Getting Your Business Organized Using Google: Tools to Organize Your Business in the Cloud
Once you realize the importance of getting information out of your head and on the cloud, where do you put it? In-house management systems are expensive and often not as flawless as Google. As the guys at Bowery Lane Bicycles did, it's as simple as setting up Google Apps. Here are the essential tools Merrill recommends and the direct business benefits:
• Google Mail: lets you store and retrieve your information from one place, with labels and automatic email filtering. Most importantly, it uses Google Search, so you'll be able to find messages easily even if you only remember a few words or the sender's name. It also offers instant messaging, text messaging, video chat and a phone number, making it a complete communications solution.
• Google Calendar: makes it easy to share your calendar with other co-workers (and see theirs), syncs directly with your smartphone, and you can search through it using Google tools.
• Google Docs: It doesn't offer the comprehensive suite of Microsoft Office products, but again, since it is free and cloud-based, the text, spreadsheets, presentations and forms are more than useful for basic, real-time document collaboration. And more importantly, if you have employees working externally (outside of your office or in a remote location domestically/globally, they can access the documents and make changes anywhere).
• Google Analytics: A completely free service that generates detailed statistics about visitors to your website, Google Analytics is the simplest and most robust web analytics offering. Currently used by over 50% of the top 10,000 websites in the world, the analytics allow you to measure how many visitors are coming to your website, how long they're staying there, where they are coming from, and more. There are plenty of other analytics options available but the free offering from Google does the job just fine.
• Dropbox: not a Google product, but an online backup, storage and file syncing service. An extremely simple service to share information, files and more with others. It works great in transferring and storing large files that often exceed email capacity. 'I travel often with just my iPhone, and if somebody needs a file, I can pull it up in the Dropbox app and send it right there,' says Merrill.' (note: free, but priced up to $19.99/month based on how much storage you are looking for).
Dig Deeper: 11 Best Web Analytics Tools
Getting Your Business Organized Using Google: More Tools You Can Use
Those are the basics, but if you're really looking to improve the way your business actually conducts business online, a few more can't-miss services that are not from Google:
• LastPass: a password manager that organizes your passwords and makes it easier to access all of your accounts across the web. Enter one master password and never worry about a forgotten or stolen password again. Create different passwords on every site and let LastPass remember them and manage them for you. (Free, Premium = $1/month)
• Adium: a free, downloadable tool (only for Macs), it allows you to integrate and access multiple instant messaging services in one place (because who can keep track of their communication across all of the different instant messaging platforms.
• Mozilla Firefox: Google Chrome is still a fairly new interface and takes some getting used to. For most Mac users, Firefox is still the Internet browser of choice, and it is available cross-platform. With easy search, organization, annotation, bookmarking and plug-ins that are available on Macs, Windows and Linux-based computers, you can't go wrong with Firefox.
• Hootsuite: a social media dashboard for organizations who want to recognize and monitor their presence across different networks all in one place (including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn). It allows you not only to follow your networks, but broadcast to all of them and schedule messages by time and date. (Both free and paid options)
Dig Deeper: How to Build a Storefront with Google Merchant Center and Google Checkout
