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The Importance of Keeping Backups

17 January 2018 By Priya Chandra Leave a Comment

Original photo by Neil Thomas on Unsplash

It was a hot summer day but I felt frozen – the blood drained from my face and I couldn’t move. I’d just been told that our external hard disk drive which had been playing up was absolutely kaput. The data recovery company was prepared to have a go at recovering the data on there but it would cost $550.00 per repair attempt and there was no guarantee that any information would be recovered at all.

Are all our photos gone?

My husband and I looked at each other in horror; that hard disk drive had held all our photos including ones of my late mother-in-law’s final days with us. What should we do?

Andy suggested looking at home – had we put the photos onto another laptop; had we sent them to other people via email or a USB drive; were they backed up via Google Photos or Apple iCloud? In his experience, most people had the original source elsewhere and it just took a bit of looking to find them.

And that’s exactly what we did – we turned the house upside down looking for any previous storage options including DVDs; old laptops and USB sticks and to our great relief we found all the photos that had been on the failed drive, on one of the spare laptops. For the first time in hours, I was able to breathe properly.

This must never happen again

But what if that spare laptop failed in the future? I did not want us to ever be caught out like this again. We’d been lucky this time but it wasn’t guaranteed that would happen again. Time to follow the best practices for backing up files often called the “3-2-1” rule:

1. Keep at least three copies of your data.

That’s the original, source document as well as two copies of the same data.

2. Use two (different) storage types to backup data.

But don’t keep the copies on the same types of storage – for example, 3 different laptops. Instead, use a different storage type like an external hard drive or even DVDs. In our case, we copied the photos onto many, many DVDs and then put the DVDs into our safe.

3. At least one backup should be offsite.

Andy’s low-tech solution was to send another set of DVDs to a family member but I decided to use a cloud storage solution instead – namely Google Photos.

Google Photos has unlimited storage if you’re willing to have your uploaded photos compressed to 16MP. Since most photos taken by a phone are much lower than this, that’s not really a problem for most users. Plus, unlike Apple’s cloud storage option it can be accessed by both iOS (my husband) and Android (me) users.

If you’ve not heard of Google Photos before, then this video is a good overview of its capabilities:

But what about things other than photos?

We hadn’t just had photos on that hard disk drive – we’d had documents and music. Most of the documents were gone unfortunately but we still had our original CDs (thanks to a husband who hates to throw things out) so there was our first copy.

To create a 2nd copy of the CDs, we copied them all across to the same spare laptop containing our photos – from now on this would be our main entertainment laptop.

Then we purchased 1TB of storage from Google Drive and copied all the music from the laptop to Google Drive to create our 3rd, offsite copy.

And in the future?

Well, all the photos we take on our phones (copy 1) are backed up automatically to our own personal Google Photos accounts (offsite copy). Each week we download that week’s set of photos and add them to the entertainment laptop (3rd copy).

The same with any documents that we create – one copy is kept personally on our own laptops; one copy is kept on the entertainment laptop and one copy is kept offsite in Google Drive.

And music? Well, much of that is streamed of course now, but the small amount of music that we do purchase is downloaded to our personal laptop; the entertainment laptop; and then copied to Google Docs.

How about you? It’s not just personal data that could be lost – do you have a backup plan in your business?

 

 

Tagged With: backups, staying organised

Using Google Keep to keep a gratitude journal

10 January 2018 By Priya Chandra Leave a Comment

 

Welcome to a new year – I swear I still don’t know where 2017 went but hey I’m game to give 2018 a go!

Today’s post isn’t really #techmadesimple in a business sense, but it is designed to help you and your business through the use of a gratitude journal.

But why a gratitude journal?

Well, essentially it is all too easy (especially as a solopreneur) to focus on the bad / negative stuff in our lives and to obsess over those things – why didn’t I do this; I should have done that; how come I can’t… etc, etc.

However life isn’t all bad, all the time, and a gratitude journal forces us (in a good way!) to pay attention to the good things that we might otherwise take for granted or even just forget about.

In fact numerous studies show that keeping a gratitude journal can help in multiple ways including better sleep; better health; improved optimism about the future and generally experiencing more happiness in one’s life.

Personally, I’ve been trying to keep a gratitude journal on and off for many years – in fact last night I found one which I started in 2015. The entries started in January and finished in March so this year I’m determined to do things differently and Google Keep seems to me to be the best way to do that.

How to keep a gratitude journal?

There really is no wrong way to keep a gratitude journal apart from: capture the thought!

The benefits come from getting your thoughts out of your head and into physical form. For most people, this means either typing something up at the end of the day or writing events and activities in a physical notebook – and there are some gorgeous apps  as well as notebooks out there to help with this.

However as I said earlier, this year I’m trying something different and using Google Keep as my gratitude journal rather than a notebook. Since Google Keep is with me all the time it is really easy to:

  • take a photo of something that made me feel grateful – like my cat resting on my arm as I was working (the photo at the top of this post)
  • dictate a note that reminds me about the delicious breakfast I had today courtesy of my husband
  • draw a quick doodle representing the sunrise I got to see this morning

Then I label the note with #gratitude and at the end of the day send all #gratitude notes to Google Doc as one document recording my grateful thoughts for the day.

Once I’ve uploaded the notes I go into Google Docs to rename the document to today’s date and then delete the notes from Google Keep but that’s just me. Feel free to keep them in Google Keep if you want easy access to them in the future.

But does one have to be Pollyanna to do this?

No! I am definitely not Pollyanna and some days trying to find positive things for which I can be ‘grateful’ is just too much. In fact, sometimes I am simply grateful for tiny wins (‘got out of bed today) or the negative outcomes I avoided (‘did not eat the entire family sized block of chocolate’)!

So please don’t feel you have to be sunny-side every day – that’s unrealistic and not the purpose of this exercise (as I understand it). Instead just spend a couple of minutes every day focussing on, and recording, the good / not so bad in your day and see what happens.

So what do you think? Will you be likely to create your gratitude journal via Google Keep in the future? I’d love to hear how you go with both the journal and Google Keep! And if you’re looking for more tips on using Google Keep, check out my book!

How to create an email template in Inbox by Gmail

22 November 2017 By Priya Chandra 2 Comments

Photo by La Compagnie Robinson on Unsplash

Last week I wrote about how to create templates (or canned responses) in Gmail. This week it’s the turn of templates in Inbox by Gmail.

Firstly it’s important to note that like Canned Responses, templates are only available via the desktop website. I highly recommend submitting feedback to the Inbox project team if you’d like to see this feature added to the mobile app.

Unlike Canned Responses however, Templates are ‘baked into’ Inbox, so there’s no need to set this feature up or worry that it might be cancelled which is a bonus. Simply set up your templates and off you go, saving time and energy when responding to similar email queries.

One: Create the template

  • Click on the Red + button in the bottom right to create a new email.
  • Type in the body of the text that you wish to use in future. You can also put in a subject if you wish.
  • Click on the drop down arrow in the bottom of the email (to the right of the text editing icons).
  • Click on the Templates icon Template reply and then click on Make this draft a template.
  • You’ll be asked to enter a name for the new response and can make more edits now if you wish like bolding text or adding a bulleted list.
  • Click Create.
  • You can now discard the original message by clicking on the rubbish bin icon.
  • Repeat until you’ve finished creating all your templates.

Two: Use the template

Templates wouldn’t be much use if you couldn’t use them! To do this:

  • Open the email you wish to reply to – again this is only possible on the desktop, not the mobile app.
  • Click on Reply.
  • Click on the drop down arrow in the bottom of the email (to the right of the text editing icons).
  • Click on the Templates icon Template reply and then click on the template you wish to use.
  • Amend any information as necessary and then click on Send.

A bit more about templates

To delete a template:

  • Click the Menu bar in Inbox on the computer.
  • Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on Settings and then Templates.
  • Hover your cursor over the template you want to delete and then click the rubbish bin to the right of the template’s name.

You can not only delete templates from the Settings screen but you can also create new ones:

  • Click the Menu bar in Inbox on the computer.
  • Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on Settings and then Templates.
  • Click on Create a template and then fill in the title and body of the email.
  • Click on Create to finish the process.

To edit a template:

  • There’s currently no way to edit a template after saving it, but you can delete it and create a new one. You can also edit your message before sending it.

How Inbox template replies work with Gmail

If you have Canned Responses turned on in Gmail, your template replies are visible in both Inbox and Gmail. When you make a template in Inbox, it’ll show up in Gmail (and the other way around).

Want more information on using Inbox by Gmail in your sole trader or small business? Get in touch to discuss how I can help you spend less time working out how to use tech, and more time actually using it to make your business run better.

 

 

Tagged With: inbox by gmail, Productivity, templates

3 easy steps to creating canned responses in Gmail

15 November 2017 By Priya Chandra 2 Comments

Are you sick of typing out the same reply every time someone emails you with a common question? As a Gmail user, there’s a very nifty little feature called ‘Canned responses’ which allows you to create templates, or pre-written emails for these exact situations.

One: Set up the Canned Responses feature

  • To set up the feature open gmail.com in a desktop browser window (you can only set this feature up on a desktop, not a mobile).
  • Then, click on the Gear icon in the top right and select ‘Settings’
  • Click on the ‘Labs’ tab and then scroll down and enable the ‘Canned Responses’ lab.
  • Scroll all the way down and click on ‘Save changes’.

Now you’re ready to start creating your templates!

Two: Create the template or canned response

  • Click on ‘Compose’ – again this has to be done via the desktop not the mobile app.
  • Type in the body of the text that you wish to use in future. You can also put in a subject if you wish.
  • Click on the drop down arrow in the bottom right of the email (next to the rubbish bin)
  • Select Canned Responses and then New canned response.
  • You’ll be asked to enter a name for the new response – if you’ve put in a subject this will be automatically used as the name but you can change this if you want.
  • Click on OK.
  • You can now discard this message by clicking on the rubbish bin icon.
  • Repeat until you’ve finished creating all your templates.

Three: Use the Canned Response

Canned responses wouldn’t be much use if you couldn’t use them! To do this:

  • Open the email you wish to reply to – again this is only possible on the desktop, not the mobile app.
  • Click on Reply.
  • Click on the drop down arrow in the bottom right of the email (next to the rubbish bin).
  • Select Canned Responses and then under the ‘Insert’ list click on the name of the response you wish to use.
  • Amend any information as necessary and then Send!

A bit more about Canned Responses

To delete a canned response:

  • Open a new email.
  • Click on the drop down arrow next to the rubbish bin
  • Under the ‘Delete’ heading click on the name of the response you want to remove.

To edit a canned response:

  • There’s currently no way to edit a canned response – you’ll need to delete the original canned response and then set up a new one with the changes in it.

Sadly, as already mentioned there’s no way to use Canned Responses via the mobile app. If this is something you’d like to see added, then I highly recommend submitting feedback to the Gmail project team.

Getting really tricky with Canned Responses

Want to forgo the hassle of manually selecting a canned response? If you want, you can set up a filter based on any combination of keywords, sender, recipients etc to grab a pre-set template and send it off for you.

I have done this in the past for sending tailored out of office responses – for example family and close friends get one message, whilst clients get another version. You could also use it for sending an automated response to contact queries, or perhaps to create an email with seasonal text (like a Christmas special) that you can then edit.

If you’ve got ideas of your own on how you use Canned Responses then please let me know in the comments below!

Warning!

Labs are in Google’s own words “a testing ground for experimental features that aren’t quite ready for prime time. They may change, break or disappear at any time.”

So, always keep a back up of your canned responses somewhere outside of Gmail, so you can access them should the Canned Responses lab feature be pulled. I personally use Google Keep for this kind of storage, but choose the system that works best for you.

Want more information on using Gmail in your sole trader or small business? Get in touch to discuss how I can help you spend less time working out how to use tech, and more time actually using it to make your business run better.

Tagged With: gmail, productivty

The 10 most commonly asked Google Calendar questions (and their answers!)

11 October 2017 By Priya Chandra

I spend a lot of time on the Google Calendar support forum and have noticed some questions just keep getting asked over and over. So, I thought why not put those questions (and their answers!) together in a blog post just in case some of you have the same questions?

So in no particular order here are the 10 most commonly asked Google Calendar questions that I’ve seen during my time on the forum.

1. I want my invited guests to receive the same notification for an event as I have set for myself

This question relates to events where the event organiser has set up a reminder for an event on their own calendar and want all the invited guests to automatically have that same reminder set for them – for example 1 hour before the event, they will get a notification.

In Google Calendar, each user can set their own notifications to suit their own schedules and preferences – I for example like to get two reminders for really important events, whilst someone else might prefer only one reminder or even a series of reminders spaced out over a period of hours / days. So, regardless of whether you are the event organiser or not, you can’t force a particular notification onto your guests.

2.  Why is the Android app not syncing the Calendar entries beyond 12 months?

I have no idea why this is so, but for some reason Google does not sync events older than 12 months or more than 12 months into the future to the Google Calendar Android app. The events are still available on the desktop but not via the app.

If you want to see these events on your mobile device then you need to use the mobile browser to visit the Google Calendar internet site.

3. When I add an event on my desktop, it shows on my mobile, but when I add an event on my mobile, it doesn’t show on the desktop

This usually happens if you’re not using the official Google Calendar app. When you use the phone’s in-built calendar app it will default to storing your events in its internal calendar. This doesn’t sync with Google Calendar so you end up with events that are only accessible via your phone.

The best way to stop this from happening is to use the official Google Calendar app but if you really want to use the in-built calendar app make sure you select the correct Google calendar – it is usually called Events or your email address.

4. I’ve renamed my default calendar on the Google Calendar website but it is still called Events on the mobile app.

Again, another decision that I can’t fathom but for some reason Google has decided that regardless of what you call your default calendar on the website, it will always be called ‘Events’ on the mobile app. You can rename your secondary calendars and those new names will be reflected on the mobile app, but not the default calendar.

5. An event appeared on my Calendar that I did not create.

Google Calendar offers a neat little function that allows it to automatically add events to your Calendar that are emailed to you, if you allow it to. Unfortunately what that means is that sometimes spam emails end up in your Calendar and it can look like someone has hacked into your account. This is luckily not the case though it can be very annoying.

There’s only one way to stop it from happening and that is to turn off the “Automatically add invitations to my calendar” functionality. If you want to keep using it though and you are getting these spam events then:

  1. Open the event invitation on your computer.
  2. In the “Going” section at the top, click Report spam and then Report spam
  3. Once you report it, all events from that particular organiser will be removed from your calendar.

6. How do I copy and paste one event to one day to another?

Although Google Calendar has a pretty robust way to repeat events sometimes you may just want to repeat an event once or on a difficult, irregular schedule. In those cases you can use the ‘More Actions’ functionality.

Simply open the event to the edit screen, click on the ‘More Actions’ drop down arrow in the top right and select ‘Duplicate Event’. All aspects of that event will duplicated (colour, description, notifications, date and time) and you can tweak as necessary – changing the date and time are the most common uses for this functionality.

7. Why does the Calendar mobile app always show 31 and not today’s date?

There’s a very technical reason for this which I never remember. Essentially, it just does and hopefully at some stage Google will change the technical specifications to allow this to happen but in the meantime, the Google Calendar mobile app will always think it is 31 (even in February).

8. I’m getting the following error when importing a calendar file: “We’re sorry. Google Calendar is temporarily unavailable. Please try again in a few minutes. If the problem persists, see our Apps Status Dashboard or visit our Help Center.”

This has got to be one of the most non user-friendly errors ever in my books. What this error message usually means is that in fact the file you are trying to import is too large (over 1MB). If you do get that message then you need to work out a way of making the file smaller before you can successfully import it.

9. I’ve set certain colours for certain events on a shared calendar but I’m the only one that sees them.

This is similar to question 1 – all users have the final say over how a calendar event looks in their system. So even if you’ve shared a calendar with someone else, they can set different colours for both the calendar and the individual events, regardless of what you’ve set in your system.

The only time the other person will see the same colours as you, is if you’ve given them ownership access to the calendar – which basically gives them all the rights to the calendar that you have.

10.  I can’t see reminders in my Google Calendar on the web.

I know I say this a lot, but for some unknown reason when Google added Reminders to the Google Calendar on the web, they decided to make it a toggle option between Reminders and Tasks.

So you have the option of either displaying Reminders OR displaying Tasks, but not both at the same time.

If you are not able to see Reminders on the web, then click on the drop down arrow to the right of the Tasks calendar  and select ‘Switch to Reminders’. To see Tasks, follow the same step but select ‘Switch to Tasks’.

Gif courtesy of Google Calendar Top Contributor Ms Drasby
So there you have it – the top 10 questions about Google Calendar from the Google Calendar Forum. I hope they’ve helped answer your questions but if not, feel free to send me an email with your particular question and I’ll see how I can help.

Tagged With: Google Calendar, questions

6 reasons why even micro businesses should use professional email service providers

5 October 2017 By Priya Chandra

My stepmum owns a photographic gallery (it’s great, you should definitely visit it!) and up until recently she used to let people know about upcoming exhibitions simply by sending a mass email from her email client.

It worked really well, until it didn’t. Her emails started ending up in the Spam/Junk folders or not getting delivered at all which for a micro business owner who relies on word of mouth and the personal touch was a big, big worry.

You may have seen the same yourself – you’ve been sending mass emails from Outlook, Gmail, Thunderbird etc to loads of people without any problems. Then all of a sudden people start saying they haven’t heard from you in awhile (just after you’ve sent out an update about your next big thing!) or they mention that they found your email in their spam folder, or well, you’re not sure how many people are actually opening your email even if it does get delivered.

All problems my stepmum faced.

So, I set her up with a professional email service provider (Mailchimp) and used that service to let people know about her next exhibition. Well she had the most successful photographic exhibition she’s ever had and whilst not all of that is due to the use of Mailchimp I’d say a lot of it was because of the following reasons.

6 reasons to use an email marketing service even as a micro business owner

1: The email goes out properly formatted.

Most of these services offer pre-designed templates that have been tested to work with lots of different clients. So no matter whether your customers use Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail the email will display the way you want it to. In my stepmum’s case she instantly got responses from people saying how professional her email looked.

2: It ensures compliance with the Spam Act 2003 

Under the Spam Act 2003, recipients must be able to tell the sender they don’t want to receive messages anymore. If you’re simply sending emails to people then you’re probably not complying with the Spam Act in this way and run the risk of being fined. Email service providers provide an easy ‘unsubscribe’ option for people so you are in compliance with the act.

Luckily no-one unsubscribed from my stepmum’s list!

3: Your emails are less likely to get marked as spam

Email clients like Outlook, Hotmail, and Gmail aren’t really designed for mass emailings.  If you send too many mass emails then worst case scenario you could have your email address shut down by your email provider or by your own Internet Service Provider for what looks like spammy practices. ‘Best case’ your emails can end up being automatically re-directed to your recipient’s junk or spam folder which is what happened with my stepmum.

Email service providers are trusted within the email community and so mass emails sent via them are less likely to end up in junk/spam folders.

4: You get statistics

For the first time ever my stepmum was able to see how many people (and who!) opened her email and how many people clicked on the links within her email. It wasn’t bad but there’s still work to be done, which we’ll be doing over the next few weeks. And of course I’ll tell you here how we go!

I will note that my stepmum is currently only using the free account – paid accounts offer even more statistics but for a micro business owner the free options should be enough initially.

5: It provides people with a way to subscribe to your email list even if they don’t know you personally.

Until I set her up with MailChimp my stepmum was restricted to asking family and friends for their email addresses which really limited her email list size.

However email marketing services allow visitors to your website to sign up to receive updates from you – which can help build your email list whilst remaining compliant with the Spam Act 2003.

This will be the next thing we do together – adding a sign up box for her website – and I’m confident that as a result she’ll soon see an increase in the number of people joining her email list.

6:  The ability to schedule when an email is sent.

Personal email services like Outlook don’t allow you to schedule when an email is sent, so even if you pre-write an email you still need to be able to physically send that email at the appropriate time. And who wants to run their lives dictated by sending emails? Not me, not my stepmum and I’m betting not you either.

With an email service like MailChimp not only can you pre-write the email but you can also schedule when you want the email to be sent. So in my stepmum’s case she’s got three emails set up – the first one goes out a week before her new exhibition starts; the second one goes out in the middle of the exhibition and then the final one is set to be sent just before the exhibition finishes.

All of which happens regardless of where she is and without her having to remember to send them!

Want some help getting set up with MailChimp in your micro or small business? Contact me here and we can chat about it further. 

Tagged With: email, time management

Stay alert to what is being said about you online

27 September 2017 By Priya Chandra Leave a Comment

Image courtesy of Gratisography

Do you have any idea what is being said about you online?

I was shocked the first time I Googled myself to discover results from a fun run I’d done years before the Internet even existed came up as a front page result for my name! It wasn’t so much that the results were bad (well they were passable) but that the club had gone to the effort of putting them online years after the fact which shocked me.

And yet this is happening more and more every day. Libraries are digitising all their old records, newspapers are putting back issues online as searchable digital archives and local running clubs are scanning old newsletters to add them to their local website.

In all of that information you and your business are probably going to be mentioned whether you know about it or not.

But how do you keep informed on these mentions? After all, who’s got the time to keep searching the web for mentions about themselves and their business?

How can you stay alert to what is being said about you online?

Well, there’s one company who not only has the time, but also the expertise to do just that – yep our old friend Google has come to the party once again with a product called Google Alerts.

  • To use this service you will need to be logged into your Google Account and then go to https://www.google.com/alerts.
  • From here, type your business name into the search box. It doesn’t have to be case sensitive, but if you want to search for a particular phrase you do need to put it within quotation marks  – for example “That online stuff”.
  • Then click on Show Options to set up how and how often you’d like to receive an alert. The default options for that email are shown below. To change any of them, simply click on the arrow next to each field:

screen shot of google alert default settings

  • Once happy with the settings click on Create Alert to save the changes. You have now set up an automatic search query which will diligently keep any eye out for any time anyone mentions your search term online.
  • You can add as many alerts as you like – for your own name, products or services that you sell, even your competitors names – and get notified every time the term comes online.
  • To change an alert or add a new one at any time in the future, simply come back to the Alerts page (www.google.com/alerts) and make your changes.

What Next?

So what to do with that information once you get it? Well, that’s entirely up to you. I tend to use my Google Alerts for:

  • engaging with people who mention me and/or my business online whether that’s a positive or negative mention.
  • monitoring the ways people use certain Google products to improve my knowledge of those products and then sharing that knowledge here with you.
  • monitoring changes Google makes in Google products so I can stay on top of product changes.

Your use will vary but I highly recommend at least engaging with people who’ve taken the time to mention you/your business online. Just remember whilst knowledge is useful, knowledge without action is useless.

Want more help with anything I’ve talked about today? Get in touch and we can have a chat about how together we can make technology work for you and your business.

 

Tagged With: Google, google alerts, image, online reputation

Getting a short URL using Google tools

20 September 2017 By Priya Chandra

Image of cupcakes

Have you ever wanted to share a long URL on Twitter without having it use up your character limit? Or wondered how many people have clicked on a particular link that you shared? Or even just wondered what on earth a goo.gl link was?

If so then, you’ve come to the right blog article! Today I’m going to go through how to use the Google goo.gl service to create short URLs that can be easily shared, and tracked by you, the micro business owner.

And guess what, you don’t even need to have a Google Account for this service to work! But let’s look first at what goo.gl actually is.

What is goo.gl?

Goo.gl is a service offered by Google, to allow people to create short URLs and then track some basic analytics related to that shortened URL.

It is extremely easy to use – simply go to the goo.gl website and either type or paste in, the URL that you wish to shorten and click on the “Shorten URL” button.

The website will instantly convert something like this URL: http://thatonlinestuff.com.au/how-to-create-calendar-events-that-repeat-on-certain-days-of-the-week/ to something like this URL: https://goo.gl/wYVBZ5.

Definitely much shorter and much more convenient to share around via social media etc. So you can then simply copy that shortened URL by clicking on the clipboard icon and share it where-ever you like: Twitter, Facebook, Google+. You can even use it in an email if you like or a text message.

Tracking the short URL

However, while it’s useful to have a shortened URL, it’s the simple analytics that Google provides are the icing on the cake for me. To use these though you do need to be logged into your Google account.

Click on the vertical menu to the right of the URL link (see the image below) to get access to some basic analytics including:

  • How many people have clicked on the shortened URL and when they clicked on the link
  • Which country they were in at the time
  • Where did they click the link – Twitter, Facebook, email,  etc.
  • What browser they were using and
  • What mobile platform (Android, iOS) they were using

From the same menu you can also choose to hide the URL from view (you can’t get rid of it altogether) or create a QR code for the link – which I never do because I don’t really use QR codes much anymore.

The downside

Unfortunately it isn’t all good news when using goo.gl. Google doesn’t allow any sort of modification to the letters/numbers that appear after the goo.gl part of the URL, which means you can end up with some pretty ugly looking URLs.

If you’d like to have shortened URLs that better reflect your business’ branding, then you’ll need to pay for a service like bit.ly which allows you to edit your short URLs.

Also, anyone can see the shortened URL analytics simply by going to https://goo.gl/#analytics/GOO.GL URL HERE/all_time (replacing the GOO.GL URL HERE with the actual URL of course!). So if you’d really prefer other people didn’t have access to that information, you may wish to use Google Analytics instead.

But apart from those small negatives, the goo.gl tool is a very quick and simple way to shorten URLs for sharing and tracking across the web.

Got a question about shortening URLs or using Google technology in your business? Drop me a line – I’d love to hear from you!

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Tagged With: web tricks

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I'm Priya. I help small business owners spend less time working out how to use tech, and more time actually using it to make their business run better. Read More…

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