining 20% of their time and energy is where a lot of
Google's most innovative development comes from.
The company requires its engineers to spend one-fifth of
their time developing their own projects -- things that
interest them apart from their regular jobs -- and this has
led to products like Google's desktop search engine, "search
by location," and Gmail.
Unlike many companies, Google is not afraid to let people
"look under its skirt." In other words, you can get a good
idea of what Google is working on and what direction they
might take with the services and tools they offer.
Take a look at Google Labs - http://Labs.google.com - for some
current examples.
This is where Google showcases what its engineers have been
up to in their "personal project" time. It is also where
Google asks you for your input.
You can try out tools while they are still in the
development stage and give your feedback on how you think
they could be improved or developed -- tools like...
1. SITE FLAVORED SEARCH BOX:
http://www.google.com/services/siteflavored.html
You can put a Google search box on your web site that will
tailor your visitors' searches according to a profile you
have predefined.
You provide Google with information about yourself, your
business, etc., and when your visitors use the search box,
Google flags certain results as likely to be more relevant.
You have the ability to block your competitors' sites from
being presented in the search results, too.
2. PERSONALIZED SEARCH:
http://www.google.com/psearch
Personalized Search orders your search results based on what
you have searched for before.
This can be a real time-saver for a small business owner who
is trying to do market research. You can store and retrieve
previous searches, and as your search history grows, so will
the efficiency of your searches.
3. PLUS MORE...
http://Labs.google.com
Visit Google Labs to see what else is in the pipeline (or
"recently graduated"). There is a ton of useful stuff, and
by getting to know how Google plans to make things better
for you -- and your customers -- tomorrow, you can be better
prepared than your competition to take advantage of all of
those tools and services.
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Promote your business by advertising with Google
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If you're not already advertising with Google, it's time to
get cracking! Because of the massive number of visitors to
Google each day, it is a HUGE source of potential traffic
for you.
1. WEB SEARCH:
Just showing up in your potential customers' search results
is the easiest way to use Google for free advertising.
You'll need to optimize your web site to achieve the highest
ranking possible.
You may already be aware that you need to spend some time
getting the right keywords on your web site and increasing
your "link popularity." You might not have known that Google
looks at the first block of text it encounters on your web
page and uses that for the few lines displayed about your
site on search result pages.
So if you want to get listed and also catch the eye of your
customers, make your first paragraph of text count: It
should be roughly 300 words with about 8% of them being
keywords to be most effective.
2. SITEMAPS:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps
Google's spiders constantly index web pages, and it is
impossible to predict accurately when they will visit your
site.
If you have paid attention to optimization for search, then
they WILL crawl your pages. However, you cannot be sure that
they have indexed ALL of your web pages -- they might index
just part of your site on one visit. And since they start at
the top of a page and work down, they might not even index
the entire page before moving on!
One thing you can do to increase the likelihood of your
entire site being searchable is to submit your site to
Google Sitemaps. There are several ways to do this; for an
overview go to:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/overview.html
When you do this, Google creates and stores an XML file that
allows for instant updates and indexing whenever your site's
content changes. This is like having your own data cable
running from your computer directly to Google!
3. ADSENSE:
http://www.google.com/adsense
AdSense is one of the two kinds of advertising avenues
Google offers. The ads generated through AdSense are
third-party ads that sit on your web site. The program is
free for you to use AND you make money each time someone
clicks on an ad to move off of your web site.
In other words, these ads entice your visitors away from
your site (bad thing), but you are compensated each time
that happens (good thing).
Google matches the ads to your site by finding similarities
in the keywords of each. You can set a filter to prevent
your competitors' ads from appearing on your web site, and
you can customize the appearance of the ads so that their
background color is the same as your site's, making them
look more like informative content than sales pitches.
Try testing Google AdSense on your site to see if it
negatively affects your traffic and sales. If it doesn't,
then you've just found a new revenue stream!
How much will you earn? That depends partly on how much the
advertisers are paying Google for the keywords and partly on
how many people click through the ads on your site.
You could earn anywhere between $0.03 and $15.00 per click
and up to several hundred dollars a day if you have a
well-optimized site that draws lots of traffic.
4. ADWORDS:
http://www.google.com/adwords
The second of Google's advertising opportunities is AdWords.
These are ads that you create to promote your business and
that Google places on other sites for you.
There are three main places that you will see AdWord ads --
* On the right side of the page next to Google's
"organic" search results
* On other sites as AdSense ads
* Alongside your e-mail messages in Gmail
When you create your AdWord ads, you are in control of how
much they cost. You decide how much you are willing to pay
for specific keywords in your ads, and each time your ad is
clicked you pay that amount.
The amount ranges from a minimum of $0.05 to a maximum of
$100, and you can set a daily budget that will not be
exceeded.
Google uses the keywords you chose to place your ads on
sites that have content relevant to yours, so you can be
assured that the traffic you are paying for is highly
targeted. AdWords reach 80% of Internet users AND you can
define their target region and language.
If you're wary about using AdWords because of the
possibility of your ads appearing on sites that do not
convert to sales for you, you can apply a "negative filter"
when creating your ad to exclude specific sites.
Of course, you'll need to test whether your advertising
investment is making money for you. If the click-through
traffic is not converting to sales, if your traffic drops
off, or if a particular keyword is not drawing the traffic
-- and sales -- you had hoped for, it is time to rework your
ads.
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Monitor Google -- and your site's Google ranking -- with
other tools
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We shouldn't always take a company's word for it about what
they offer. It's always wise to get a second opinion or look
to the experts to see what the buzz is about a company's
products.
Using Google is no different, and there are a large number
of ways that you can discover who is saying what about
Google's plans and products. There are also a lot of people
who provide tools and services that supplement Google's, and
these, too, are worth knowing about.
Let's look at a few examples...
1. GOOGLE ADVISOR:
http://googleadvisor.org
This is a blog that focuses on AdSense, AdWords, and
PageRank strategies. For information, tips, tricks, and
strategies related to Google, this site is a good first
stop.
2. GOOGLE RANKINGS:
http://www.googlerankings.com/ultimate_seo_tool.php
This site gives you a free tool for checking your keywords.
You can enter your site's URL and get a report about your
keyword density. You can then check how highly Google ranks
your site for each of the keywords.
3. GOOGLE GUIDE:
http://www.googleguide.com
This site offers guides for both novice and experienced
users. Experienced users can find out about creating a web
site, including tips on PageRank, getting listed, and
advertising revenue.
In addition, don't forget to "google" for blogs, resources,
and news about Google. That's always a sure way of coming up
with great ideas!
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Final thoughts
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You know you've really made it when your company name is
turned into a verb. "Let me google that" is part of our
everyday speech -- and the verb "to google" has even been
added to the Webster's dictionary!
From tiny beginnings not that long ago, Google has had a
huge impact, not only on how we search the Web, but also on
how we talk about it. Google has become synonymous with
online information.
And there is much more to Google! In fact, we're barely
scratching the surface of some of Google's most recent
advancements here -- not to mention the complexities of
improving your ranking in Google's search results...
There is a ton more information on search engine
optimization with Google in the "Insider Secrets" course.
Just go to:
http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/811621Be sure to check out the sections on AdWords, AdSense, and
tips for optimizing your site for Google in particular.
We'll walk you through the tricky bits and point out the
hidden gems that you can use to ensure you are coming out
ahead of your competitors.
Above all, remember Google's philosophy: "Focus on the user,
and all else will follow." Every step of your business
should be about solving a problem for your customer.
Google's services and tools will help you achieve that.
[Note from Trent: This editorial was written by the
Internet Marketing Center Team at
http://www.marketingtips.com - I am passing it on to you
because it is very valuable information and I know you can
benefit from it.]
Dedicated to your success,
Trent Brownrigg
Learn How to be Successful - Get Your "Degree" in Success
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