How Does Google Docs Work?

How Does Google Docs Work?Google Docs is one of the productivity applications that’s included with free consumer Gmail and with G Suite [for business].

Google Docs is a cloud-based word processor, which means that no desktop software is required to create and edit documents. Documents are stored on Google Drive, which is the cloud drive included with Gmail and G Suite.

Google Docs has all the core capabilities that can be found in traditional word processors. It also has a number of capabilities that relate to the fact that the documents are stored on a cloud drive (vs. on one person’s desktop). So, how does Google Docs work? Here are just a few of the capabilities.

[Read more…]How Does Google Docs Work?

Rackspace Webmail vs. G Suite For Small Business

G Suite vs. Rackspace WebmailWhen a small business owner or manager decides to make the move from free consumer email addresses (e.g., jake2874@comcast.net) to custom email addresses (e.g., jake@abbottsolar.com), there are a number of business email options.

Aside from Microsoft, two of the most popular business email providers are Rackspace and Google.

As service providers, Google and Rackspace differ in many ways. However, they do overlap in a couple of areas.

[Read more…]Rackspace Webmail vs. G Suite For Small Business

How G Suite Gives Each User Unlimited Email Addresses

There are two ways in which a G Suite user can have an unlimited number of inbound email addresses associated with their G Suite account. We’ll refer to these ways as “dimensions”, as they can be used in combination.

G Suite Email Aliases

The first dimension of unlimited email addresses are email aliases. Aliases are assigned to a user account by a G Suite admin. An admin can assign multiple values to what is technically called the Local-part of the email address, or the part before the @ sign.

In the following example, you will see that Lou’s default email address is lou@yourcrmdemo.com. Lou must use this address to login to her email account.

[Read more…]How G Suite Gives Each User Unlimited Email Addresses

How to Add Users to G Suite

Updated: April 25, 2019

Add Users to G SuiteThere are more similarities between free, consumer Gmail and G Suite than there are differences. In fact, G Suite can be viewed as a multi-user version of consumer Gmail.

When a single user platform becomes multi-user, an administrative level is needed for tasks such as adding and deleting users, creating groups, assigning apps and managing security.

Fortunately, adding users to G Suite is a straightforward process for an admin. The creator of a G Suite account is a super administrator by default. One or more admin roles can optionally be assigned to any user. One of the admin roles is called User Management Admin. This role allows a user to create, delete and update individual users (other than admin users).

Only a super administrator, however, can bulk upload new users.

[Read more…]How to Add Users to G Suite

G Suite: Gmail & Calendar iOS Updates

Gmail G Suite iOSWhile Google has its own mobile phone and tablet operating system, the company needs to remain mindful of the fact that millions of consumer and business Gmail customers are iPhone and iPad users.

In fact, over the last 30 days, 63% of the mobile & tablet visitors to this website, as reported by Google Analytics, are iPhone or iPad users.

For years, Google has offered iOS apps for Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and more. However, until recently, the Gmail app had not been updated since December 4, 2012.

[Read more…]G Suite: Gmail & Calendar iOS Updates

New Google Sites: How To Use Sites In Business

Updated: January 28, 2019

New Google SitesNew Google Sites rolled out to all G Suite customers in November of 2016.

The original Google Sites, now called “Classic Google Sites” was released in 2008 after the acquisition of JotSpot in 2006. The product did not see much in the way of enhancements for many years.

The new Google Sites was built from the ground up, which means not only a modern set of design components and full device responsiveness, but an app that fits in much better with the rest of the G Suite offerings.

[Read more…]New Google Sites: How To Use Sites In Business

G Suite: Editing Microsoft Office Files

Edit Microsoft Office Files in Google AppsOne of the things that has prevented some organizations from making the switch to G Suite is the fact that they still would need to maintain and/or purchase Microsoft Office licenses for most of their users.

However, Office licenses may only be needed for a few power users within an organization, as there are two ways that any user can open and edit Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint files using Google Drive. “Power users” can include those who work with very large Excel spreadsheets or who rely on macros within certain Excel spreadsheets. It can also include those who need to exchange redlined Word documents with third parties.

There are two ways that G Suite users can edit Office files without the need for Office software.

[Read more…]G Suite: Editing Microsoft Office Files

Google Analytics Event Tracking Examples

Google Analytics Event Tracking ExamplesGoogle Analytics Event tracking allows you to incorporate visitor activity from many different sources within Google Analytics.

Once the information is in Google Analytics, as we covered in the previous post, comparative visualizations can be created in Google Sheets.

Here are five Google Analytics event tracking examples. You can use these to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. This is all predicated on the fact that you are using the Universal Analytics tracking code.

[Read more…]Google Analytics Event Tracking Examples

Google Analytics Reports in Google Sheets – Using Filters

Google Analytics ReportsOne of many benefits to using G Suite is that G Suite users with access to their organization’s Google Analytics account can easily share specific slices of Google Analytics data with their co-workers.

The Google Analytics Add-on for Google Sheets lets a Sheets user who has a Google Analytics login create a variety of comparative visualizations within Google Sheets.

[Read more…]Google Analytics Reports in Google Sheets – Using Filters

Present Data in Google Slides – In Real Time

G Suite users can now present data in Google Slides. And, this data can be presented in real time.

Until Google introduced this functionality, charts had to either be pasted as images into Google Slides or they had to be created using shapes. When the underlying data changed, a more up-to-date chart image had to be pasted into the slide or the shapes had to be modified. This could be very time consuming.

Google has provided two ways to embed data-driven charts right within individual slides.

[Read more…]Present Data in Google Slides – In Real Time

14 Reasons to Move Your Business From Free Gmail to G Suite

Updated: March 5, 2020

Free Gmail vs. G SuiteLet’s say you’ve been using free Gmail accounts for your business communications. Your email addresses may resemble one or more of these:

abbottsolar@gmail.com
solar-lisa94@gmail.com
abbottsupport@gmail.com

Your employees may even be using assorted Yahoo Mail and cable company email addresses for business purposes.

However, your business is growing and you want to start to use more professional looking email addresses such as:

jabbott@abbottsolar.com
lisa@abbottsolar.com
support@abbottsolar.com

Steven Aldrich of GoDaddy has stated that potential customers are far more likely to do business with a company that uses a business email address than those that don’t.

[Read more…]14 Reasons to Move Your Business From Free Gmail to G Suite

4 Ways to Add Animation to Your Website With Google Slides

Google Slides can easily be embedded in any website by using the code provided in the File > Publish to the web… menu.

By default, there’s a set of controls at the bottom of an embedded Slides presentation that diminishes the website animation effect. The controls provide multiple options including downloading the Slides as a PDF or PPTX file.

[Read more…]4 Ways to Add Animation to Your Website With Google Slides

How To Create And Embed A Poll Using Google Forms

Updated: November 5, 2018
 

Google Poll Using FormsWith Google Forms, it’s easy to embed surveys, polls and other types of questionnaires into your website.
 

We created a Google poll using Google Forms and embedded it below. If you answer the question, you’ll be able to see how others answered the same question simply by clicking the See previous responses link after you submit your response.

[Read more…]How To Create And Embed A Poll Using Google Forms

9 Reasons Companies Switch to G Suite

Switch to G SuiteGoogle is a household name for internet search. Most people are aware of consumer Gmail. However, many businesspeople are not aware of Google’s suite of applications for business, G Suite.

“Gone Google” is a term Google coined for companies that have adopted G Suite. At the time of publication of this post, Google states that over 5 million companies have gone Google. With over 125 million businesses in the world, there’s clearly some upside for Google.

[Read more…]9 Reasons Companies Switch to G Suite

Five Google Sites Use Cases

Google Sites is not necessarily the first application that enters the mind of most people as a platform for building out a corporate website, but there are a number of Google Sites use cases that organizations can take advantage of.

One of the great aspects of Google Sites is the fact that it has the built-in sharing options that are common to all Google Apps components. These granular permission levels make Google Sites easy to adapt to a variety of “non standard” use cases.

Here are five ways to use Google Sites other than as a corporate website platform.

[Read more…]Five Google Sites Use Cases

Publishing Pivot Table Charts to Your Website With Google Sheets

In the spring of 2013, we used SurveyMonkey Audience to collect data about what CRM systems were deployed at organizations across the U.S. The main question we asked in the survey was “What is your organization’s primary CRM system?”

After the survey finished its run, SurveyMonkey provided us with a CSV file of the survey results from approximately 750 respondents. The first thing we did was to upload the CSV file to Google Drive and then open the file with Google Sheets. Once we had the data in Google Sheets, we were able to easily create pivot tables and associated charts.

[Read more…]Publishing Pivot Table Charts to Your Website With Google Sheets

Three Great Apps For Scheduling and Tracking Gmail

Schedule and Track GmailThrough the use of simple-to-install browser apps and extensions, several vendors now offer Gmail users instant access to business productivity and sales enablement tools.

Users of business Gmail, part of Google Apps for Work, have several options for scheduling emails, tracking whether emails were opened and finding out whether links were within opened emails were clicked by recipients. And this is only a subset of the empowering functionality that’s available to Gmail users.

[Read more…]Three Great Apps For Scheduling and Tracking Gmail

Using Google Drawings to Create “Live” Marketing CTAs

A best practice for B2B marketers is to include a call to action (CTA) image at the bottom of every blog post.

When a visitor clicks on the CTA image, they can be directed to a landing page that provides a free offer.

A common process for creating a marketing call to action graphic is to:

  1. Create an image in an image editor (or PowerPoint)
  2. Save the image to a local drive
  3. Upload the image to WordPress or to a marketing automation system’s files area
  4. Incorporate the image into one or more blog posts

If, for any reason you want to modify the CTA image, you need to repeat the entire process.

[Read more…]Using Google Drawings to Create “Live” Marketing CTAs

Moving to Gmail for Business: Migration Options

Moving to Gmail for BusinessIf you are thinking about moving from your current email provider to business Gmail for your organization, you’re probably wondering what would be involved with associating existing users’ email addresses, which are in a name@yourcompany.com type format, with a new G Suite account.

Also, what’s the best way to get your users’ often years worth of sent and received email into their Gmail accounts?

A move to business Gmail involves a number of technical tasks. However, this post is designed to provide a mainly non-technical overview of the tasks and options involved.

[Read more…]Moving to Gmail for Business: Migration Options

Chromebooks vs. Tablets for Corporate Sales Teams

Chromebooks - Nothing but the webCould Chromebooks be the sleeper device that IT managers have been waiting for?

Ever since laptop computers first became widely adopted within corporations, IT departments have been responsible for imaging machines, updating software and providing remote technical and application support to salespeople and other mobile users.  Any time a notebook computer breaks, is lost, stolen, or invaded by malware, there’s a time consuming replacement and/or repair process.

[Read more…]Chromebooks vs. Tablets for Corporate Sales Teams

5 Reasons to Integrate HubSpot With Your CRM

HubSpot to CRM IntegrationHubSpot is the company that defined the Inbound Marketing category. They provide the leading solution to SMBs that are looking for ways to have more people find their site on the Internet and to convert more site visitors to sales Leads.

Integration solutions are available to connect HubSpot to most of the leading CRM solutions, including Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SugarCRM and NetSuite.

[Read more…]5 Reasons to Integrate HubSpot With Your CRM