Google Technology for Your Business

You can’t help but be impressed by Google’s knack for making our lives easier.
First, they came out with Google Maps and Google Local (http://maps.google.com) which made getting directions and searching for businesses and attractions easier than ever before.

You can take advantage of this technology for your business by placing a link on your webpage to a location you choose. This is relatively simple. Go to http://maps.google.com and find the thing you want to locate: such as your business or a pizza restaurant… Then, click on “Link to this page” at the top right and copy the URL address such as this one: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=439+N.+Wells+St.,+Chicago+60610&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=16&ll=41.890202, -87.633884&spn=0.011038,0.02399&iwloc=addr

Put that link on your webpage and your web visitors will be able to find the place you’d like to direct them.

Now Google has made things more interesting with Google Earth. You can download a free application (http://earth.google.com/earth.html) that gives you an unprecedented view of the earth. Be careful, it can be addicting.

Similar to using Google maps, you can find places and create placemarks for them. Click on the pushpin in the application to create a placemark or just do a search. Create as many as you like. In Google Earth, create a new folder in “My Places” and drag the ones you’re interested in into the folder. Now for the neat part.

Right click on the folder and select “Save as…” and save a “kmz” file. Upload the file to your website. Make sure to place it in your web directory. Now you have access to those locations by accessing that file right in a web browser, such as http://www.davidgeller.net/blog/rivernorth.kmz

If you place that entire URL into the search bar in Google Maps (similar to the first thing we did,) your locations will appear. Make sure you’re putting the URL into the search bar of the Google page, not the search bar in your browser.



You can now place the link to all of your custom locations on your webpage like we did above.

Better yet, you can download Google Maps for your mobile phone (http://www.google.com/gmm) and access your locations on your phone by pointing the Google Mobile application to the kmz file you uploaded to your website. This is great for visiting a new city or when you don’t want to lug a map or a stack of map printouts around. Have fun!