Local businesses get new rating system

People across the world use Google to find the freshest coffee, friendliest service, and fastest delivery. With today’s launch of the new Google Maps, we’re making it easier than ever to choose the right places to eat, drink, shop and play.

Users who opt-in to the new Google Maps will now rate businesses on a scale that ranges from one to five stars. The system maintains the precision of the former 30 point scale while improving the readability and accessibility of the business listings. Your customers will be able to find up-to-date, accurate information on your business faster than ever. As a business owner, you’ll notice that past ratings have been mapped to the five star system.

These updates will continue to roll out on Google Maps, Google Maps for Mobile, Google search results and Google+ Local in upcoming months. Zagat reviews are still available throughout Google, and you’ll continue to see Zagat throughout Google products with editorial reviews and curated lists awarded to notable places

For more information on the score changes, join us on the Google and Your Business Forum.

Posted by the Google and Your Business blog team

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Bringing it all together for Google Apps customers: 30GB shared between Drive and Gmail

Cross-posted with the Google Enterprise blog

Life gets a bit easier when your Google Apps products work well together -- whether that’s inserting a Drive file into an email or sharing Docs and photos from Drive on Google+. As that experience becomes seamless, having separate storage doesn’t make as much sense anymore. So over the coming weeks, you’ll get 30 GB of unified storage to use as you like between Drive and Gmail. Just as before, files created in Docs, Sheets and Slides don't count against your storage quota. Storage will also be shared with photos you upload to Google+ larger than 2048px.

With this new combined storage, you can use your storage how you need to. If your business or school is like most, you know how many important emails and attachments you receive every day. As a result of today’s storage change, Gmail inboxes for Google Apps customers are no longer limited to 25 GB -- any additional storage you purchase can be shared and used by Gmail. Or alternatively, if you’re only using a few gigabytes of email storage, but have a lot of large documents and files stored in Google Drive, you can now use your storage primarily for Drive.

If you want to know how you are using your storage, check out our recently updated Google Drive storage page. Simply hover over the pie chart to see a breakdown of how your storage is being used across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.

This update will roll out to Rapid Release domains over the coming weeks.

Posted by Clay Bavor, Director of Product Management, Google Apps

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Hangout on Air: Ad Disapprovals and Review Process

AdWords Specialists Joe Abernethy, Alec Fox, and Kaylyn Frazier hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday about Ad Disapprovals and the Ad Review Process.

To watch the full 20-minute Hangout on Air, visit the Google Business YouTube channel here.


After sharing some interesting, Googley facts about themselves, Alec and Joe explain some of the top reasons for disapproved ads. Alec reminds us of the important policies regarding URLs in ads. Joe explains why we have editorial standards, and discusses guidelines for using symbols, punctuation and capitalization.

Alec and Joe use screen share to show us exactly where to re-submit ads that are disapproved, check on statuses of ads and view important policy details about ads in an AdWords account.

Take a look at the article on Editorial Standards that Kaylyn references in the Hangout.

To learn more about how to get started with AdWords, visit our Help Center, check out the AdWords Community forum, or call us at 866-2-GOOGLE if you already have an AdWords account.

And remember to stay tuned for upcoming Hangouts on Air!

Posted by Joe Abernethy, Alec Fox, and Kaylyn Frazier, AdWords Specialists

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New Learn with Google Webinars to Help you Become a Smarter Digital Marketer

At Google, one of our goals is to help make the web work for you. Today we’re announcing a new series of Learn with Google webinars, which will teach you how to use digital to build brand awareness and give you the tools you need to drive sales and grow loyalty and retention. Each of our sessions gives you deep-dive educational content, across a breadth of products and marketing objectives, in a format that’s convenient for you. Every webinar is led by Google product experts and includes time for audience Q&A. Sign up to start becoming a smarter digital marketer now.

Upcoming live webinars:

May
[YouTube] Driving Direct Response with Video
[Shopping] Google Shopping 101: Google Shopping for Beginners
[Research] New Research: How US Shoppers use Smartphones in Stores
[Mobile] Driving Deeper Engagement with your App Users
[Mobile] Driving Brand Engagement with Mobile Rich Media
[Analytics] Measuring Success in a Multi-Device World


June
[Mobile] Understanding Mobile Ads Across Marketing Objectives
[Shopping] Google Shopping 201: Merchant Center Deep Dive
[YouTube] Building your Business with YouTube Video Ads
[Analytics] Metrics for the Mobile App Ecosystem
[Search] What's New & Next in AdWords
[Analytics] Unleashing the Combined Power of Google Analytics & AdWords
[Social] Growing your Business & Engaging your Audience with Google+
[Shopping] Google Shopping 301: Creating & Optimizing Product Listing Ads
[Social] Launching & Amplifying your Impact Across Social Channels
[Display] Reaching the Right Audience with Remarketing
[Research] Creating Custom Infographics with the New Google Databoard


Webinars are held Tuesdays through Thursdays at 10am Pacific/1pm Eastern.

Visit our webinar site to register for any of the live sessions and to access our large library of recorded content. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by adding our Learn with Google calendar to your own Google calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars.

During our last series of webinars, attendees had the chance to win a Nexus 7. Clint Wilson was our lucky winner and he’ll soon be enjoying all of the tablet’s cool features. Check out our upcoming webinars for another chance to win!

Learn with Google is a program to help businesses succeed through winning moments that matter, enabling better decisions and constantly innovating. We hope that you’ll use these best practices and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to seeing you at an upcoming session!

Posted by Erin Molnar, Marketing Coordinator, Learn with Google

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Enhanced Campaigns Hangouts on Air: Optimizing Mobile Strategy

On April 25th, AdWords Specialists hosted a Hangout on Air as the last installment of the Enhanced Campaigns Hangouts on Air series.

To watch the full 20-minute Hangout on Air, visit the Google Business YouTube channel.


During the Hangout, Wes explains how to adjust bids for mobile devices. He does an account walk through, demonstrating how to adjust bids for the time of day, location and device. For example, if a user is on a mobile device near your store during regular business hours, it may make sense to increase the bid. Wes explains how to calculate the actual bids when using multiple bid adjustments at the same time.

Andy then explains how to create mobile preferred ad texts and mobile preferred ad extensions. He emphasizes the importance of sending users on mobile devices to optimized mobile websites, and briefly touches upon ValueTrack parameters. This blog post further explains how to use ValueTrack parameters to manage URLs by device.

To learn more about how to get started with AdWords, visit our help center, check out the AdWords Community Forum, or call us at 866-2-GOOGLE if you already have an AdWords account.

And remember to tune in to the live stream of our next Hangout on Air at 11 a.m. PDT, Thursday May 9th, when our specialists discuss the ad approvals process in detail.

Posted by the Adwords team.

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Award-winning partners share tips for SMB success

We’re always looking for ways to share helpful tips with our readers, so we asked a few of the recent winners of our 2012 Premier SMB Partner Awards to share some words of wisdom with small businesses for digital success.

1) Love your customers
“There are two main items we focus on to create great customer relationships. The first is frequent customer contact. If you talk to your customers often, you’ll become aware of the little issues before they become big issues. The second is what we call ‘showing the love.’ When a customer knows they’re important to you, the level of trust is much deeper. Try and ‘show the love’ with everything you do.”
—Brenton Rose, Director of Ad Operations & Duncan Scarry, CEO, Haystak Digital Marketing - Winner of Highest Customer Satisfaction Award (North America)

2) Use a mix of tools to meet your unique goals
"Every business is different, and there's no one size fits all for AdWords campaigns. Think about what your customers are looking for and what actions they might want to take, and craft your ads with the right features and extensions to be most relevant."
­ —Kris Van Peteghem, Project Manager, Roularta Media Group - Winner of Highest Customer Satisfaction Award (EMEA)
Learn more about enhancing your ads with different types of extensions.

3) Make your site mobile-friendly
“When you consider the smaller screen sizes of most mobile devices, it’s important to have a mobile-friendly website. If not, visitors viewing your site from a mobile device are likely to have a poor, and perhaps confusing, experience.”
—Louis Gagnon, Chief Product and Marketing Officer, Yodle, Inc. - Winner of Mobile Champion Award (North America)
See how your site looks in mobile and give it a mobile makeover.

4) Make it easy for customers to get in touch
"People on the go are often looking for something local - be it a business in the area, directions, or a phone number. Offer your customers more ways to easily communicate with you, whether that’s through your website, via phone with call extensions, or with location extensions to bring them into your physical location."
—Alessandro Giuliano, Head of Product Management, Omnimedia AG, part of Ringier Digital AG - Winner of Mobile Champion Award (EMEA)
Find out how to set up location extensions.

5) Maximize potential from the get-go
“In order to reach potential customers, SMB’s need to increase their online visibility. Google AdWords campaigns enable businesses to derive tangible value from their online marketing efforts."
—The team at goudengids.be and pagesdor.be - Winner of Largest Increase in Active Advertiser Base Award (EMEA)
 Learn how AdWords Premier SMB Partners can help you maximize your AdWords potential.

The Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner program connects trusted and experienced AdWords partners with small businesses to help them create, manage and optimize their online advertising campaigns. Here’s the full list of winners:

North America:
Best Quality Accounts: Dealer.com
Largest Increase in Active Advertiser Base: Dex One
Mobile Champion: Yodle
Display & YouTube Champion: Dealer.com
Highest Customer Satisfaction: Haystak

EMEA:
Best Quality Accounts: Interinfo
Largest Increase in Active Advertiser Base, Emerging Partner: Truvo Belgium (goudengids.be)
Largest Increase in Active Advertiser Base, Established Partner: Begun
Mobile Champion: Ringier Digital AG
Display Champion: Trudon
YouTube Champion: Agora
Highest customer satisfaction: Roularta
Posted by Todd Rowe, Managing Director of Global Channel Sales

Posted by Todd Rowe, Managing Director of Global Channel Sales

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Improving the look and feel of Google Places for Business

Hundreds of millions of people around the world use Google Search, Maps, Mobile and Google+ to find and discover great local businesses -- either in their hometown or in the places they’re headed. We’ve been able to deliver more comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information to help these people find what they’re looking for thanks to you, the many business owners who manage your online presence through Google Places for Business.

Today, we’re introducing an upgrade to the look and feel of Google Places for Business that will roll out to business owners over the coming weeks.

Easier to use
The upgraded interface is simpler and more intuitive, so the process of updating your business information is quick and easy. There’s also a widget that helps you understand at a glance how much more you need to do to complete your business profile.

Edits go live faster
When you make changes to your business, your customers want to know about it right away. Most edits made via the upgraded user interface now appear on Google Maps and our suite of other services within 48 hours. As before, we may continue to moderate changes to ensure the highest quality local experience.

Better integrated with Google products
Through this upgraded interface, you will be able to access your local Google+ page to take advantage of social features like sharing photos, videos, or posts. For businesses who also use AdWords Express and Google Offers, managing your ads and promotions is easier than ever. You can check results and make edits directly from your upgraded Places for Business dashboard.

What to do next
If you’re an existing user of Google Places for Business, this new interface is coming soon. You’ll receive an email notification once we’ve upgraded your account, and see the new interface once you sign in as usual. If you haven’t yet verified your business listing, now is the time to do it!

Posted by Qasar Younis, Senior Product Manager

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