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How To Grow Your Business With Google+

October 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Using Google+ To Grow Your Audience

Below is a great article by Amy Walgenbach, from Google+ marketing, where she describes how to use Google+ to grow your audience. By using Google+, and other Social Media , you not only increase your audience, you engage with your customers and potential customers but you also grow your business. The original article can be found here.

At Google, we help grow your audience by connecting you with new users. We introduced the +1 buttonso your site would stand out on search and your users could easily share your content on Google+. But, sometimes you want to join the conversation and post content directly to where people are sharing.Today we’re introducing Google+ for Business, a collection of tools and products that help you grow your audience. At the core of this is Google+ Pages, your site’s identity on Google+.

Google+ Pages: Have real conversations with the right people
To get your site on Google+, you first need to create a Google+ Page. On your page, you can engage in conversations with your visitors, direct readers back to your site for the latest updates, send tailored messages to specific groups of people, and see how many +1’s you have across the web. Google+ Pages will help you build relationships with your users, encouraging them to spend more time engaging with your content.



Google+ Pages are at the heart of Google+ for Business


Hangouts

 

Sometimes you might want to chat with your users face-to-face.  For example, if you run a food blog, you may want to invite a chef to talk about her favorite recipe, or if you manage a fashion review site, beauty specialists might want to hold how-to sessions with makeup tips. Hangouts make this easy, by letting you have high-quality video chats with nine people with a single click. You can use Hangouts to hold live forums, break news or simply get to know people better, all in real time.



Hangouts let you meet your customers, face-to-face

Circles

 

Circles allow you to group followers of your Page into smaller audiences. You can then share specific messages with specific groups. For example, you could create a Circle containing your most loyal readers and offer them exclusive content.


The Google+ badge: Grow your audience on Google+
To help your users find your page and start sharing, there are two buttons you can add to your site by visiting our Google+ badge configuration tool:

The Google+ icon, a small icon that directly links to your Page.

The Google+ badge, which we’re introducing in the coming days. This badge lets people add your page to their circles without leaving your site, and allows them to get updates from your site via Google+.

 

Extend the power of +1, stand out in Google search
You can also link your site to your Google+ page so that all your +1s — from your Page, your website, and search results — will get tallied together and appear as a single total. Potential visitors will be more likely to see the recommendations your site has received, whether they’re looking at a search result, your website, or your Page, meaning your +1’s will reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day. You can link your site to your Page either using the Google+ badge or with a  piece of code. To set this up, visit our Google+ badge configuration tool.

Bringing Google+ to the rest of Google

 

Our ultimate vision for Google+ is to transform the overall Google experience — weaving identity and sharing into all of our products. Beginning today, we’re rolling out a new experimental feature to a small group of eligible publishers, Google+ Direct Connect — an easy way for your audience to find your Google+ Page on Google search.  If you’ve linked your Page to your site and you qualify, when someone searches for your website’s name with the ‘+’ sign before it Direct Connect will send them directly to your Page. For example, try searching for ‘+YouTube’ on Google. Users will also be prompted to automatically add Pages they find through Direct Connect to their circles.



Direct Connect suggestions start populating as you type on Google.com


Just the beginning
We want to help you get your site on Google+ as soon as possible, so we’re opening the field trial for Google+ Pages to everyone today. Creating a Google+ Page only takes a few minutes. To get started, you’ll need a personal Google+ profile. If you don’t have a Google account, it’s very quick and easy to join. And if you’re looking for inspiration, check out some of the sites that are already starting to set up their Pages:

Partner Logos

Burberry HM Macys Pepsi ABC News Amazon Assassins_Creed ATT Breaking_News Orange DC_Comics Dell NBC_News Gol_Linhas_aeras Kia LOreal Marvel NYTimes Piaget Shady Tmobile Toyota Uniqlo Virgin

To learn more about how Google+ works for your site, check out the Google+ Your Business site. We’re just getting started, and have many more features planned for the coming weeks and months. To keep up to date on the latest news and tips, add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles. If you have ideas on how we can improve Google+ for your site, we’d love to hear them.

Posted by Amy Walgenbach, Google+ marketing


Google+ Developers Blog

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The History Of Google

October 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Google: From Idea To Present Day

The following short video tells the story of  Google from its inception to the present day. 

Filed Under: Google Tagged With: , , ,

Google Trusted Stores Program Helping Consumers Shop Online In Safety

October 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Google have launched the Google Trusted Stores Program to help online consumers shop with more confidence. The original post can be found here.

Online shopping is great for many reasons, but most of all it’s a convenient and fast way to turn your intent to buy that new pair of running shoes, for example, into an actual purchase. But shoppers tell us they’re often nervous about buying from online stores they don’t know. We created the free Google Trusted Stores program to help solve this problem. When shoppers see the Google Trusted Store badge, they know in a snap they’re shopping with a reputable retailer and they can feel confident making an informed purchase.

We’ve been testing the program since last fall with about 50 online merchants and more than 10 million orders. It’s working even better than we hoped, generating positive feedback from shoppers and increasing sales for merchants. Starting today, Google Trusted Stores is open to all U.S. merchants who want to apply. 


Helping shoppers choose stores they can trust
When shopping online, you may come across the Google Trusted Store badge. Hover over it and you’ll see a “report card” which shows “grades” for that merchant’s shipping and service, including more precise metrics about what the grades mean. 
The Google Trusted Store badge and report card


This badge is only awarded to online stores that deliver a great overall experience, so even if you haven’t shopped with this merchant before, you can easily tell if they are trustworthy, ship quickly and reliably, and offer exceptional customer service. If there’s a problem with your purchase, we’re here to help. When you buy from a Google Trusted Store, you can opt in to get up to $ 1,000 lifetime purchase protection per shopper. And our dedicated customer service team is there to work with you and the merchant to assist in resolving the issue.

Helping merchants demonstrate their excellence and earn new business
Google Trusted Stores helps online stores attract new customers, increase sales and differentiate themselves by showing off their excellent service via the badge on their websites. Soon the badge will also appear on Google.com ads and in Google Shopping results.

Google Trusted Store badge on AdWords


Over the last nine months of the pilot, our tests show that participating in this program can help merchants big and small. For example, Wayfair, the largest online-only retailer of home goods and one of the top 50 largest online retailers as ranked by Internet Retailer, increased sales* on its site by 2.3 percent with Google Trusted Stores. And Beau-coup, a specialty online favors and gifts retailer, saw an 8.6 percent increase*. Take a look at our merchant success stories to learn more about how Google Trusted Stores has had a positive impact on website conversion rates and average order sizes for online retailers. 

Google Trusted Stores is entirely free, both for shoppers and for online stores. We’re still testing the most helpful ways to display Trusted Stores information to shoppers, so you may see different versions, or none at all, while we conduct experiments. If you’re a merchant and would like to participate in the Google Trusted Stores program, please apply. 

Posted by Tom Fallows, Group Product Manager, Google Shopping

*Increased sales percentages are based on a combination of uplift in conversion and average order size.

Google Affiliate Network Blog

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Google Has Improved Its Google Shopping

October 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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The below article by Sameer Samat, Vice President of Product Management, Google Shopping, talks about the improvements made to Google Shopping and how it makes it easier for merchants to participate in and get more out of Google Shopping. The original post can be found here.

In May, we announced Google Shopping, a new way for people to find and research products, and discover where to buy those products online or nearby. Google Shopping helps people turn their shopping intentions into actions quickly and easily, and then connect directly with merchants to make purchases.

Progress, improvements and easier onboarding
We’ve been pleased by the rapid adoption of Google Shopping in the retail community; tens of thousands of merchants, including many marketplaces, have come on board and are participating in Google Shopping via the new model, based on Product Listing Ads (PLAs). Overall, this represents inventory from over one hundred thousand sellers.

As the transition to the new model continues, we’ve made changes that will make it easier for merchants to participate in and get more out of Google Shopping. We outlined several of these last month and are pleased to share several more:

  • Google Trusted Stores annotations are appearing on product pages within Google Shopping, providing participating merchants with greater ability to attract new customers and helping shoppers to make more informed shopping decisions.
  • For merchants that are not familiar with Adwords, we have created a simplified sign-up flow in Merchant Center to make participation easier.
  • AdWords Editor updates are reducing the amount of time it takes to optimize a PLA campaign — from hours to minutes, in many cases.
  • Campaign Tracking URL templates have decreased the number of steps required to set up tracking in AdWords and are making the process easier for merchants.


Google Trusted Stores annotations are now appearing on Google Shopping

Of course, it’s not too late for merchants to get on board and optimize their campaigns prior to the upcoming holiday shopping season. We’ve recorded a series of Hangouts on Air to help small and mid-sized businesses transition to Google Shopping, and have made some Google Shopping best practices available here.

Some Google Shopping Superstars, and the Three C’s
We’ve seen some early success stories from a variety of retailers, demonstrating how Google Shopping has helped them to connect with consumers, drive clicks to their websites and improve conversion rates. Highlights from some mid-sized merchants are listed below; you can find the full text of all these success stories following each description.

 

  • Adorama, one of America’s largest photo retailers and mail-order suppliers, saw their click-through rate (CTR) jump by 176 percent and their conversion rate rise by 100 percent in June 2012, as compared to a year earlier; a similar year-over increase also occurred in July 2012. The full success story can be found here.
  • Campmor, a recreational equipment retailer, saw sales increase 10x between January 1 and the present, using PLAs and Google Shopping. The full success story can be found here.
  • Empire Covers, an online retailer offering protective covering for cars, trucks, boats, RVs, and motorcycles, along with accessories for pet travel and outdoor living, saw their cost-per-acquisition (CPA) decline by 36 percent between April and August 2012. Additionally, CPCs dropped by 11 percent from July to August 2012. The full success story text can be found here, and a video with more details here.
  • Plow & Hearth, a leading retailer of products for the home, hearth, yard, and garden that includes all of its products for all of its brands in PLAs on Google Shopping, saw a number of dramatic results: unique site visits increased by 129 percent, pages per visit increased by 6.3 percent and average visit duration increased by 14.7 percent, while their bounce rate dropped by 9.8 percent. The full success story can be found here.
  • ToolKing.com, an Internet Retailer 500 company offering tools, hardware, home-improvement items, outdoor goods, and more across multiple e-commerce channels, lists all its products in Google Shopping via PLAs. Since signing up for PLAs, ToolKing.com’s traffic and conversion rates have risen by more than 50 percent, average order value is up by nearly 15 percent and the sale of thousands of items it once considered “dead” have been reinvigorated. The full success story text can be found here and you can watch a video with more details here.
  • TravelSmith Outfitters, an outfitting resource for savvy travelers, used the expertise of Mercent to implement PLAs. Since then, product sales originating from PLAs and Google Shopping have increased by 200 percent. They have also increased consumer traffic by approximately 10 percent and have seen orders go up by 35 percent, with more than a 26 percent increase in sales conversions. The full success story can be found here.

There’s more to come!
We look forward to sharing more with you over the coming months — from new merchant tools that provide more control and flexibility, to new features that will make holiday shopping easier and more fun for consumers. We’re also in the process of planning our 2013 roll-out of Google Shopping in Europe, Asia and Latin America. We’ll have more to share in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.


Posted by Sameer Samat, Vice President of Product Management, Google Shopping


Google Commerce

Filed Under: Google Shopping Tagged With: ,

Discover How Ocado Use Google+

October 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Case Study: Ocado On Google+

From the following case study about how Ocado use Google+, as describes by Natalia Cano, from Google, you too can take these steps and incorporate them into you business.

With its inherently digital focus, internet grocery retailer Ocado has established itself as an early adopter of new technologies, so it comes as no surprise that the company embraced Google+ as soon as it could – and has already started reaping some tasty benefits.

The opportunity for Google+ to contribute to improved search rankings was a convincing reason to launch the brand’s Google+ page. By adopting social extensions, Ocado ads became instantly more compelling, and click-through rates increased by 30%.

Hangouts are a clever way that Ocado has brought food-centric content to life. The company capitalised on its existing Great British Chefs initiative and used Google+ to produce a live event where the chefs cooked for customers. Ocado promoted the hangouts via True View ads on YouTube, which resulted in 167k engaged views. The Ocado YouTube channel views went from 50k to 230k in the space of a week thanks to the hangout, without including the people who live-streamed the event (which numbered about 60 individuals at any given time).

The experience has led Ocado to consider further possibilities for moving images. They are keen not to use text-based feeds as what they really want is to get people excited about food, and images are a great way of differentiating. In addition to hangouts and images, Ocado has embraced the Google+ badge which appears on the check-out page with the aim of making the shopping experience social through gifting and sharing.

In future, Ocado has plans for more hangouts on the Google+ page, as well as ideas for more video and channel-specific content. The intention is to deliver the sights and sounds – if not the tastes and aromas – of Ocado products straight to users’ screens.

Find out more about Ocado’s recipe for success by reading the full case study here.

Posted by +Natalia Cano

Think with Google

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How Fashion Brands Are Using Google+

October 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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The following post by Natalia Cano, PMM Google+ B2B Marketing, talks about how big fashion brands are using Google+ to engage with their audience. Original article found here.

Are you using Google+ to engage with your audience, both customers and potential customers?

Discover How The Large Fashion Houses Are Using The Internet To put Out Their Message

For anyone with a passion for fashion, the most exciting time of the year is here: Fashion Week. While the runway shows in New York, London, Milan or Paris are still filled mostly with fashion buyers, bloggers and celebrities, with YouTube and Google+, everyone can get a front row seat right from their desktop, mobile phone or tablet.

  • From New York, more than 30 fashion shows are being streamed on YouTube Live from the Runway channel, sponsored by Maybelline, giving you front row access from your living room.
  • very.co.uk hosted a hangout on air with Radio 1 DJ Fearne Cotton who presented her Winter Collection with fans. Only 6 people were given the chance to chat with Fearne and ask her questions about her new Collection but there were prizes for everyone: free tickets to join her exclusive London Fashion Week show this Thursday.

  • Paris Vogue Fashion’s Night Out: +VogueParis posted “Live-GIFs” of the event on their +Page, where notable guests, models and VIPs had their images turned into GIFs, ready to be shared across the web. Their 3hour YouTube live broadcast, is now available on the Vogue Paris YouTube Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/Vogueparisfr or on www.vogue.fr.

There are without any doubt an increasing number of EMEA brands Gucci, Burberry, H&M, Hugo Boss with over 1 million followers on Google+ and others such as Versace or Armani who continue to grow on the platform. These brands are all using the photo / image capabilities of G+ to showcase all their latest designs and collections.

We saw this earlier in February with H&M’s David Beckham underwear collection, and now again in August with H&M’s (#BeckhamforHM) behind the scene photo shoot, and continue to see more and more examples of how fashion and retail brands are embracing Google+ to engage with their followers.


Posted by Natalia Cano, PMM Google+ B2B Marketing

Think with Google

Filed Under: Google Plus Tagged With: , ,

Google+ Tips On Using Images

October 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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How To Add Images To Your Google+ Page For Maximum Affect

The following Social Friday post by Arlene Lee, from Google’s Inside AdSense Team, talks about using images in your Google+ page
This weekly series will take you through best practices and tips to help you make the most of Google+ for your site.

As you’ve been posting new content to your +page and perhaps using the Google+ mobile app, you may have noticed that Google+ is quite a visual platform. The Financial Times has found that images and videos have the highest engagement on their +page, and we’ve heard similar comments from other publishers. Today we’ll share a tip on how to make the most of the visual nature of the platform to help increase interaction with your content.

To post a link to an article or page of your site, you may currently be using the ‘Attach link’ option on your +page and pasting in the URL of the article. When you post this way, a small thumbnail of an image from that article will appear next to a text preview, or a relevant icon. You then have the option to post additional comments above the content before you share it.

From time to time, instead of simply attaching the link, try posting the image from the article as the main content on your +page. Then, in the comment field above, enter the description with a shortened link to the full content. This allows users to see a larger version of the image from the article and can draw them in, while the shortened link above the image directs them to the article on your site for the full content.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of how these two approaches would look while drafting a post for your +page:

Link as attachment 

Image as attachment 

Give this technique a try for some of your posts, and see how it can help you build a richer experience on your +page. Have you found success with posting images, or do you have other tips for +pages to share? Leave a comment on our AdSense +page and discuss your experiences with other publishers.

Tune in again next week, when we’ll discuss verifying your +page. In the meantime, feel free to head over to our AdSense +page to share your thoughts about today’s content with other readers.

Posted by Arlene Lee – Inside AdSense Team


Inside AdSense

Filed Under: Google Plus Tagged With: , , ,

How To Verifying Your Google+ Page

October 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Google are posting Google+ tips every Friday

The following post by Arlene Lee, from Google’s Inside AdSense Team, talks about verifying your Google+ Page. The original article can be found here.

Now that you’re regularly posting content to your Google+ page and using features like Hangouts, we’ll move on to the importance of verifying your +page.

What does it mean to verify a +page?

Verifying your +page confirms that the +page actually belongs to you. Once your +page is verified, it’ll appear with a checkmark designed to help our users find what they’re looking for.

Why should I verify my +page?

Not only does verification help users confirm the authenticity of your +page, but it also brings you a major benefit only available to verified +pages. Verified +pages that are popular and engaging may appear on the right side of relevant Google.com search results, for users who are logged in. This is designed to help users find the relevant content they’re looking for, and may increase the visibility of relevant +pages. Please keep in mind that to be eligible, the +page also needs to be active with regularly-updated content.

How do I verify my +page?

Follow these three steps:

  1. Link your +page to your website: Fill out the ‘About’ section of your Google+ page, being sure to enter your site’s top-level URL.
  2. Link your website to your +page: Add a Google+ badge or code snippet to your site, which lets us know that the site is associated with your +page. We recommend using the Google+ badge, as it can help you attract additional followers — for top publishers, adding the Google+ badge helped drive a 38% increase in followers. You can select the size of the +badge for your pages, and with some of the larger sizes, users will be able to add your +page to their circles without leaving your site.
  3. Complete our verification request form.

As you complete the verification process, be sure to continue posting regularly to your +page to engage with your users. To help attract followers to your pages we also recommend promoting your +page on other relevant sites or blogs you own, as well as other social destinations. You can also place an author tag on your online materials, which means your authorized photo and name appear next to search results for content you’ve created.

Enjoy your weekend, and we’ll see you back here next Friday when we’ll show you a feature that allows you to track how your content spreads on Google+.

Posted by Arlene Lee – Inside AdSense Team


Inside AdSense

Filed Under: Google Plus Tagged With: , , , ,

WARNING Google Update Imminent

August 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Google Update Expected

Google Penguin Update

Google is preparing to launch its latest and largest search algorith update in the next few days! And this could, and probably will, hurt many websites and businesses.

Earlier in August at the SES San Fransisco conference, Matt Cutts (Head of Google’s Webspam Team) announced that the Google’s “engineers having been working hard” on the next update.

Matt Cutts, in a response to to comments on an article about the next Penguin Update (see the full article here) is quoted as saying:

“Hey Barry, I wasn’t saying that people needed to overly stress out about the next Penguin update, but I’m happy to give more details. I was giving context on the fact that lots of people were asking me when the next Penguin update would happen, as if they expected Penguin updates to happen on a monthly basis and as if Penguin would only involve data refreshes.

If you remember, in the early days of Panda, it took several months for us to iterate on the algorithm, and the Panda impact tended to be somewhat larger (e.g. the April 2011 update incorporated new signals like sites that users block). Later on, the Panda updates had less impact over time as we stabilized the signals/algorithm and Panda moved closer to near-monthly updates. Likewise, we’re still in the early stages of Penguin where the engineers are incorporating new signals and iterating to improve the algorithm. Because of that, expect that the next few Penguin updates will take longer, incorporate additional signals, and as a result will have more noticeable impact. It’s not the case that people should just expect data refreshes for Penguin quite yet.”

More recently, on his Twitter feed, Matt tweeted:
“Watching another SEO snake oil video. “The only footprint these networks leave behind is WordPress.” Some people just don’t get it.”

Or Has The Google Update Already Started?

According to the Search Engine Roundtable website, the Google algorithm update has already started, with people seeing a change in their search rankings. Only time will tell if this update has started.

How To Keep Your Website Safe

Here are some ways of keeping protecting your website and its traffic:

  • Add original content for your viewers (add a blog if your website has not already got one and update it frequently)
  • Make your website social so users can share your content
  • Use Social Media to interact with your users, customers and potential customers (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest etc)
  • Use video. More and more people watch video online and YouTube is the second largest search to Google, so Google are adding more weight towards video in its search results.
  • Avoid keyword stuffing
  • Avoid Paid Links and Link farms
Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , , , ,

Discover How To Use Google +1 Button To Make Your Website Stand Out

August 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Improve Your Website By Using The +1 Button

The following article by Arlene Lee, from Google’s Inside AdSense Team, talks about using the Google+ button to engage with your customers and potential customers.
As Google+ has continued to evolve and grow, we’ve released a number of features and tools to help you engage with your users in new ways. We’ve heard from publishers that they’d like to ensure they’re getting set up in the right way on Google+, and so we’re kicking off a Social Friday series right here on our blog. Our goal is to help you make the most of Google+, discover ways to reach new audiences, and use our resources to make data-driven decisions.

Even if you’ve already gotten started with Google+, we encourage you to follow along over the next few weeks to make sure you’re using our social tools optimally for your website and business. Today, we’ll start off our series with a look at the +1 button, and show you how you can track its impact with Webmaster Tools.

The +1 button helps you expand your audience by enabling users to recommend your content to their friends and contacts. When a user clicks the +1 button on your site, they’ll be able to share your site’s link with their contacts via their Google+ stream. This can help you extend your reach beyond just your existing fans, to their circles of friends. Be sure to place the +1 button on your pages so that users can endorse your content — we recommend locations like the header and footer of your pages, and also on pages that tend to be shared frequently, like articles or product pages. In addition, +1 recommendations will be visible to a user’s friends and contacts on relevant Google.com search results, which can help your site stand out. For example, let’s say John is a fan of your content and he clicks a +1 button on your site. When John’s friend Sue is logged in to her Google Account and performs a Google.com search that includes your site in the results, she may see an annotation below your site that tells her John has +1’d it. This annotation may help your site stand out to Sue because it’s personally relevant to her. Overall, as potential visitors see recommendations from their friends and contacts among their Google search results, you could see more, and better qualified, traffic coming from Google.

So how is the +1 button performing for you so far? You can find out using Webmaster Tools with these three reports:

  1. Activity: View the total number of times your pages have been +1’d.
  2. Audience: See anonymous, aggregate information about the people  who +1’d your pages, including the total number of unique users, their location, and their age and gender.
  3. Search impact: Compare the clickthrough rate (CTR) of +1′d search impressions to the general clickthrough rate for all impressions to determine how +1’s are affecting your site’s performance.

 

Get started with the +1 button on your pages today — just generate a short snippet of code and paste it into the HTML of your site, as you do with your AdSense ad code. You’ll also be able to customize the size and layout for your site. For help with the +1 button, visit our Google+ Webmaster FAQ.

Thanks for joining us for our first Social Fridays post. Next week, we’ll discuss Google+ pages for your business and how to get set up optimally. Do you have feedback or best practices to share with other publishers about today’s content? Feel free to leave us a comment on our AdSense +page.

Posted by Arlene Lee – Inside AdSense Team


Inside AdSense

Filed Under: Google Plus Tagged With: , , ,
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