13 business tips to countdown to 2013, Part III

Happy 2013! Over the past 13 days, we've been posting one tip daily on the Google+ Your Business page to countdown to January 1st and get your business ready for the new year. We previously shared our first and second set of five tips, and our final three of our top 13 tips are below. Now you can turn some of these tips into New Year's resolutions for your business!

Tip #11: Schedule due dates for tasks in emails on Google Calendar
When your inbox is overflowing, you don’t always have time to follow up on tasks discussed in emails immediately. And since you’ve already seen the email, you might not want to mark it as unread.

Make your workflow easier by saving emails that you need to follow up on in your Gmail Tasks list. When you have the email open, just click More > Add to Tasks and it will be automatically added to your list. Click “Related email” under the task to open the email whenever you need.

You can even schedule a due date--click on > next to the task then on the Calendar icon. When you select “Back to list” the date will be saved on the list and you’ll also get a reminder in your Google Calendar so you don’t miss a deadline!

Tip #12: Save online images right to Google Drive
Summarized from the Google Drive blog

If your business ever saves files from websites, you know it can cumbersome--right click on an image, download it to your computer, open it and rename it, save the file, and maybe even attach it to an email.
Instead, streamline the process with the Save to Drive Chrome extension, which lets you capture content from anywhere on the web and store it neatly online in Google Drive. Once you install the extension, just right click on the file or click on the Drive extension icon to save:

• an image of an entire page or an image of the visible page
• the HTML source code
• a Web archive (.mht)

After you save with the extension, you’ll see options to immediately open the file in Drive, rename it, or view it in your Drive list, where you can do things like add it to a folder or share it with others. You can install it from the Chrome Webstore.

Tip #13: Use Google Maps on your website
Bring the power of Google Maps directly to your website! You can embed a simple map, a set of driving directions, a local search result, or a My Map (http://goo.gl/CcWDN) created by another user. Here's how:

1. Ensure that the map you'd like to embed appears in the current map display.
2. Click the link icon at the top of the left panel.
3. In the box that appears, copy the HTML under 'Paste HTML to embed in website,' and paste it into the source code of your website or blog.

If you'd like to adjust the size of the map before you embed it, click “Customize and preview embedded map”, select your preferred size, and take a look at the preview map. Once you're happy with what you see, copy the HTML that appears in the box at the bottom of the window. For more advanced maps, learn about the Google Maps API: http://developers.google.com/maps/

Posted by the Google and Your Business blog Team