Stap isi

9 March 2010

Your Tube

Last year Craig Thomler alerted us to the fact that Youtube offers free branded channels to government departments globally. I can confirm that this offer is open to local government as the organisation I work for has taken advantage of it.

What do you get?

Custom banners and profile images, longer videos, autoplay on your featured video, no ads on your uploaded videos and Google Analytics integration.

See Mike Kujawski’s blog post and YouTube’s Partner Help Centre for more detail.

I still can’t find public information on the offer (I searched with Google) but Craig Thomler’s post has a copy of the form email from Google. It has the contact address.

— b3rn   google, tools, video, youtube   Mar 9, 07:37 PM   #   Comment

12 February 2010

Managing your Local Business Centre listing in Google

Most visitors to your council website probably come from Google Search. Great, but have you claimed Google’s Local Business Centre listings for your council offices, venues and facilities?

I just did a quick search through Google Maps for NSW councils and their theatres, galleries, libraries, swimming pools, etc. As you’d expect, they were easily found. But few had listings that were ‘owner-verified.’ An opportunity for imparting useful information is being missed.

Some of the listings appear programmatically generated, others have been annotated by web users. The Yellow Pages occasionally comes up as the source, with some odd results. The top result for Bega Valley Shire Council lists its category as ‘Excavating & Earth Moving Contractors.’

Time to claim all the places that you administrate!

You’ll need a Google Account to manage the listings. Verification is by a PIN number that will be supplied by a talking Google bot to the telephone number you provided in the listing. This can actually be the trickiest part! Warn your customer service officers to expect the Google bot to phone – often within a minute or two of you submitting your listing. (There’s also a postcard option.)

Why bother?

The listing and place page is information rich. Not only does it locate your facility or venue for driving directions and other wayfinding, it can list opening hours, photos, videos and any other info you deem useful. Tell people you have a public toilet, free WiFi or a meeting room for hire.

The place page also invites users to rate and review the business. (Note that it also aggregates reviews from truelocal.com.au.) Stanton Library and Randwick City Council each had one positive review.

You can also add timely information to your place page. Google says “Post about events, specials and more. Example: “live music tonight at 7pm!” You have 160 characters and the information expires in 30 days or when you choose to delete. Another way to highlight a special event or service interruption?

But that’s not all. As the listing owner you have access to a dashboard that shows impressions (how many times users saw your business listing as a local search result), actions (number of clicks for more info, like driving directions, on Maps and clicks to your website) and the top search queries that led them to your listing.

Good, simple metrics.

So, go to Google Maps and search for your council and facilities. Compare with the listing for the Powerhouse Museum.

— b3rn   google, google analytics, maps   Feb 12, 12:03 AM   #   Comment [2]

21 September 2009

Google for local government

Microsoft’s products are ubiquitous in government offices but here comes their number one rival with Google for the Public Sector.

You’ll know of the tools already and probably use them daily as part of your council work. Analytics has been a winner for me, and who doesn’t love playing with the maps? Gmail is also widely used, although often informally, which has implications for record keeping. I would love to know of any agencies that have reported publicly on their experience with Google Ads. As a way for councils to sell their services, it seems largely unexplored. As Hitwise recommends, government must better position its information in search results, particularly around trending topics.

Google recently put on a day for local government web workers in London and you can get an idea of Google’s pitch by reading their reports.

— b3rn   google   Sep 21, 11:30 AM   #   Comment