Google for Non-Profits Newsletter - September, 2010

[Jay Boren]

[bcc: googlefornonp...@googlegroups.com]

Google for Non-Profits Newsletter - September, 2010

We hope you enjoy this month's update from the Google for Non-Profits team. A reminder that you can find and search all of the old newsletters and other emails sent to this list at the Google group site. Also, please be sure to join the googlefornonprofits-discuss group. This group offers an email forum for members to ask and answer questions about Google tools for non-profits.

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Switching to Gmail like a pro

Turn off Gmail's conversation view

More tools for viewing document revisions

SEO Starter Guide updated
Import your files many different ways

The AdWords Small Business Center

Google URL Shortener gets a website

Resource round-up for September

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Switching to Gmail like a pro - Every day, tens of thousands of people switch from Microsoft Outlook® and other client-based software to Google Apps. To make the transition as smooth as possible, we thought we’d share some tips on using Gmail. Topics like "Embrace Conversations", "Archive your way to 'Inbox Zero'", "Search to sort", and "Labels instead of folders" will help you make the most of Gmail and maximize your productivity. 

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Turn off Gmail's conversation view - Want to make the switch to Google Apps but can't get comfortable with how Gmail organizes your email messages? Gmail now offers users the ability to switch between conversation view and the traditional message-based unthreaded view. When a user switches to unthreaded view, messages are no longer grouped together into a conversation, and each message is shown as a separate entry in the inbox. The inbox is still sorted in reverse chronological order.

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More tools for viewing document revisions - We’re happy to announce that a new revision history interface is now available in Google documents. For those of you who need to use the redline feature of Word documents, this update may be just what you need in order to make the move to the cloud. To see it in Google Docs, go to File > See revision history.  

In the new revision history interface, you can see what changes were made at a glance. Click on a time stamp in the right column to see what changes were made at a given time or use the arrow keys to quickly scan through many revisions. Changes are color-coded based on each collaborator, making it easy to tell what has been added or deleted.

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SEO Starter Guide updated - About two years ago we published our first SEO Starter Guide, which we have since translated into 40 languages. Today, we’re very happy to share with you the new version of the guide with more content and examples. You can download the new version here [PDF].

Here’s what’s new:

• Glossary to define terms throughout the guide
• More example images to help you understand the content
• Ways to optimize your site for mobile devices
• Clearer wording for better readability

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Import your files many different ways - A spreadsheet without data and numbers in it can get pretty lonely, which is why it’s important to be able to easily import files full of data. Today we’ve improved the import dialogue to give you a full range of options of where to put that data. You can get to the new Import dialog from the File menu.

For example, when importing a .csv file, you can create a whole new spreadsheet, append to the current sheet, add a new sheet to your existing spreadsheet or even replace your entire spreadsheet with this new version.

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The AdWords Small Business Center - Many of you asked for an AdWords resource focused on learning and the top tips for small and medium businesses, and we listened. This new central learning hub allows you to share AdWords best practices and provides the key information you need to know to run a successful AdWords account.

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Google URL Shortener gets a website - goo.gl (short enough for you?)

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Resource round-up for September - This month’s resource round-up includes a recent example of an organization using a variety of media outlets to raise awareness and donations for their newest campaign, a small collection of upcoming non-profit events, methods for using mobile to increase donations for your organization and a new take on best practice sharing among non-profits. If you'd like to review previous round-ups, just click here and read through previous months' round-ups or search for "resource round-up" from the search box at the top of the page.

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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 rest of the week!

Jay from the Google for Non-Profits team