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( Cross-posted on the Lat Long Blog and the Small Business Blog .) When we initially announced the Business Photos pilot program , we wanted to give business owners an easy way to get customers in the door online using interactive, high-quality, 360-degree images of places on Google Maps and on Google Search results. With thousands of businesses under our belt — from  salons  to gift shops  — we’ve been hearing the same question again and again from both business owners and photographers alike: How can I participate? Well, with the overwhelming success of the first pilot, we’ve decided to unveil a complementary initiative that will help us reach more interested business owners, more quickly: Trusted Photographers. View Larger Map Click and drag to view the inside of Spice Market , New York City. It’s simple. Visit our new website and search for a Google Trusted Photographer in your area. Either email or call a photographer in your area to schedule a time and agree on a ...

(cross-posted on the Inside AdWords Blog )  More and more people are falling in love with Valentine’s Day. According to a recent survey by ORC International, Valentine’s Day is now the number two gift giving holiday, right behind Christmas, with 88% of Americans saying they plan on giving a present to their loved ones. This should be great news for businesses, but marketers still have trouble making a love connection with consumers based on charts that look more like dated EKG readings than real-time insights into the heart of the consumer. Since getting the affections of one person is hard enough, below are some timely insights from Google’s “database of intentions” to keep you ahead of the game as you create your Valentine’s Day campaigns. Search is where the heart is Already we’re seeing Google searches related to Valentine’s Day increase 35% compared to last year. Not only are more people searching, they’re searching earlier - last year people began looking for Valentine’s Day...

Well, it’s been just over a week since we wrapped up another exciting CES with some very innovative new product displays. From the world’s thinnest tablet (and a concept tablet...and a waterproof tablet!), to a range of smart tvs, to a surge in ultrabook designs, and of course who could leave out the sleek new smartphones, this year’s show had many talked about products. But what will have consumers buzzing the remainder of the year, as many of these products gear up for their official releases? While it’s tough to predict that, we did want to take a quick look at what happened after CES last year, to glean insights into some trends we can look for this year. Insight #1: CES week search volume could be a good indicator of launch week popularity Insight #2: CES 2012’s Top 5 Products had 50% more Google Searches than CES 2011’s Top 5 ASUS Transformer Prime looks like a potential big winner based on Google search volume, and its volume was even greater than two of last year’s hottest prod...

(cross-posted on the Official Google Blog ) In the amount of time it takes you to read this blog post, roughly 382 Android phones will be activated, 250,000+ words will be written on Blogger and 48 hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube. The world is moving faster than ever before, bringing us instant access and split-second connections to people and information. Speed is important in technology, but equally essential in business. Consumer expectations are rising as we learn to take speed for granted; today’s email is tomorrow’s snail mail. In our hyper-real-time world, nanoseconds matter—which means we need to question old assumptions. How will we respond to consumer expectations as the demand for instant access to everything intensifies? How will we keep pace in a world that moves at web speed? The new Speed issue of Think Quarterly explores these questions and more. Our SVP of Engineering Urs Hölzle shares our efforts to speed up the Internet, while Astro Teller, Director of N...

(Cross posted on the Official Google Blog and the YouTube Blog ) Every year in the tech world, thousands of us pack a bag with all of our gadgets and head to Las Vegas for the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It’s a tech lover’s paradise where you can check out new technologies and talk about the trends of the future with visionary members of the industry. If you’ll be joining us, here are a few places and dates where you can find Google and YouTube. We’ll kick things off at 3:00pm PT on Tuesday, January 10 with chairman Eric Schmidt speaking at CNET Presents - The Next Big Thing in CE , in Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) North Hall N255-257. On the following day, January 11, we have a bunch of events across topics: Google’s senior policy counsel Rick Whitt will participate in the Innovation Policy Summit Session: Spectrum for Wireless Broadband: Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together in LVCC North Hall N264 at 10:15am PT. On the education front, Angela Lin, manager of ...

When it comes to online marketing, retailers often have significant opportunity to expand their presence. However, limited budgets and/or ROI goals restrict them from reaching many customers seeking the types of products and services they sell. Geo-targeting allows retailers to accomplish their goals without an overwhelming incremental investment. Here are four strategies: 1. Increase sales while maintaining ROI goals.   Identify campaigns with low impression share. Then pull an geo report (under the "Dimensions" tab in AdWords) for those campaigns to find local markets with high conversion rates. Develop separate campaigns targeting these markets and increase your CPC bids to ensure your ad is showing up in a top position. 2. Earn market share.  Identify local markets where competitors are attracting more customers, either in-store or online. Beyond your internal competitive intelligence here are other ways to identify these markets: Use syndicated data like Hitwise or Com...