More Google Website Traffic with Google Docs

More Google Website Traffic with Google Docs

The traditional perception that Google is simply a good search engine which displays the most relevant search results has long faded away into oblivion. Owing to the unprecedented popularity Google has experienced in the past decade, most Internet users are aware of the fact that Google goes beyond the search engine call of duty and tends to deliver a dazzling array of products and services on the world wide web, most of which are still free. Google Docs happens to be one of them and is indeed the most popular Google application or Google App next to the search engine. Here is how Google describes its most popular application:

When you use Google Docs, you can upload files from your desktop or create documents, spreadsheets, forms, and presentations right in Google Docs. The result? You can open all these files anywhere and share them with anyone. You can also:

• Upload from and save to your desktop
• Edit anytime, from anywhere
• Control who can access your documents
• Share changes in real time
• Use our online file storage and access your Docs from anywhere in the world

Google Docs Past Present and Future

Google Docs has evolved over the years in a rather interesting manner partly through internal R&D and partly through corporate acquisition. Much of Google Docs was called Writely prior to its buyout by Google and was available on the web as a free online suite of tools. It was developed by a US-based Silicon Valley software company named Upstartle. It was then acquired by Google in 2006 as a part of its hyperactive expansion phase during which Google acquired dozens of smaller companies with promising applications and visionary employees.

What is Google Docs

Before we tell you how to use Google Docs to generate more website traffic on your website, we need to first tell you what precisely Google Docs is and why it is so popular in the global online space. Google Docs is, in essence, an office suite much like Microsoft Office or Open Office, the free online open source office solution. The entire application resides in the cloud which is just a fancy way of saying that the application runs on remote servers and not on your PC. Google Docs includes:

Word processing and Document Management

Create, write and collaborate with ease on Google Docs. The word processing component of Google Docs is its most popular component. If you have ever used either Microsoft Word or Open Office, and who has not, the learning curve will be minimal. You will be up and running in less than ten minutes. What is more, Google even provides you with an ever-growing template gallery so that you can further refine and customize all your Google Docs applications and not just word processing. It allows co-browsing which means that you can literally edit a document in real time with other colleagues or friends located anywhere in the world. You can control privacy settings too and exercise control on who gains access to your documents. Word processing from Google Docs is excellent for collaborative writing projects such as business plans, feasibility studies, case studies and annual reports where multiple inputs and interventions from different members of a focus group are required. You can always access your documents from anywhere using your web browser and never worry about having to back up your sales reports or business briefs repeatedly since everything your team or you compose, write and edit is stored on Google’s servers and not on your workstation.

Spread Sheets and Numerical Data Processing

The spreadsheet component of Google Docs is almost identical to Microsoft Excel in terms of functionality and ease of use. For me, setting up a spread sheet was an effortless experience and I was up and running before I knew it. Like word processing documents, you can import and export spread sheets to your PC, a mobile device or an e-mail message where it can be embedded as a link in the message body. Privacy controls can be set in advance and subsequently modified when necessary. Google Docs spread sheets are flexible enough in that you can even import them into Microsoft Excel on your desktop. The ability to number crunch remotely is indeed a blessing for those bean counters who are constantly looking out for us with a view to optimizing our resources in these Dickensian Hard Times.

Present to the Planet In Style with Google Docs Presentations

I am not much of a writer and so I rarely create documents on Google Docs. Presentations, however, are a whole different ball game and the nature of our work in the search engine optimization space requires us to make dozens of presentations to both prospects and existing clients each time when we need to either upgrade or upsell. The interface used in Google Docs to create presentations is both intuitive and dynamic. If you have used Microsoft PowerPoint in the past, there is no learning curve for you except for a minor transformation in operating platform. Use the Task Bar on the Google Docs Presentation Page to change font, highlight, bold face and apply other effects on your presentations. As is the case with the other components within Google Docs, you can set your privacy settings and control viewership.

Forms and Surveys on Google Docs

Forms and surveys are the latest addition to Google Docs and there are good reasons to believe that this component is rapidly increasing in popularity. You now have the option to create forms such as surveys, market research questionnaires and other types of forms directly from Google Docs. This function can also be integrated with Google Apps to capture the e-mail address of your respondents.

Maximize your Website Traffic with Google Docs

There are two creative ways in which you can leverage the power of Google Docs to drive traffic to your website and both of them are perfectly legitimate. In the first instance, you can set up a comprehensive overview of your online company, e-commerce portal or any other product or service you wish to market, on a neatly organized Google Doc page. Customers like me often scout the web for documents that provide a no-nonsense, in-depth explanation of their products and services in a format that is text-oriented. Provide a link to your company’s website after making sure that you have properly optimized the content on this page with relevant keywords including a handful of long tail keywords.

In the second instance, you can set up a colorful slide presentation on Google Docs showcasing your product or service as an adjunct to the information you have already provided on your website. Set both documents to “public” view in the privacy controls and you will notice that Google will indexed these documents in a matter of weeks. Whether Google will count these links to your website as legitimate back links continues to remain unclear in the light of recent algorithm shifts. The bottom line, however, is that since more visibility equals more traffic, you are sure to notice some level of positive activity on your Analytics page.

More Help on the Way to Increase Website Traffic

Visit the Google Docs Help page for useful articles, video tutorials, document samples and a rather supportive user community which interacts on the Google Docs forum. You will also find the full menu of features and attributes on this page:

http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=49008&hl=en

You can visit Google Docs either from the Google home page or by visiting:

http://docs.google.com

Like all Google products, you will need a Gmail account to access Google Docs. Gmail signup is easy, simple and free. Set up your Gmail account if you have not done so already and enjoy the delicious fruits of Google labor!

Thanks for article to More Google Traffic

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