Project: Google Accounts |
Description: Why do we setup Google/Gmail accounts? |
Project Goals: To clear up any questions on what we are trying to achieve by setting up Gmail accounts for customers. It's clear that there is some confusion about why the customers even need it, since they have email accounts that they can use. Why would anyone want to add another email address they would have to check, when it's hard enough to keep up with the ones they already have.
It's because of the services that Gmail offers… for free. It's not possible to compete with these services, so we might as well take advantage of them. Plus, these services also help the users participate in promoting their business, collaborating with partners, and have fun while doing it.
It is not possible to give all the benefits (SEO, SEF, Profiles, Blogs, etc) of what comes with the creation of the accounts… so we will narrow it down to ten things(services) that we are going to use the accounts for.
Please read them carefully, do the research where necessary, ask questions when you need to, and take tutorials/lessons if necessary. The worse thing you can do is give a client misinformation about what the overall goals are with the services we provide. Our only goal is to provide services that help them promote their businesses and increase their services to their current clients. In other words… the same thing we are doing for them. |
10 Services and some of their benefits
- 'Google Account" …not to be confused with Google Apps. Their Google account is what will allow them to use the other services. If it is ENABLED on their website…this Google account can be used to login to the websites that we build for them. This means they only need one username and password for all the services.
- Google Profile - This is where they can control who sees what information about them on Google. If they just setup stuff without learning how to handle their profile, then they are basically leaving it in the hands of others. They will upload their avatar, put in their website info, company information, and other services from here. It is important that they learn what this is, and how to use it. It is part of their Google Account.
- Gmail - an email application that allows them to send and receive email. The amount of space, as well as the ease of setting up phone services is one of the main attractions to the Gmail account.
- Google Analytics - Google Analytics shows you how people found their site, how they explored it, and how they can enhance their visitor experience. With this information, they can improve their website return on investment, increase conversions, and make their site more visible and therefore more effective. We set this up on every site, but most of them don't do anything but read the reports. We give them 'permissions' to view it by providing access to their Google Account.
- Google Calendar - This is where they can share their calendar with others… sync with it on their blackberry's as well as Outlook on their desktop. It is tied to their Google Account.
- Google Blogger - want to know how they can add content to their site without having to teach them new tricks? This is the answer. Using blogger, they can use their current word processor to write their website content..and post it to a blog… which then shows up on their site. We use all sorts of things such as Feedburner, RSS Feeds, and DNS to make it happen. If they want to know how we make that happen, we have a course I am designing. It will not be a free course, and is not included in what we do.
- Picasa - This is an easy way to share, organize and publish pictures to the web. The thing they must understand first, is that Picasa is not the same thing as Picasa Web Albums. Picasa is used to take the images off of their camera and store them to their computer. It is an image storage and management application. They use Picasa to publish pictures to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, blogs, and Picasa Web Albums. They use their Google ACCOUNT to do this.
- Picasa Web Albums is the online publication tool where they can share their images. We are going to focus on how they can share them with US. How they share them with others is something they can get assistance with, on an individual support basis. This is why we must setup a Picasa Album for all clients under the Admin@salestrainingandnetworking.com Google Account. (Not to be confused with the Admin@salestrainingandnetworking.com Google APPS account.) If we set the account up under THEIR Picasa account, then we become responsible (in their minds) of helping to manage that account… when in fact, the only account WE need is the PICASA WEB ALBUM created for them under our account. We provide them access, as well as maintain those images.
Google Docs - This is a way for them to be able to upload and share documents (not images) with people that they are collaborating with. It works much the same as Picasa Web Albums, except it is for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings. Think of it as being a 'Microsoft Office" online. - Documents = Microsoft Word - a word processor
- Spreadsheets = Microsoft Excel
- Presentations = Microsoft Power Point
- Drawings = Microsoft Draw ( no longer supported) it is a DRAWING program, that allows collaboration between people with the correct permissions.
All of the above is tied to their Google Profile.
IGoogle - This is basically the home page for where they can control what they see, what they keep up with, and general navigation of their Google services. It is tied to their Google Profile.
One of the most powerful things that the Google Account brings to them, is that they can access ALL of the above from ANYwhere in the world. They do not have to be on any specific computer, network, or device in order to use these services.
The other thing to take note of is that there is a lot of ground to cover with these apps. In order to cover these apps, we need to make sure that we have customers that understand a few basic principles.
- We can't cover all of this in one day, much less an hour. The time spent showing them these skills are taken from the allocated hours that they have on a monthly basis… there fore they are not 'free'. If they should decide that they do not want to learn these skills… they are free to pass. However, they will be charged for any tasks that we have to perform for them, because of their inability to perform them on their own.
- They are free to learn, explore, and create stuff using the Google account on their own. We only support those items that are integrated into the overall services that we perform for them. A good guage of what that means is to ask the question 'is this business related?" If it isn't, then it's definitely not covered.
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Other Notes : Some of the things that we are going to cover include "Webmaster Tools, KNOL, Maps, Checkout, Alerts, Friend Connect, Orkut, Page Creator, Notebook, Notes, Sites, Google Voice, Google Talk, Web History, Wave, YouTube and more. ALL of them use the Google Accounts we have been discussing…. |
Author Contact: Stan Bush Contact Phone: (478) 227-4736 or (478) 227-4SEO |
Contact Email : stan@salestrainingandnetworking.com |
Contact Twitter : stanbush Contact Facebook : http://profile.to/stanbush |
Company Name : Sales Training And Networking Company Twitter: StanInc |
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