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Cross-posted with Google Inside Adwords . What was your business’ New Year’s resolution, and how do you plan to keep it? At Google, ours is to help make the web work for you. Our new series of Learn with Google webinars will teach you how to use digital to build brand awareness, and they’ll give you the tools you need to drive sales. By tapping into technology that works together across your business needs, you can resolve to win moments that matter in 2013. Check out our upcoming live webinars: Build Awareness 02/12 [Multiscreen] Brand Building in a Multiscreen World 02/20 [YouTube] How to Build your Business with YouTube Video Ads 03/05 [Social] How to Use Google+ and Make Social Work for You 03/12 [Mobile] Understanding Mobile Ads Across Marketing Objectives 03/27 [Wildfire by Google] The Call for Converged Media Drive Sales 01/29 [Analytics] Google Tag Manager: Technical Implementation *today* 02/07 [Search] Your Shelf Space on Google: Get Started with Google Shopping 02/2...

Looking to add a little spice into your social media presence on the web? Last week at Creative Sandbox NYC , which celebrates how technology is shaping culture and storytelling, we announced the launch of the Ping-Pong Hangout brought to you by Google+. This Hangout app allows users to play a game of Ping-Pong with an opponent by using their faces to control the paddle. As fun as the Ping-Pong Hangout is, we’re most excited about what’s behind it: The Google+ Hangouts API . The API can help you to build deep, engaging and unique experiences for Hangouts. Just take a look at: Scoot & Doodle , for whiteboarding across the miles Story Before Bed , for reading bedtime stories over video chat the Google Art Project , for leading your own curated art tour For more examples and info, see the Hangout Apps Showcase , check out the recording of our Hangout with the agencies behind the game , flip through our Getting Started guide or ask questions of the Google+ Developers team via Hangou...

AdWords Specialists Courtney Pannell, Philip Stern, and Sarah Claxton Deming hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday as the second installment in the “Under the AdWords Hood” series. During the Hangout, the AdWords experts discussed the basics of ad rank, like how bidding and quality score factor into determining the positioning of your ads. Specifically, Phil shared his best practices for bidding to achieve your optimal ranking, and Sarah discussed how quality score is calculated. You can watch the full 25-minute Hangout on Air below, or on the Google Business YouTube channel : 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 February 7 , when we discuss remarketing tips. Stay tuned! Posted by Courtney Pannell, AdWords Team

Editor’s note: In this post, we’re featuring a management technique that we use at Google, which might be useful at your business. As a manager or the owner of a business, how often do you get to interact with your employees on an individual basis? With busy and conflicting schedules, it can be hard to find times outside of team meetings or performance evaluations to talk more generally to an employee. To help make sure that employees always have an open channel of communication with managers, we have weekly 1:1s, which is a 30-minute block of time for a manager to meet with just one person. The purpose of 1:1s isn’t evaluation or getting assignments, although those might be outcomes. Instead, it should be an chance for an employee to share projects, questions, concerns, and anything else with his or her manager. Because the intention of a 1:1 is to have easy communication across levels, the employee should be the person leading the meeting, not the manager. Employees should provide th...

Editor’s note : On the Google+ Your Business page, we’re putting you in touch with Googlers and users who can help you as a business owner get the most out of our products and features. In our latest Help Desk Hangout On Air , we chatted with the Going Google team, who showed us a guide to help businesses transition to Google Apps. We walked through the Going Google guide , learning about change management and how it can make the transition to Google Apps for any business much smoother. The guide’s got training resources, checklists, and tips to help businesses manage the transition timeline. Miss the event? You can watch the whole thing on the Google and Your Business YouTube channel . Some of the questions we answered during the Hangout: Who is the guide intended for? Is it free?  The guide is a free resource available on our Google Apps Documentation and Support site . It is intended for anyone who is helping an organization evaluate Google Apps or make the switch to Google Ap...

Since the official launch of Google Business Photos in January 2012, over 100,000 businesses have used the feature to virtually invite customers inside their doors. With the use of high-quality panoramic imagery and Street View technology, businesses have been able to offer customers an interactive tour without physically setting foot inside - perfect for showcasing the ambiance of a wine bar or the layout of a gym . Over the past year, Google has made it even easier for customers to find Business Photos on Google Search , Google Maps and Google+ Local ; with just one click, you can now “See Inside” businesses from a computer or tablet. Or, from your mobile phone click “See Inside” on the Place Sheet. If you would like to feature your establishment on Google with Business Photos, please visit our website for more information. You’ll have the opportunity to select from a list of Google Trusted Photographers in your area. You can contact a photographer to negotiate a rate and schedul...

Director of Engineering for Advertising at Google, David Baker and AdWords Specialist Lindsay Brownell hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday as the first installment of the four-part “Under the AdWords Hood” series. This series sheds light on topics that you chose in a vote on the Google Ads page! David and Lindsay broke AdWords Policy down into and delved into three areas: Ad Policy Landing Page Policy Account Policy You can watch the full 30-minute Hangout on Air below, or on the Google Business YouTube channel . 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, January 24th 2013 when we go Under the Hood and learn all about Ad Rank. Posted by Courtney Pannell and Divya Vishwanath, AdWords Support Team

(cross-posted from the Analytics blog ) We’re just a week into 2013, and we’re undeniably living in the new multi-screen age. Our day-to-day interactions with technology—and our expectations—have increased dramatically. We’re no longer content to wait until later to buy shoes or schedule travel or find a hot spot to eat. Technology lets us act now, and we expect reliable results. In fact, we’ve become so dependent on being connected all the time that 43% of U.S. adults would be willing to give up beer for a month if it meant they could keep accessing the Internet on their smartphones, and 36% said they’d be willing to give up chocolate.* What does this mean for you? Many businesses have fallen behind consumer behavior—in a world where people look first to mobile devices and real-time streams, the digital journey has grown more complex, and it’s become more challenging to gain a clear picture of these interactions. As a marketer or analyst, your success depends on adapting to this new r...

Cross posted from the Official Google Blog . When Melodie Bishop heard about our Get Your Business Online program (an initiative that makes it fast, easy and free for U.S. businesses to get online), she jumped at the opportunity to turn her hobby of creating Chicago-themed gift baskets into a full-time business. Since launching her website, Send Them Chicago , this past summer, Melodie has seen a 70 percent increase in new customers. As the holidays wrap up and the New Year starts, millions of business owners just like Melodie are thinking about how they can grow in 2013. For many, this means getting found and connecting with customers on the web. Yet often, it can be difficult to know where to start. That’s why we’re helping business owners create a list of New Year’s resolutions for 2013. Let us know what you hope to accomplish in the New Year. Do you want to get your basic business information online? Or do you already have a website and want to reach more customers? Once you s...

Happy 2013! Over the past 13 days, we've been posting one tip daily on the Google+ Your Business page to countdown to January 1st and get your business ready for the new year. We previously shared our first and second set of five tips, and our final three of our top 13 tips are below. Now you can turn some of these tips into New Year's resolutions for your business! Tip #11: Schedule due dates for tasks in emails on Google Calendar When your inbox is overflowing, you don’t always have time to follow up on tasks discussed in emails immediately. And since you’ve already seen the email, you might not want to mark it as unread. Make your workflow easier by saving emails that you need to follow up on in your Gmail Tasks list. When you have the email open, just click More > Add to Tasks and it will be automatically added to your list. Click “Related email” under the task to open the email whenever you need. You can even schedule a due date--click on > next to the task then o...