We will stay tuned for future updates and functionality, but this is a good opportunity to look at the pros and cons of the current free service provided by Google.

An explanation of Google Voice provided by Google.

Pros
-transcribing the voicemail to text gives you a quick glance at what the message is about and how long it is.
-sends you an instant email when you have a new message
-messages can be heard from your phone or personal computer
-allows you to make free calls and text messages to the US and Canada
-one unique phone number can ring your cell phone, home phone, and business phone

Cons
-the voicemails being transcribed to text need a lot of work… there are almost always errors that make reading the message confusing
-reading the transcript does not give you the tone of the voice message
-the email subject line includes the phone number it came from, but nobody memorizes phone numbers so you often don’t know who it is from unless you check your missed calls
-messages are downloaded to your phone before you can play them. They are stored and then sit on there until they are deleted. This gets annoying when they build up over time… (applys to Droid phones)s

A brief comparison of Google Profile and Facebook, followed by the 1,2,3 strategy Google can employ to take over the social networking world.

How GoogleMe Can Win “Web War III.0″

Let’s start by looking at both Facebook and Google from an overall utility perspective. Almost everyone agrees that of any tool that is available online, search engines are by far themost widely and extensively used. With that in mind, Google is considered the Cadillac of search engines. It is fast, runs clean and has all the geeks wanting to work on its engine. Facebook on the other hand, can arguably be described as the Mazda Miata of the web… It has sold very well for a few years running now, looks kind of nice, girls love it, boys love girls so they love it too and it to top it all off it is easy enough for grandma to drive.

The problem for Facebook here is that short of its chintzy retractable roof and great sales figures, there is nothing really special about it. Google can and almost certainly will use this lack of broader utility to launch a loud beta of their own social network, recently dubbed GoogleMe. With this product, Google has the opportunity to make its network’s users entire web experience more social, seemless and informative. Here’s how:

Imagine you are trying to find information on effectively marketing your business online. As of today, most of your searches lead you to company websites and blogs that are vague, incomplete and ultimately try to make you buy something. Now imagine that when you were a member of GoogleMe and searched for this information, you got relevant data from members of your social network and found out that your best friend from High School is an internet marketing expert. Touch of a button later you are connecting with an old friend in a meaningful way that is not really practicle today.

This would not only improve Google by making searches social, it would also represent a major improvment to social networking as a whole and provided there are no major buckles in the nuts and bolts of their regular social networking interface sign the eventual death toll for what is currently the largest social club in the world. Barring Google being nice and partnering with Facebook, there is really little that can be done to save it if the rumor of Google’s latest project is true. 2-4 years from now Facebook will look like MySpace, Google will be bigger than the Catholic Church and I will hopefully be sipping hurricanes on a beach somewhere here in sunny San Diego.

Want to learn more about Google Profiles? Click Here.

You can set the options for what you want the sponsored link to say. The choices are:

1. Highlight a Coupon that you create (ex. 10% OFF, or Free Shipping)
2. Highlight photos of your business (upload these to your Google Places profile first)
3. Highlight videos of your business (upload these to your Google Places profile first)
4. Highlight your website (another link to your site)

Results from your sponsored tag can be tracked in Google Places along with your number of impressions and clicks from free business listing materials. Data shows the number of times your tag was expanded by users to see more, and how many times people directly click though toi your site from the sponsored tag link. This gives you the ability to see how well your tag is performing and whether it is worth the $25/mo investment.

Disadvantages to using the sponsored tag link are that the link says ‘sponsored link’ next to it and is highlighted in yellow. This lets users know that it is not an organic part of your free listing which may turn-off certain advanced users.

Google is offering promotions for a free 30-day trial of using a Sponsored Tag on your listing. Contact CPD for more information on getting a free 30-day trial for your listing.

Your Google Profile

Creating & Verifying Your Google Profile in 7 Easy Steps:

1. Sign into your google/gmail account or get one here:https://www.google.com/accounts
   Note: If you are creating a new account, remember to uncheck “enable web history” this is a feature that is on by default and has always bothered me.
2. Once you sign in or create your account, navigate to “My Account” via links in the top right corner of most google.com pages.
3. Click Create A Profile (see pic below)
   

   Step 3: Create your Google Profile



Step 5: Set Privacy Options

4. Fill out all the information you want to share  click here if you are lost.
5. Read the privacy policy and set your Privacy Options. They are very easy to understand, broken down by your contacts.
6. Choose a profile URL, sooner the better. They will likely go fast.
   

Step 7: Verifying Your Google Profile – harder than it sounds.

1. WHILE SIGNED INTO YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT visit http://knol.google.com
2. Click sign in if you ignored step one, or it didn’t work for some reason.
3. Click Preferences
4. Click Name Verification

   

5. Verify by method of your choice.

That is it, you should now have a verified Google Profile! cheers.

WHY ITS IMPORTANT TO DO SET THIS UP SOONER RATHER THAN LATER

For starters, you can get a better url/username for public profile pages (wish they could lose /profiles/ from url). Second you’ll be ahead of the curve on the new thing on the internet. Third, Google is just a better company. Their model is to make the internet better and they make money from doing so. Facebook makes money off of data generated and collected from its users online social lives.

Branding:
Branding is when your advertisement and subsequent landing page is used to direct users into an “awareness” of your products or services. Branding is a crucial piece of marketing. Everyone wants Buy Now sales in their business, but utilizing a branding method to provide information on a product or service is sometimes even more useful as people are not always in a buying state when browsing the web.

Examples of when to use Branding Ads:

-          When you do not sell a product or service online

-          When your product or service involves a longer sales cycle including custom quoting, demos, etc.

-          When your messaging is more important than gathering information

Direct Response:
Sponsored search advertisements that send users to a landing page that has a specific call to action are utilizing the direct response strategy in their pay per click ads (PPC). Examples of direct response call to actions are:

1)      Requesting a user fill out a form to sign up for a demo

2)      A landing page that asks you to take a survey

3)      Trying to get users to buy a product right now

4)      Sign up for a newsletter form

5)      Call us now to receive a discounted rate

One of the major advantages of direct response campaigns from a marketing standpoint is that you are able to track your results more directly. You can look at your total spend vs. total click throughs vs. total direct response leads that came through (by filling out a form, buying something, etc.)

Mixed Approach:
It is possible to use a mixed approach to your search engine marketing strategy by utilizing your company branding along with some small call to action for direct response. Typically these types of landing pages will see the most success.

This unique technology is part of what Google Maps is developing as a ‘Favorite Places’ feature. Favorite places allows users to mark their favorite locations (whether it be shopping stores, hiking trails, or restaurants) Users can draw shapes to represent areas and lines to represent journeys and then publish your locations for public viewing.

Try typing “real estate [my zip code]” into a Google Maps search query and see what happens… You will likely see lots of results of real estate listings in your area. Although having these listings on Maps is not new, the way you can find them has become a whole lot easier.

The best part of the real estate listings is that it provides detailed information to the size of the home or apartment, price, pictures and more.

This tutorial outlines 5 simple On-Page SEO strategies. Anyone that has experience surfing the web should have an understanging of the topics covered.

The second type of sitemap is the XML file refered to as the Sitemap (capital S) and labeled Sitemap.xml in the root of your website. A Sitemap is a list of the pages on your website, but has some other benefits to search engines like Google. You can provide Google with additional informaion about your pages including:

• How often pages on your site are updated. (ex. your Products page or News page may be updated daily, while your Contact and About pages are only updated periodically)
• Last modified info on each page
• The relative importance of each page on your site. (ex. your Home page may have an importance of 1.0, category sections have an importance of 0.8, and blog entry pages have an importance of 0.5) *Note this does not impact the rankings of your pages within search results

Sitemaps allow Google and other search engines to crawl your website faster and more effectively. As you know, we want to keep Google happy:) It is also important to know that sites are never penalized for submitting a Sitemap.

There are also other types of sitemaps for Video, Mobile, News, Code Search, and Geo.

More information can be found on the sitemaps.org website.

YouTube

Google purchased YouTube in Oct. of 2006 for a lofty $1.65 billion. YouTube is still seeing daily video uploads in record quantities. So how can utilizing YouTube video help your SEO? Because video will become a broader part of Google’s search plans, if optimized correctly, videos that you include on your website may have more visibility in searches than those on YouTube. Here’s how…

Each video that you create in YouTube should have its own landing page on your website. This page should include a title and description. Along with other best practices on your website, these videos will begin to gain traction with Google as they push Youtube videos.

What about videos that are not yours? You can use videos that you have not created but want to display on your website. The same SEO principals apply and you may even see these videos get better placement in searches than the actual YouTube clips.

Video and multi-media are very important for the next generation of the web. But remember, don’t ignore the SEO… Happy Hunting!