Cross posted with the Official Google Blog.

Michael Edlavitch was a middle school math teacher in Minnesota when he started a website with free math games to engage his students. With free online tools, a passion for math and an initial investment of just $10 to register his domain, www.hoodamath.com was born. Eventually Michael’s website became popular with more than just his students. So Michael gave Google AdSense a try as a way to earn money by placing ads next to his content. As word spread and traffic grew, the revenue generated from his site allowed Michael to devote himself full time to Hooda Math. Today, www.hoodamath.com has more than 350 educational games and has had more than 100 million unique visitors to the site. Beyond building a business for himself, Michael is helping students everywhere learn math while having fun.

Over in New York, Roberto Gil designs and builds children’s furniture—loft beds, bunk beds and entire custom rooms. Casa Kids’ furniture is custom designed for the family to grow along with the child. Roberto works out of his Brooklyn workshop and doesn’t sell to large furniture stores, which means the Casa Kids website is an essential tool for him to connect with potential customers.To grow even further, Roberto began using AdWords in 2010. In the first few months traffic to his site went up 30 percent. Today, two-thirds of his new customers come from Google. Meet Roberto and learn more about how he is making the web work for Casa Kids:



These are just two examples of how the web is working for American businesses. According to a McKinsey study, small businesses that make use of the web are growing twice as fast as those that are not on the web. That’s because the web is where we go for information and inspiration—from math games to practice over the summer to someone to design and build that perfect bunk bed for your kids. Ninety-seven percent of American Internet users look online for local products and services. Whether we’re on our smartphones, tablets or computers, the web helps us find what we are looking for.

Here at Google, we see firsthand how the web is helping American businesses grow and thrive. Through our search and advertising programs, businesses like Casa Kids find customers, publishers like Hooda Math earn money from their content, and nonprofits solicit donations and volunteers. These tools are how we make money, and they’re also how millions of other U.S. businesses do, too.

In 2012, Google's search and advertising tools helped provide $94 billion of economic activity for more than 1.9 million American businesses—advertisers, publishers and nonprofits. This represents a 17 percent increase from 2011. Check out the impact made in each state, along with stories of local businesses using the web to grow.

Whether it’s building skills or building furniture, Google helps to build businesses. We're thrilled to be part of such a vibrant industry and are committed to continuing to help make the web work for people and businesses everywhere.

Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog.

Our first AdWords customer was a small business selling live mail-order lobsters. It's been a long time since then, but a majority of our customers are still small businesses, who play a vital role not only for Google, but for the American economy. More than 60 percent of new jobs each year come from small businesses.


This Small Business Week, we want to celebrate you. We're grateful to you for everything you do for us and our communities. Whether you fix people’s cars, offer music lessons to aspiring musicians, or make the world’s best homemade ice cream—when you do what you love, our lives get better.

As part of the celebration, we’ll be highlighting some amazing small businesses across the country, so keep an eye on the Google+ Your Business page. And in the meantime, check out some of the Google tools that are designed to help you take care of business.

Happy Small Business Week.

Posted by Lisa Gevelber, VP Marketing, Americas

AdWords specialists Nina Cruz, Leslie O’Bray and Kaylyn Frazier hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday about the new Upgrade Center. Nina and Leslie demonstrate how to use the upgrade center to quickly and easily upgrade and/or merge your legacy campaigns. Starting on July 22, 2013, we will begin automatically upgrading all campaigns to enhanced.

Our specialists navigate through their AdWords accounts so you can see exactly what the interface looks like when making bulk upgrades and merges. They also demonstrate how to review changes before submitting the final upgrade.

You can view the full Hangout on the Google Business YouTube channel.


Stay tuned for our upcoming Google Analytics series, which will be held every other Thursday at 11 AM PST!

Posted by the AdWords team

Courtney Pannell and Alys Donnelly from the AdWords team hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday with Tommy Sands and Moshe Avichai — two Top Contributors from the AdWords Community.

During the roundtable discussion, Tommy and Moshe gave their advice on best practices for creating effective ads, using tools in the AdWords interface, measuring ad performance, and much more.

Watch the full 35-minute Hangout on Air below, or, visit the Google Business YouTube channel.


To learn more about how to get started with AdWords, visit our Help Center, check out the AdWords Community, or call us at 866-2-GOOGLE if you already have an AdWords account.

And remember to stay tuned for upcoming Hangouts on Air!

Posted by the AdWords team

• How do creatives leverage, but not be overwhelmed by, technology to deliver next-generation consumer experiences?
• What unique experiences are publishers developing that add value to consumers and advertisers alike?
• How do CMOs best use social with other marketing channels to build strong brands?  

The full agenda for the thinkDoubleClick event is listed below.  You can join in the conversation on June 4 by using the #thinkDCLK hash and commenting during the live stream at www.youtube.com/doubleclick.

Register here for the thinkDoubleClick summit

June 4, 2013

9 am - 12:15 PDT

9:00 - 9:30 am	Connecting Digital, Accelerating Growth Neal Mohan, VP Display Advertising, Google
9:30 - 10:00 am	The Coca-Cola Company's Liquid & Linked Marketing: How a 127-year-old company is pivoting for success in a real-time, socially-connected world The Coca-Cola Company sells over 500 brands in 207 countries, with over 700,000 System associates and 1.8B+ servings of their beverages everyday.  Hear insights and lessons learned on how the world's most valuable brand is remaining relevant by becoming more connected, transparent and nimble in real-time. Wendy Clark, Senior Vice President, Integrated Marketing Communications and Capabilities, Coca-Cola
10:00 - 10:35 am	Advertisers Must be Inventors This year, Volkswagen and Deutsch LA partnered with Google to work on a briefto re-imagine how to build a stronger, bigger community around its brand.  In today’s connected world, telling stories alone isn’t enough; we need to create tangible value and utility to bring the brand’s promise to life. In this session the creative team from Deutsch LA will be talking about the process for developing more rewarding and shareable experience. Winston Binch, Partner/Chief, Digital Creative Officer, Deutsch LA David Kim, Group Creative Director, Deutsch LA
10:35 - 11:15 am	Time to Rethink the Marketing Mix? Emerging trends in digital marketing -- including new ad formats, the rise of social media, and proliferation of channels -- are creating new challenges and opportunities for brand marketers. What are the key trends marketers should be concerned about -- and how should they respond? AdAge deputy editor Michael Learmonth poses the hard questions in an executive dialogue on what’s next for brand marketing. Fireside chat with: Michael Learmonth, Deputy Managing Editor, Advertising Age Lorraine Twohill, VP, Global Marketing, Google Jonathan Nelson, CEO, Omnicom Digital
11:15 am - 12: 15 pm	New and Native: Extending the Conversation Technology has had a profound impact on the media industry. This disruption, though, has brought along significant opportunities for creative publishers to thrive. In this session we’re bringing in three executives to show how they’ve leveraged the digital revolution to deliver more engaging content and differentiated solutions to advertisers. Randall Rothenberg, President & CEO, Interactive Advertising Bureau  (provocateur) Jim Lanzone, President, CBS Interactive Peter Horan, President & Chief Operating Officer, Answers Meredith Kopit Levien, Group Publisher & Chief Revenue Officer, Forbes Media

We look forward to seeing you on June 4th at thinkDoubleClick.

Springtime is in full swing; can you feel it? In the grand tradition of spring cleaning, we’ve got a few ideas for freshening up your business online. We believe that a tidy online presence can go a long way in kicking off a season of growth for your business.

First day of spring Google Doodle

Tidy up your website
Does your business have a website? If not, check out our Help Desk Hangout with Get Your Business Online to get started on the web. If you’ve already got a website, do a quick check to make sure your contact details, like business name, phone number, and address are accurate and current. You might also update seasonal hours, if it’s relevant for your business, or refresh the branding for your business if it’s changed recently.
Extra Credit: Learn about analytics and to measure and grow your website’s success.

Dust off those social channels
Are you connecting with customers and potential customers online? It’s easy to do so using social media, and we’ve got some Google+ tips to help you get started. You can post updates about your business easily or engage in conversations with customers. If you’re already set up with social media, it might be a good time to check your channels to make sure you’ve posted recently. If not, check in with those communities.
Extra Credit: You can learn how to use Google to measure social performance by watching our webinar, Social that Adds Up.

Clean up the Google listing for your business
Are you using Google Places for Business to manage the listing for your business on Google Maps? If not, you should become a verified business owner. This will allow you to manage the listing on Google Maps for your business and update it as needed. We’ve got some tips to help make sure the listing stays healthy, too.
Extra Credit: If you spot inaccuracies on a page, click on Report a problem on the right hand side of the page to let us know.

Posted by the Google and Your Business blog team

People across the world use Google to find the freshest coffee, friendliest service, and fastest delivery. With today’s launch of the new Google Maps, we’re making it easier than ever to choose the right places to eat, drink, shop and play.



Users who opt-in to the new Google Maps will now rate businesses on a scale that ranges from one to five stars. The system maintains the precision of the former 30 point scale while improving the readability and accessibility of the business listings. Your customers will be able to find up-to-date, accurate information on your business faster than ever. As a business owner, you’ll notice that past ratings have been mapped to the five star system.

These updates will continue to roll out on Google Maps, Google Maps for Mobile, Google search results and Google+ Local in upcoming months. Zagat reviews are still available throughout Google, and you’ll continue to see Zagat throughout Google products with editorial reviews and curated lists awarded to notable places

For more information on the score changes, join us on the Google and Your Business Forum.

Posted by the Google and Your Business blog team

Cross-posted with the Google Enterprise blog

Life gets a bit easier when your Google Apps products work well together -- whether that’s inserting a Drive file into an email or sharing Docs and photos from Drive on Google+. As that experience becomes seamless, having separate storage doesn’t make as much sense anymore. So over the coming weeks, you’ll get 30 GB of unified storage to use as you like between Drive and Gmail. Just as before, files created in Docs, Sheets and Slides don't count against your storage quota. Storage will also be shared with photos you upload to Google+ larger than 2048px.


With this new combined storage, you can use your storage how you need to. If your business or school is like most, you know how many important emails and attachments you receive every day. As a result of today’s storage change, Gmail inboxes for Google Apps customers are no longer limited to 25 GB -- any additional storage you purchase can be shared and used by Gmail. Or alternatively, if you’re only using a few gigabytes of email storage, but have a lot of large documents and files stored in Google Drive, you can now use your storage primarily for Drive.


If you want to know how you are using your storage, check out our recently updated Google Drive storage page. Simply hover over the pie chart to see a breakdown of how your storage is being used across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.

This update will roll out to Rapid Release domains over the coming weeks.

Posted by Clay Bavor, Director of Product Management, Google Apps

AdWords Specialists Joe Abernethy, Alec Fox, and Kaylyn Frazier hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday about Ad Disapprovals and the Ad Review Process.

To watch the full 20-minute Hangout on Air, visit the Google Business YouTube channel here.


After sharing some interesting, Googley facts about themselves, Alec and Joe explain some of the top reasons for disapproved ads. Alec reminds us of the important policies regarding URLs in ads. Joe explains why we have editorial standards, and discusses guidelines for using symbols, punctuation and capitalization.

Alec and Joe use screen share to show us exactly where to re-submit ads that are disapproved, check on statuses of ads and view important policy details about ads in an AdWords account.

Take a look at the article on Editorial Standards that Kaylyn references in the Hangout.

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 stay tuned for upcoming Hangouts on Air!

Posted by Joe Abernethy, Alec Fox, and Kaylyn Frazier, AdWords Specialists