Google Defends The New Privacy Terms

On March 1st, 2012 Google unveils it's new Privacy Policy and Terms for Service, which will see them combining over 70 different policies from various google products. From today, all your information available to google will be stored in 1 location and shared between all the google platforms. 

Is it a smart move? That remains to be seen, certainly many web and news sites today are already reporting that this represents an infringement of our private information, and may be in breach of several civil laws regarding privacy.

To find out what information of yours google has access to visit your google dashboard here and scroll down. It is possible to pause and clear your web history and youtube searches so reducing the amount of stored information google has. It remains to be seen how far the various watchdog groups will pursue Google for a change in their policy, and even whether Google will amend their Terms in light of fierce opposition. For now the smart option seems to be to watch and wait, and make sure your google dashboard only reveals the information you are willing to share.

Follow Google Blog here
What steps can you take to ensure your private data remains just that? Read here

Are You Googled Up With a Slideshow?

Have you got a slideshow on google docs yet? It's a great opportunity to promote your business visually. You can include images, webshots from your website or text to get your message across.
Go here for more information

Be Business Smart with Google Alerts

How can a business use Google Alerts wisely?

Think about your competition and who they are, wouldn't you want to know what they are writing about or promoting, work they are doing and their clients. Using Google Alerts to search the web/blogs/news with relevant keywords and stream the results to your inbox is invaluable for any business marketing. We use this 'must have' tool to find new articles on our industry from other companies, in our local area and then apply this knowledge to our articles/blog/website to increase traffic to our site, and generate business at the same time.

Google Alerts has been powerful and essential for our business, what about yours?

Worth a read....
Google Analytics - worth it's weight in gold

Google Analytics - Worth It's Weight In Gold

One of the biggest mistakes a small to medium business can make is not knowing how effective their advertising and marketing is.  When it comes to the business website or blog, how well are they working to raise the profile of your business. Google provides useful information about the people who visit your site, what keywords they searched with to get there, how long they stayed and at what point did they leave to go elsewhere. This information is invaluable if you are looking at how successful you website is in generating business enquiries and sales. It also is beneficial for those businesses that are thinking of introducing a new search engine optimization campaign to get a higher google ranking in searches.

Google has several tools that you can apply to your website; 

- analytics

- keywords

 -trends

- alerts

Armed with the data these tools provide, it should help with deciding a strategy for changes that are needed for your website, and what, if any, SEO needs to be performed. Before you do anything, ask yourself how is your website and then visit Google, download their FREE tools and apply to your website.

Worth a read...
Be smart with Google alerts

Is Google Places The Right Directory For Your Business

Google has announced today, a change in name for their Local Business Center facility to Google Places. Last year they launched Place Pages which is how businesses can be found, and Google feel a stronger link by using Google Place identity instead.

There are some new tools that feature on the site:

- a business can submit a service area that they cover in travelling to their customers
- the facility to keep your address private if you have a business without an office
- simpler advertising packages
- customers can download coupons from the site which they can bring to your business
- select businesses will qualify for a free photographic portfolio of their business interior
- some businesses can also upload to their profile, or Place Page, updates on their services
- there is a dashboard for updating your profile within Google Pages which includes analytics on traffic to your business

Go to Google Places here for more information

Our Verdict - so far so good!