Ask Dave Taylor: Tech and Business

Friday

Learn how to grow your business with Google!

This introductory note is from my just-published book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Growing Your Business with Google. If you're reading this, I just bet you'll be darn interested in my new book. Tom Peters, Chris Pirillo, Debbie Weil and lots of others experts have already stated how much they like it, and Guy Kawasaki liked it enough to write the foreword.

You know that there's been a dramatic change in how companies are doing business, a change that probably made you wake up in a cold sweat, wondering if your company will survive the transition. You might think that it's about building a Web site, but just as a few popsicle sticks can't build the Eiffel Tower, so a Web page or two won't help you rethink your business for the new online world.

In the 21st Century, successful business will be focused on findability, about creating an online and offline presence that helps your customers find you. Business and marketing used to be characterized by efforts to brand your company and get in front of your customers, but that's not what's propelling the hot new companies, the entrepreneurs who are already striking it rich in this new world.

You can no longer go to your customers because they're no longer passively waiting for you and your message. Your customers are actively looking for your products, searching for your services, seeking your company right now! And they're doing it through Google, on mailing lists, through blogs, and a myriad of other online means.

This book isn't about how to write Web pages, and it certainly won't explain how to make text bold or link from one Web page to another. Instead, you'll learn how to think like an online entrepreneur and assess the risks and rewards of...