Google for Non-Profits Newsletter - March, 2009
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Galen Panger
Mar 31, 2009, 3:40:03 PM3/31/09
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Google for Non-Profits Newsletter - March, 2009
Google, the Salesforce.com Foundation and Facebook came together this month to help non-profits in the Washington, D.C. area learn how to do more with less in this economic climate. Learn about the event and more in this month's update from the Google for Non-Profits team.
--
Summit with Google, the Salesforce.com Foundation and Facebook
Find Google at the NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference in April
New YouTube "Call to Action" overlay
Free phone management with Google Voice
Visualize and optimize your website's user "funnel"
Google's Chief Economist explains the AdWords auction
--
Summit with Google, the Salesforce.com Foundation and Facebook
On March 24th, we had the pleasure of co-hosting a day-long non-profit summit with the Salesforce.com Foundation and Facebook called "Doing More With Less: Your Nonprofit in the Cloud." True to the summit's name, we squeezed about 180 senior-level non-profit staff into our Washington, D.C. office to give them greater exposure to the online "cloud" and social applications that can enable non-profits to work more collaboratively and be more efficient in this challenging economic environment. After a morning keynote by Holly Ross of NTEN and a panel of non-profit technology leaders, we broke out into six sessions in the afternoon on topics like "Activating Your YouTube Audience" and "Facebook and Causes."
Hoping to make this content available to the whole Google for Non-Profits community, we did manage to capture most of the event on video. However, in keeping with the theme of doing more with less, most of the sessions were recorded with hand-held Flip cameras. Still, for those willing to tolerate a little shakiness, we think you'll find the content to be helpful.
If you'd like to receive a link to the agenda, slides and video from the event when we've put it all together, please fill out this form and we'll send the link to you when it's ready.
--
Find Google at the NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference in April
Meet up with Google at this year's NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco, April 26-28. As in past years, we'll be there promoting this newsletter and hosting training sessions on tools like Google Grants, Google Analytics, YouTube and Google Earth. Look for us on the agenda at all but one of the breakout session periods and find us on the Science Fair exhibit floor.
In preparation for the conference, NTEN is conducting a survey on the use of social networks by non-profits. We're excited to help spread the word because we think this is an important emerging area of investigation. It only takes 5 minutes, and results will be announced at the conference. Fill it out here.
--
New YouTube "Call to Action" overlay
Last week, the YouTube Nonprofit Program announced a major new feature that allows program participants to place small overlay ads within their videos inviting viewers to take action by donating, volunteering, signing a petition, or whatever you choose. These overlay ads are small semi-transparent text banners that appear at the bottom of your video, and they're easy to create—just log in to your account, click "edit video" and fill out the required fields in the "Call to Action overlay" section.
The new ad overlay feature is an incredible way to take advantage of the good will, hope and desire for change that great videos can inspire in people. Just last week, the YouTube team featured a video with a "Call to Action" overlay from a group called charity:water on the YouTube homepage. Within a day, charity:water raised over $10,000.
If you're a non-profit organization in the U.S. or U.K. and you haven't yet joined the YouTube Nonprofit Program, the new "Call to Action" feature makes it even more of a no-brainer. Read more about the program and apply at www.youtube.com/nonprofits.
--
Free phone management with Google Voice
Google Voice is a new free tool that gives you very advanced but easy-to-use features to manage all of your phones, something that we hope will make it much easier to manage how you're contacted, and when. But beyond the benefits to individual users, we're really excited about the benefits for non-profits, especially small non-profits, for managing calls and off-hours hotlines.
Google Voice gives you one number for all of your calls and SMS text messages, and you choose which of your phones ring when someone calls. In the simplest case, you can set your Google Voice number to ring your desk and mobile phones so that you can answer from your desk when you're sitting there and won't miss an important business call when you're out running an errand. Google Voice also transcribes all of your voicemails so it's easy to skim through them and take action on the ones that are most important.
In more complex scenarios, non-profits can route calls based on who's calling. So if a major donor calls, you can route them straight through to your Executive Director, or even send them to a custom voicemail greeting. You can also use Google Voice to conduct conference calls. Even better, Google Voice can serve as an effective tool for managing hotlines. When someone is on-call, just log in to Google Voice and route calls and SMS messages to his or her phones. It's as simple as that.
Currently, Google Voice is only available to a limited number of users but we plan to offer it widely soon. Sign up to get an invitation, or click to learn more about all of the features in Google Voice.
Beyond helping non-profits run their businesses more effectively, Google Voice can also be an effective empowerment tool for those served by the non-profit community. Google Voice used to be known as GrandCentral before it was acquired by Google a couple of years ago. In 2006, GrandCentral started a program known as Project CARE which gave free local phone numbers and voicemail boxes to members of the San Francisco homeless community. No longer was the local shelter pay phone the only way for a homeless person to be reached. Anyone could leave him or her a message and he or she could check the messages from any phone.
Do you have an idea for how Google Voice can help non-profits or those they serve? Let us know by clicking here to submit your feedback.
--
Visualize and optimize your website's user "funnel"
Lots of non-profits use Google Analytics to track the number of visitors coming to their site, where they come from and what pages they navigate to while they're there. All of this is incredibly useful information, but how do you measure the return-on-investment of your website? Even better, how do you increase the return-on-investment?
One of the most basic and important but most overlooked features of Google Analytics is the ability to track "conversions," or desired actions, toward a goal. In Google Analytics, you set a "goal"—say, newsletter signups—and then track how many users come through your site and accomplish that goal (i.e. how many of them sign up for your newsletter). The path of pages and clicks through which they "convert" to that goal is known as a "funnel." And at each stage of the funnel, you can see how many of your visitors dropped off and failed to sign up for your newsletter. Transfer this concept to other goals, like donations and volunteer signups, or any other action you'd like a visitor to take on your site.
Why is this important? By measuring your ROI, you can improve your ROI. And by tracking your user "funnel," you can improve the pages that are driving the largest number of users away.
How do you improve those pages? You use a tool called Website Optimizer that lets you test new variations of the problem pages to see which are most effective at making improvements.
Overwhelmed? Don't be. All of these concepts can take a while to master, and a great place to increase your exposure to these concepts is the Google Analytics Blog, which recently featured two posts on the concepts mentioned here. If you're interested in more in-depth training, check out the Google Analytics Conversion University. There you'll find free modules that you can use to train yourself on everything there is to know about Analytics (you can even take a test to get certified). Of course, there's always the ever-searchable Help Center.
--
Google's Chief Economist explains the AdWords auction
Another basic but common area of confusion is the Google AdWords ad auction, which is behind all of the "sponsored links" you see on the right-hand side and sometimes on the top of your Google search results. Advertisers pay every time someone clicks on one of these ads. If you are a non-profit participating in our Google Grants program, your Grant is deducted every time someone clicks on your non-profit ad. But how do we rank and order these ads, and how do we determine how much advertisers and Google Grants recipients pay when their ads are clicked?
Recently, a great video was posted to the Inside AdWords blog that we think really helps break down all of the factors at play, including cost-per-click bids and Quality Scores. In the video, Google's Chief Economist, Hal Varian, explains these basic concepts and then demonstrates how they interact.
Every Google Grants participant should watch this video because it illustrates how important it is to create high-quality ads. Keep in mind, however, that the video was originally produced for Google's paying advertisers, so references to charges and payments only apply as deductions from your Google Grant. Also remember that you're limited to a $1 maximum CPC bid, unlike paying advertisers.
Watch the video to learn all about Google's AdWords ad auction.
--
That's it for this month's newsletter. As always, please send any suggestions for the newsletter or Google for Non-Profits site our way.
Have a great week!
Galen from the Google for Non-Profits team
Google, the Salesforce.com Foundation and Facebook came together this month to help non-profits in the Washington, D.C. area learn how to do more with less in this economic climate. Learn about the event and more in this month's update from the Google for Non-Profits team.
--
Summit with Google, the Salesforce.com Foundation and Facebook
Find Google at the NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference in April
New YouTube "Call to Action" overlay
Free phone management with Google Voice
Visualize and optimize your website's user "funnel"
Google's Chief Economist explains the AdWords auction
--
Summit with Google, the Salesforce.com Foundation and Facebook
On March 24th, we had the pleasure of co-hosting a day-long non-profit summit with the Salesforce.com Foundation and Facebook called "Doing More With Less: Your Nonprofit in the Cloud." True to the summit's name, we squeezed about 180 senior-level non-profit staff into our Washington, D.C. office to give them greater exposure to the online "cloud" and social applications that can enable non-profits to work more collaboratively and be more efficient in this challenging economic environment. After a morning keynote by Holly Ross of NTEN and a panel of non-profit technology leaders, we broke out into six sessions in the afternoon on topics like "Activating Your YouTube Audience" and "Facebook and Causes."
Hoping to make this content available to the whole Google for Non-Profits community, we did manage to capture most of the event on video. However, in keeping with the theme of doing more with less, most of the sessions were recorded with hand-held Flip cameras. Still, for those willing to tolerate a little shakiness, we think you'll find the content to be helpful.
If you'd like to receive a link to the agenda, slides and video from the event when we've put it all together, please fill out this form and we'll send the link to you when it's ready.
--
Find Google at the NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference in April
Meet up with Google at this year's NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco, April 26-28. As in past years, we'll be there promoting this newsletter and hosting training sessions on tools like Google Grants, Google Analytics, YouTube and Google Earth. Look for us on the agenda at all but one of the breakout session periods and find us on the Science Fair exhibit floor.
In preparation for the conference, NTEN is conducting a survey on the use of social networks by non-profits. We're excited to help spread the word because we think this is an important emerging area of investigation. It only takes 5 minutes, and results will be announced at the conference. Fill it out here.
--
New YouTube "Call to Action" overlay
Last week, the YouTube Nonprofit Program announced a major new feature that allows program participants to place small overlay ads within their videos inviting viewers to take action by donating, volunteering, signing a petition, or whatever you choose. These overlay ads are small semi-transparent text banners that appear at the bottom of your video, and they're easy to create—just log in to your account, click "edit video" and fill out the required fields in the "Call to Action overlay" section.
The new ad overlay feature is an incredible way to take advantage of the good will, hope and desire for change that great videos can inspire in people. Just last week, the YouTube team featured a video with a "Call to Action" overlay from a group called charity:water on the YouTube homepage. Within a day, charity:water raised over $10,000.
If you're a non-profit organization in the U.S. or U.K. and you haven't yet joined the YouTube Nonprofit Program, the new "Call to Action" feature makes it even more of a no-brainer. Read more about the program and apply at www.youtube.com/nonprofits.
--
Free phone management with Google Voice
Google Voice is a new free tool that gives you very advanced but easy-to-use features to manage all of your phones, something that we hope will make it much easier to manage how you're contacted, and when. But beyond the benefits to individual users, we're really excited about the benefits for non-profits, especially small non-profits, for managing calls and off-hours hotlines.
Google Voice gives you one number for all of your calls and SMS text messages, and you choose which of your phones ring when someone calls. In the simplest case, you can set your Google Voice number to ring your desk and mobile phones so that you can answer from your desk when you're sitting there and won't miss an important business call when you're out running an errand. Google Voice also transcribes all of your voicemails so it's easy to skim through them and take action on the ones that are most important.
In more complex scenarios, non-profits can route calls based on who's calling. So if a major donor calls, you can route them straight through to your Executive Director, or even send them to a custom voicemail greeting. You can also use Google Voice to conduct conference calls. Even better, Google Voice can serve as an effective tool for managing hotlines. When someone is on-call, just log in to Google Voice and route calls and SMS messages to his or her phones. It's as simple as that.
Currently, Google Voice is only available to a limited number of users but we plan to offer it widely soon. Sign up to get an invitation, or click to learn more about all of the features in Google Voice.
Beyond helping non-profits run their businesses more effectively, Google Voice can also be an effective empowerment tool for those served by the non-profit community. Google Voice used to be known as GrandCentral before it was acquired by Google a couple of years ago. In 2006, GrandCentral started a program known as Project CARE which gave free local phone numbers and voicemail boxes to members of the San Francisco homeless community. No longer was the local shelter pay phone the only way for a homeless person to be reached. Anyone could leave him or her a message and he or she could check the messages from any phone.
Do you have an idea for how Google Voice can help non-profits or those they serve? Let us know by clicking here to submit your feedback.
--
Visualize and optimize your website's user "funnel"
Lots of non-profits use Google Analytics to track the number of visitors coming to their site, where they come from and what pages they navigate to while they're there. All of this is incredibly useful information, but how do you measure the return-on-investment of your website? Even better, how do you increase the return-on-investment?
One of the most basic and important but most overlooked features of Google Analytics is the ability to track "conversions," or desired actions, toward a goal. In Google Analytics, you set a "goal"—say, newsletter signups—and then track how many users come through your site and accomplish that goal (i.e. how many of them sign up for your newsletter). The path of pages and clicks through which they "convert" to that goal is known as a "funnel." And at each stage of the funnel, you can see how many of your visitors dropped off and failed to sign up for your newsletter. Transfer this concept to other goals, like donations and volunteer signups, or any other action you'd like a visitor to take on your site.
Why is this important? By measuring your ROI, you can improve your ROI. And by tracking your user "funnel," you can improve the pages that are driving the largest number of users away.
How do you improve those pages? You use a tool called Website Optimizer that lets you test new variations of the problem pages to see which are most effective at making improvements.
Overwhelmed? Don't be. All of these concepts can take a while to master, and a great place to increase your exposure to these concepts is the Google Analytics Blog, which recently featured two posts on the concepts mentioned here. If you're interested in more in-depth training, check out the Google Analytics Conversion University. There you'll find free modules that you can use to train yourself on everything there is to know about Analytics (you can even take a test to get certified). Of course, there's always the ever-searchable Help Center.
--
Google's Chief Economist explains the AdWords auction
Another basic but common area of confusion is the Google AdWords ad auction, which is behind all of the "sponsored links" you see on the right-hand side and sometimes on the top of your Google search results. Advertisers pay every time someone clicks on one of these ads. If you are a non-profit participating in our Google Grants program, your Grant is deducted every time someone clicks on your non-profit ad. But how do we rank and order these ads, and how do we determine how much advertisers and Google Grants recipients pay when their ads are clicked?
Recently, a great video was posted to the Inside AdWords blog that we think really helps break down all of the factors at play, including cost-per-click bids and Quality Scores. In the video, Google's Chief Economist, Hal Varian, explains these basic concepts and then demonstrates how they interact.
Every Google Grants participant should watch this video because it illustrates how important it is to create high-quality ads. Keep in mind, however, that the video was originally produced for Google's paying advertisers, so references to charges and payments only apply as deductions from your Google Grant. Also remember that you're limited to a $1 maximum CPC bid, unlike paying advertisers.
Watch the video to learn all about Google's AdWords ad auction.
--
That's it for this month's newsletter. As always, please send any suggestions for the newsletter or Google for Non-Profits site our way.
Have a great week!
Galen from the Google for Non-Profits team
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