Google, in conjunction with the US Small Business Administration, has launched a new site aimed at providing small business owners with the tools and advice they need to help them succeed online.
The site, Tools for Online Success, features a range of videos and tutorials produced by small business owners who have successfully used the online marketplace to grow their businesses, as well as advice from Google experts on how to use the internet, and their tools, to improve your online presence, and help build your business.
A Step by Step Guide
One of the things that makes this site so useful is the fact that the videos are genuine examples of small companies who made the internet work for them. They’re not hypothetical examples offered by some expert, but real life stories of what people did, and how it worked for them.
The site is broken down into various sections, each dealing with a specific phase of the process of making the internet work for you. Each section contains some brief tips, and a related video, and it’s easy for businesses to identify where in the process they are, and start from that point.
Google’s Tools for Online Success identifies the following stages:
* Establish Your Online Presence
* Display Imagery on Your Website
* Engage customers With a Website
* Interact With Your Community Using Free Marketing
* Promote Using Free Online Marketing
* Educate Your Customers Using Free Marketing
* Grow With Paid Online Advertising
* Measure Results With Web Analytics
How Can This Help You?
Although this site won’t teach you how to build your own site, or how to become an expert at search engine optimisation, it does provide some useful information, even at this early stage of its existence.
There’s a lot of room for growth, and although it won’t teach you the intricacies, or even more than the basics at this point, it can nonetheless help in identifying opportunities that many small business owners aren’t even aware exist.
With practical tips, and reasons for taking each step based on the actual experience of business owners, we think that this site has a lot of future potential, and is worth keeping an eye on.