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Google Resources for Entrepreneurs

Google is the best resource for entrepreneurs who are searching for market research data. It is typically underutilized and misunderstood, but with a bit of practice it can become your best friend. The links below are some of the best resources Google has to offer.
 
  • Gmail is the key to the whole system. Gmail offers you a 3 GB email box with search capabilites. It is your password into other services such as Chat, Documents and Spreadsheets, Calender, Alerts, and Photos. Best of all, Gmail is free.
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  • The Google Toolbar is a fantastic tool. Not only does it provide a popup blocker, but it gives you portablity to your bookmarks and the ability to spell check web documents. The PageRank feature is especially good for Internet marketers.
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  • Google News is a great way to find out what’s going on in the world.  It scans hundreds of news sources and compiles them into one source. The greatest resource for those doing market research is the News Alerts.  You can have Google search for a term each day, week or as it happens. This will save you hours of searching.
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  • The Google Documents service provides a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation service similar to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.  This provides you with the ability to work on a project with a group.  It also allows you to analyze changes and go back to previous versions.
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  • Google Patent Search is a good source of information on patents.  You can search for terms and see diagrams of patents.  It’s much easier to use than the USPTO.gov site.
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  • Google's US Government Search lists topics and webpages useful for those searching for information from the US Government.
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  • Google Scholar allows you to look up scholarly written articles.  They are great for supporting business ideas and allow you to identify experts in your field.
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  • Google Trends provides you with a comparison of the search volume of keywords.  You can identify words over a specific time, at a specific location, and compare them to each other.  The graphs can be saved and put into business plans as a way to show industry trends over time.
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  • Google Finance will give you financial and industry information about various publicly traded companies.
     
  • Google Books allows you to read excerpts of books on a variety of subjects.  This is a great way to find out if a business book you have heard about is worth buying.
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  • Google Reader will track RSS feeds from your favorite blogs and websites.  This helps with checking on your favorite postings without having to go hunting all over the Internet.
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  • Google Image Search allows you to find images that you want to use for reports and presentations.
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  • Google Analytics is for tracking usage of your websites.  It’s a useful service that allows you to see where and when people come to your website, what words they used to find your site, and plenty of other great information.
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  • Google Apps allows small businesses to operate like a much larger business.  It combines Gmail (including chat), Google Documents, and Calendar with a Googlepages website and a customized Start Page.  Google Apps operates with your website domain name and allows you admin functions for adding additional users.
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  • Google Translation Tools is one of the better ways to translate information into other languages.  I’ve found the translation tool to be more accurate than many others I’ve used.
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  • Google Adwords Overview will help you to learn how use Adwords to market your business on Google.
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  • Google Adsense allows you to make money by advertising Google’s Ads on your website.  You can control content and keep major competitors from appearing in the ads.
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  • Google Checkout is a way to collect payments from customers without having to establish a payment gateway.
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  • Google's Corporate Blog is a good way to find out what Google is doing and how it plans to change its search engine.
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  • You use the External Keyword Tool for finding out marketing information about various keywords.
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  • Traffic Estimator informs you about what kind of traffic the keywords you are interested in can provide and what it would cost to use those words.
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  • Google's University Search enables you to narrow your search to a specific school website.
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  • Search Operators are various ways to simplify your searching on Google.
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