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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................ 3
Learn - Google News......................................................... 4
Listen - Google Reader...................................................... 4
Learn/Target- Google Keyword Tool & Ads.............................. 4/5
Engage - Google+…………............................................... 5
Listen - Google Alerts........................................................ 6
Share - Google Places........................................................ 6
Share - Google Docs.......................................................... 7
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Introduction
Everyone is searching for ways to get more visibility online. Google has always had
some great free tools and seems to be concentrating on it in a much more focused way
to help you achieve this.
As more and more businesses rely on high search listings – it makes sense to use the
tools offered by Google to help you and they may have a bearing on where you appear.
Of course nothing beats quality and consistent content that is relevant to your field of
experience, so ensure you are creating that too.
Google is currently the first search engine many people use, especially in the UK and is
the bench mark for the competition. However many people are completely oblivious as
to the other offerings in the stable which can be incredibly useful to you as a business.
This is especially important given the direction that business marketing is taking.
By harnessing the power of the way we communicate these days via blogs and social
networks we can see very quickly and cost effectively the real reason people buy and
what influences their decisions. That makes marketing much easier by putting what
people want to see within their reach – even it is on their peripheral vision. You can also
see via many of the on-line platforms what people don’t like and how to improve goods
and services that you offer, with the power of reviews. What a huge change from the last
10 years when the only way you could access a tiny percentage of people was to ask
them in small focus groups. Now you can just use these powerful tools and in a fraction
of the time you have instant answers.
There are some very key fundamentals to this process that are incredibly easy to get to
grips with… you need to Listen – Learn – Share & Engage with your Audience so you
can accurately Target what will help them.
Once you get your head away from selling you will be given the key to a whole new
world that is waiting for you to explore. These tools are the ways to fashion your key
and unlock the gate to social media you will be surprised at how much fun you can have
actually engaging with your target market. You will notice that two of them suggest
listening… you have two ears to one mouth for a purpose so use them accordingly.
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So why bother with Google News? You can find stuff to chat
about, keep up to date in your industry and set yourself up as the
expert in your arena…
Listening to what is happening in your world or niche in real time.. is a great way to keep
up with the ever constant changes. It’s fine to send it back out and curate the content but
by writing your own you set yourself apart your competition. Google News will give you
the ideas for you to expand on. If you use the key search to find what you should be
listening to you can then teach others in your world with your new found knowledge
from Google News.
Try being local as well as industry specific… then take the knowledge further and expand
upon it with a brilliant blog post where your knowledge really comes
in to its own!
Then not only will you keep all of your words of wisdom in one
place but you will also be leaving them in full view for someone to
find them… and when they need an expert in your industry you are easily found. You
may consider video, ebooks, press releases and other forms
of PR… give real value and watch as others find you for your
world. Don’t forget to join in the conversations by joining
the sites you find and commenting where appropriate on
blogs in your areas of expertise.
ACTION: - Go to News.Google.com
1) Enter an industry key term.
2) See what comes up and choose the most recent result relevant to
your business/niche.
3) Think about what might be useful to your blogs or social media
posts and create content around them.
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If you are serious about blogging you should be looking at
self-hosted ones which can double as your
website and pick a key word rich url for what
you are going to talk about… use the free
adwords tool later on to find out the best ones for your industry… We
recommend Wordpress as the best with a great theme and there are loads
to choose from… or try Posterous or Blogger to get yourself started… Write what you
are thinking and then edit it. You need a minimum of 500 words to make an impact and
should be thinking of key words in your headline but the most important thing is to grab
the attention of the audience to hook them in to read some more.. think
READ – Reach Out – Engage – Add Value and Direct them to do something…
Listen - Google Reader is another free tool that helps you stay up to date with what’s
going on in your industry. You can get the rss feeds of all your news in one stream and
place… and can filter it. A great source for you to keep up-to-date.
This is a great way of saving time so you don’t have to search for the articles that you
want, they come to you. You can never replace time unless you buy it so let the Google
Reader allow you to quickly filter through news stories, blog posts, videos and other
relevant content.
By listening in the right places you will also get the opportunity to comment on changes
and fresh news in your arena which could catch the attention of people around you and
establish you as an expert in your industry.
ACTION: - Go to Google.com/Reader
1) Search for industry blogs/sites to subscribe to. Think about who your industry leaders are.
Your subscriptions are shown on the left hand side so if you have several niches you can
keep track of what you have looked at.
2) Check Google Reader regularly in line with your social media strategy.
3) Create a list of blogging ideas.
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Learn & Target So why would you use Google Adwords?
Well there is the great Keywords Tool you can use for free and
check your target market are really looking for what you
think… it’s absolutely the best place to check and completely
free.. you don’t even need to use your findings for pay per click
ads – just use your new found knowledge in your blogs, social
media posts and on line posts. It shows the searches locally and
globally and alternatives that may be less competitive if you are thinking of advertising
with ppc.
So the real reason for Google adwords is pay per click advertising – also known as ppc.
These are the ads you see at the top and down the side of google searches. Depending on
what you want to be found for these ads will cost you money when someone clicks.
It takes a little time to get the ppc idea right – taking out all of the words that could give
wrong results and ensuring you are found by the people you want to see your ads not by
accident or for a rogue word with different meanings. It is also
important that you get your location in to your searches.
Of course you could just write your website copy and your blog
sites with the key words and you would be open to the vagaries of
the organic google searches. Ensure you have consistent posts to
get this to stay high. In some instances you will be competing
with people that would mean you could never make page 1 of
google so ppc may be your only option is page 1 is very important
to you.
Sponsored links are paid for and you will need to get your content in tip top shape for
your keywords to rank well and get you the best results for your money. Google is
partnered with many websites and you may find newspages, websites
and blogs will pick up your paid for listing that relate to your content
which could feature your ads. There is a free Display Ad Builder tool
but be aware that 75% of searchers click on organic search. Only 25%
of online searchers click on paid results.
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ACTION: - Go to adwords.google.com
1) Check your keywords using the keyword tool to find the best ones for you
2) Design an offer (free trial, free product, report, etc.) with corresponding
website page (squeeze page).
3) Create a Google ad.
4) Design a call to action. (what do you want them to do? Sign up to a list, like a
page etc)
5) Launch and monitor performance (for free).
Engage - Google+ is a new social network social media and search engine traffic to your
chosen destinations such as a website or blog, or even another social network. It has
buttons you can integrate outside of google+ which may be useful to help rank in search
engines at a later stage and these were introduced before the launch of the platform. This
allows ordinary websites to integrate with the platform and give
the content peer approval which will probably be seen more
favourably by search engines. It is similar to facebook with the
addition of Circles, Chat & Hangouts. Circles are essentially
groups or lists of people you can choose to share content with on
a message by message basis instead of broadcasting to the world,
if that is what you choose. Hangouts are video chats amongst Google+ users which is
actually a very powerful tool and enable very strong connections to be made very quickly
rather than just sharing links and content in streams.
You will see under your circles and games (if you have chosen any) there is also a
section labelled what is “What’s Hot” which will contain links to articles that are similar
to things you are listening to or have previously google+ d which Google says will be
serendipitous and diverse information. You will see streams of content from your circles
and will be able to share, google+ (like) and comment on posts as well as reply to the
author. There are also notifications you can set up to suit your preferences.
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ACTION: - Go to https://plus.google.com/
1) Sign up for a Google+ Account. You can probably do this
with your existing google account.
2) Set up your Google Profile page for yourself and add a
photograph.
3) Add connections and organize your circles.
4) Begin sharing content to your different circles.
5) Set up your Google+ Business Pages.
Listen - Google Alerts - What are they? Well they are a way of asking
Google to let you know when something you would like to keep a track of is
indexed in Google. It may be your company name and could be used to listen for
what others are saying about you. It could also be used to track useful content in
your area of expertise or the activity of your competition. Whatever you want to
listen to is very easy to set up and is also another free resource.
You choose the words or phrases you want to listen for and they are emailed to
you at the intervals you set. If your choice is too broad you may see lots of
irrelevant content so try to be specific about the type of results you want to see.
A few trials will set your boundaries to something that works for you.
If you are using it to monitor what is being said about your company, you will also need to have a
strategy for responding, especially if feedback is negative. Don’t take
the knee jerk reaction of removing anything negative from an unhappy
customer, you would be much better allowing the world to see you are
human and publicly put something right than to waste time attempting to
get comments removed.
ACTION: - Go to http://www.google.com/alerts
1) Think about what you would like to listen for.
2) Set up Google Alerts with timings that suit what you
need or want to see.
3) Monitor the content being delivered and amend if
necessary.
4) Use results to manage your brand on-line or to get ideas for your own content.
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Share - Google Places is your chance to get seen first and for free.
With the increasing use of mobiles and ipads for searching it is
imperative you have a Google Places listing as they come up first in
the searches. With the weighting of the newest releases of Google,
you will also find that these are biased towards local businesses as these are very much
what Google thinks will be more relevant to the searcher. It is free and easy to get
yourself started on here but you do now need a physical location to verify the listing.
Your listing will show on Google Maps and is geo
based. It will give your company greater visibility and
allow your customers somewhere to share their
experiences with you. This could in turn generate more
traffic to wherever you guide people so ensure you add
as much information as possible to your free google
places listing. You can add video and pictures to your
listing to give your prospective customers the very best
first impression.
ACTION: - Go to http://www.google.com/places/
1) Claim your Google Places listing. You will need a physical location and will
receive a postcard with a code to confirm it is real.
2) Add as much details as possible including optimizing for your key search
terms.
3) Add images, videos and other media to showcase your company.
4) Encourage testimonials from satisfied customers as this will influence where
you are shown.
Share - Google Docs - are free online documents that can be accessed from anywhere
and shared with people you invite. There are currently 6 types of document:
1. Documents 2. Spreadsheets 3. Presentations 4. Drawings 5. Forms 6.
Calendars
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Share – Access - Edit. Create a document then you can share it whoever you choose to
invite and give them access to edit or manage it using the share button in the upper right
corner simply by adding their names/email addresses.
Schedule & Work Smarter – Become more efficient and diarise what is important and
useful to you – maybe a blog list or marketing activities. Collaborate - Share ideas, and
work on the same documents with other people getting their valuable input without
hassle and saving time on unnecessary meetings making your business more efficient.
Calendars & Meetings – These are great for organising meetings and ensuring people
know where you are by making them public.
ACTION: - Go to https://docs.google.com/#home
1) Create a strategy of your next 6 months social media and
marketing activity and what will be in it.
2) Create documents around the content
3) Identify those you wish to collaborate with and allow them
access
We hope these free Google tools are helpful to you and are happy to
help if you have any queries. You can find The Social Media Café on-
line on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Google+ and many
other places. Don’t forget to like our content, share it and ask lots of
questions. We’ll see you on-line. You can watch the videos of this
booklet below. There are live actions recorded with extra content not in this document.
Just click on each one to gain access to each section. Don’t worry none of them are long.
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Introduction News Reader Keyword Tool/Ads Google + Alerts Places Docs