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Success Story: Ohio

December 22, 2014
By Dan O’Brien
2014--12-22_BoloStickPolice Officer Invents ‘Bolo Stick’ to Protect Schools

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — The device is remarkably simple: a steel bracket and anchor pin that affixes to the base of a door, preventing an intruder from opening or forcing that door open.

What’s even more remarkable is that no one else has thought of it until now.

“I’ve been a police officer for 28 years, I’m an instructor at the police academy,” says William Barna, inventor and owner of the Bolo Stick, a security tool that he is marketing to local schools and hopes to sell across the country. The name of the product is derived from a common police term, “Bolo,” short for “be on the lookout.”  (more…)

How to Get the Most from Your Technology

December 16, 2014
By Cindy Bates

Get_The_Most_From_Technology_12-16-2014In my experience, the most successful small businesses are those that make the most out of their investment in technology.

They are the practitioners who are empowered to respond quickly and professionally to clients and the online entrepreneurs who can expand the capabilities of their websites. They’re often small companies reaching out to national and global audiences through email marketing. However they operate, those business people who best capitalize on technology consistently find a speedier and more productive route to their markets. Research from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found SMBs leveraging technology grow revenue and profitability at a much faster rate. According to BCG, if just 15 percent of low-tech SMBs and 25 percent of the mid-tech SMBs became high-tech SMBs, the result would be 2 million more jobs and an additional $357 billion into the U.S. economy.  (more…)

gTLDs: What are these new domains, and why should you care?

December 15, 2014
By Isaac Irvine

If you own a business, choosing a great domain name is one of the most important steps you’ll take to build a strong online identity. A unique address that represents a website, your domain name is the part of the address that follows the “www.” in an address bar or after the @ symbol in an email address. Your domain is how people remember and revisit your site.

You’ll probably have lots of questions when you set out to choose a domain name for your online business presence. Questions like “What keywords should I use? Is this name too long? Should I pick a .com or what?” It’s a big decision.

Fortunately, the continuing rollout of hundreds of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to the online marketplace makes it easier than ever before to pick the perfect domain name. These descriptive new domain extensions—such as .lawyer, .guru, .vegas and .dentist, just to name a few—give you a fresh opportunity to register domains that perfectly represent what you and your business are all about.  (more…)

Our Favorite Things: Tips from 2014 – A year’s end wrap up from Google’s Get Your Business Online Team

December 10, 2014
By Whitney Lemon

Happy_Holidays_from_GYBO

Can you believe it’s almost 2015? The final blog post for the year recaps our favorite lessons that can help businesses grow and succeed online.

#1: Start with the website

The majority of today’s consumers start their shopping process online, so a company’s website may be the first interaction with the business. For businesses just starting out, review this lesson about choosing a domain name (your website address, or URL) and determining the goals of your website.

When building a website or making improvements to an existing site, pay attention to the header and footer, the top and bottom of the page. These are valuable areas for communicating important information about the business. Check out the blog post here(more…)