Name: Jenn Clore
Activity: Google’s Grow with Google Small Business Workshops
Description of Activity: free training, demos, coaching with Googlers and more.
Date(s) of Activity (also include times):
12/6/17 10:30a – 2:30p
Student Evaluation:
Why did you select this activity?
The topics were of interested to me in regards to my full-time job, and it was free. The workshop topics included presentation skills, search engine optimization, coding basics, and how to get found on the web. Another significant factor was that the workshops were presented by Google. As a web design student and a digital marketer, it’s always important to me to keep learning on ways to get found on Google and to better my professional skills.
Would you recommend this activity for other students? Why or why not?
Yes. It was an excellent opportunity to network with members of the community, meet local businesses invested in moving OKC forward in technology, and the presentations provided high-level overviews of search engine optimization and even some basic javascript.
The workshops I attended were:
Get Started with Code – This workshop taught you how to use javascript to create a sidebar in a Google Sheets document. We got to use Google’s script editor. I didn’t even know that Google offered one. For an intro to code workshop, I don’t know if I would have started right away with Javascript, but what can you do in one hour with many people who have no experience with code. I’m just proud of myself for recognizing that it was Javascript and I had a high-level understanding of the concepts presented in the workshop.
Intro to Online Marketing – This workshop went over how to create a free Google My Business listing, some tips on SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, how to optimize for mobile, and how to test your mobile and page speed.
Using Data to Drive Growth – This workshop gave a general overview of what a business owner should be thinking about when gathering data from Google Analytics. Some of the points discussed were using the data to determine if your customers would be interested in a new product, where your customers spend the most time on your site, the age range of your customers, and what to do with that information regarding marketing.
What did you like best about this activity?
I liked that they gave us workbooks with copies of the presentations or activities that we completed. They were good take-home pieces to reference in the future.
What did you like least about this activity? How would you make the activity better?
I thought it was super crowded but in a way that was great news because it meant that the community was interested in the information that Google had to offer. I wish the Intro to Coding class started out with something more basic instead of javascript. Maybe the standard Hello World HTML page to show people the basics would have been better. However, I figure that they were also trying to showcase Google products by having us use Google Sheets and Google script editor.
What is a creative idea/concept you can take away from this experience and possibly implement into your work?
I want to take the time to test mobile speed in my future web design projects. I wasn’t aware that they had a website for that: testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com
In one of the courses, the instructor talked about the 5-second “Grunt” test. In 5 seconds, could a caveman figure out from your site: what service or business you offer, how can you get it, and what is it about.
I also learned about a new Google app that was recently launched. Primer is an app that gives you 5-minute interactive lessons on creating a business plan, marketing your website, and designing a great website. I’m definitely going to make use of the app.