If I sound mellow in this one it’s because A) I had a huge, and awesome, dinner at Sunny Point Cafe in west Asheville, and B) it’s a little past my bed time. This video is almost 10 minutes but if you’re interested in using Google Apps in your small business I think you’ll find it worth your time. If you don’t, check your warranty.

“Sites” are really easy to set up, and you don’t need any technical skills at all. If you can follow simple directions you can build some wicked cool tools in no time. My favorites are the “Filing Cabinet” and “Lists” pages. Those things alone make it worth the set up time. Yes, you can just Google Docs to share most things, but with a “Filing Cabinet” page you upload anything, including, say, a graphic for company letterhead.

One thing I didn’t mention is the URL for sites is uh… not so memorable:

http://sites.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/

This can be changed to something like:

http://intranet.yourdomain.com/

But that gets a little technical. It’s not hard but you do need to have access to your web hosting control panel, and know how to make some tweaks. I may cover that in another video.

Play around with it, and if you get stuck on something don’t hesitate to give me a shout.

Google Apps is a fantastic suite of tools you can use in your small business… fo’ free. I have used Apps for my own businesses, my personal life, and I’ve even set it up for my kids’ small private school.

And just to be clear kids, I’m talking about setting up Google Apps for very own domain. So your employees can have accounts like “EmployeeName@YourCompany.com.” Of course, you can use Apps without also using the email. But…

I really can’t imagine why any small to mid size business would bother with managing their own email solution. I’ve heard a lot of excuses, all of them bogus. I may do another video specifically about that. I understand that some people may not like the Gmail interface (Although everyone I’ve convinced to use it became a convert) but you can still use Outlook or whatever email software you prefer.

As I mention in the video, “Sites” make it possible to quickly make an intranet(s) and project sites where your team(s) can collaborate.  “Sites” is one of the best kept secrets in Google Apps. Stay tuned for a video on that! It’s next.

As always call or email if you have any questions about this stuff. Help is free.

Let me know if you to know more about a particular topic.