By Nashlah Boyayan- Published at Engage Magazine
Google is much more than just a search engine. They fascinate me. Especially because they make my life easier. As business owners we’re always asking ourselves “what problems do I solve for clients?” – that’s a tough question to answer because the answers are always evolving. Today I decided to feature some of the problems I’ve learned Google solves for me:
Local Time (gn-time.png)
In our business we’re constantly talking with people from all over the world. Sometimes it’s imperative that we know the time in their location to avoid scheduling conflicts, that’s when Google comes into the picture! What time is it in Thailand right now? Ask Google. Enter simply “what time is it” to get the local time in big cities around the world, or add the locale at the end of your query, like what time is it hong kong to get the local time there.
Currency, Metrics and More (gn-convert.png)
As you probably know by now Shahar and I do quite a bit of outsourcing in our business. As much as we’d like to keep our toes in everything, outsourcing was an essential piece of our success. Sometimes however, the job is done in a different country and it helps to know the currency difference:
Google’s powerful built-in converter calculator can help you out whether you’re cooking dinner, traveling abroad, or building a PC. Find out how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup (quarter cup in teaspoons) or how many seconds there are in a year (seconds in a year) or how many euros there are to five dollars (5 USD in Euro).
Search The Site (gn-site.png)
More often than not in our benchmarking we need to keep an eye on the competitions moves and website. That’s when we turn to Google to peak at their site!
Use the site: modifier. This will return results only from a specific website. For example, to search for an article by Nashlah, you’d enter – site:buzzbooster.com Nashlah
Beyond Pages (gn-filteype.png)
Searching for more than just images and pages has been undeniably valuable to me. Every now and then you’re in search of a specific file type, contract, spreadsheet, etc. Google can help you find those too!
You can search for Word Documents, PDFs, MP3s, Excel spreadsheets, images and much much more with the filetype: modifier. All you need to know is the file extension and search away. You can find some pretty good stuff via this method. Say for instance marketing plan filetype:pdf
Flight Tracker (gn-flight.png)
To see flight status for arriving and departing U.S. flights, type in the name of the airline and the flight number into the search box.
Stock Quotes (gn-stock.png)
To see current market data for a given company or fund, type the ticker symbol into the search box. On the results page, you can click the link to see more data from Google Finance.
Package Tracking (gn-track.png)
You can track packages by typing the tracking number for your UPS, Fedex or USPS package directly into the search box. We’ll return results that include quick links to easily track the status of your shipment.
Area Codes (gn-area.png)
To see the geographical location for any U.S. telephone area code, just type the three-digit area code into the Google search box and hit the Enter key or click the Google Search button.
Zip Codes (gn-zip.png)
Want to find where that zip code is located? Simply enter it into Google search and you’ll have your answer.
Public Data (gn-pop.png)
o see trends for population and unemployment rates of U.S. states and counties, type “population” or “unemployment rate” followed by a state or county. You can click through to a page that lets you compare different locations.
Fill in the Blank (gn-wild.png)
Sometimes the best way to ask a question is to get Google to fill in the blank by adding an asterisk (*) at the part of the sentence or question that you want finished into the Google search box.
