Step One: Create 2 Google Accounts

Eventually, you’re going to want a fall-back, free email account stored on a (mostly) secure system. You’ll also want a free email that works great with a lot of the basic online tools you’re about to us. This way, really no one can hold you hostage – if you don’t use terrible, easy-to-figure-out passwords.

Enter: a Google Account.

“I have a Gmail…”

Yes. That’s it (too)!

Fun Fact: If you have a Gmail account, you already have access to all these tools:

• Google Analytics
• YouTube
• Google Drive (Google Docs, Sheets…)
  • Like a free version of Microsoft Office, Word…
• Google Data Studio
  • A Report maker, like those Adobe tools
• Google Domains
  • Register your website domain. Oh, it’s so damned easy.
• Google Search Console (Google Webmasters)
  • Check the website health.
• Google Calendar
  • Like Outlook Calendar & iCal.
• Google My Business
  • This is going to be where we set your local listing in Google Maps, and interact with the customer reviews.
• Google Payments
  • If you go into pay services, this is where you’ll go.
• Google Pay
  • Mobile pay.
• Google Voice (unless you already have Google Fi. Then, you get that)
  • It’s a free phone service. They’re slowly phasing it out so get it while you can.
• Google Photos
  • And if you get a Pixel 3 or older, then 4K quality photo storage is free
• Google Play
  • Like the App Store. Movies / TV, Games & Apps, Books…
• And more.
  • So. Much. More.
• And they’re always updating

See for yourself.

1. Go to a Desktop you trust
   1. It’s so much easier on a desktop
2. Log into your Google Account
   1. “You mean my Gmail?”
      1. Yup. That.
   2. Mail.google.com
3. Staying in that same web browser, go to https://google.com/account
4. That little 3×3 square of gray dots in the upper right-hand corner should auto pop open. If it doesn’t, click it. It should look a bit like this:

And note all those options on the left-hand side:

And this should be dead-center on the page:

Check that privacy. Check that security. Check those payments. Check who you’re sharing with. Bam.

And if you decide to leave, all your data is available via export

Just go to the Google Export page and begin downloading. It could take days if you have a lot of data, but you get it to take with you.

• Google Takeout: Download your data
  • Always great for backups. Highly recommended.

But Why 2 Google Accounts?

You make the first one for your branding.

For example If your business name is Sally Sasser Floral Shop, then having a Gmail account like sallysasser[@]gmail.com or sallysasserfloral[@]gmail.com or etc… makes good branding sense.

Just as important, owning your name in the space makes it much, much harder hackers, identity thieves, and / or disgruntled customers from taking or faking your online identity and creating spammy havoc and financial chaos.

Hopefully, you’ll get to use professional-looking email addresses based on your domain to receive and send email, and all you’ll ever have to do with these is sit on them. If not, we’ll make due, and use them to write & send emails.

You make the second Google Account for your IT (Tech Support) work.

Just as much as we want customers to know your name, we want to give hackers as little insight as possible into what you use to login into your crucial online tools. In the case of Sally Sasser Floral Shop, we could pick something like bellewhitaker[@]gmail.com – or something that has absolutely no reference to anything you might have put on your Facebook page, financial applications…or anything hackers might have scraped of hacked off a lower-security, free tool.

Remember that time you were on Facebook and you decided to see what House the Sorting Hat would put you into? Yeah. That was dumb. Just scrapin’ and collecting data, they were.

DON’T use an online name generator to come up with the second account’ name.

C’mon now. Keep as much of this offline as you can.

Google Account Sign-Up Tips

1. Don’t skimp on the password
   1. We’d suggest going with a passphrase – four unrelated words of different reading levels, misspell a couple of them and stuff some random numbers in others. Throw in some special characters along the way. That should throw off some of the dogs.
2. Write down this info in a secure place
   1. Don’t leave this info on a Post-It note. Pick a spreadsheet that can be password protected with another great password, or something that can be stuffed in a safe. I could suggest more things, but then I’d tell you how I’d do it.
3. Make the backup trustworthy. Extra. Special. Trustworthy.
   1. When you ask this person to help you set up this email, don’t do it anything that can be tracked. AKA: don’t write it in another email.
4. Google Voice: Use a phone number you’ll have for a long, long time: pick a number that takes text messages. No burners. Use a full-time number that only people you trust will have access to

That should get you going.

If you got questions, hit us up.

Now. The next step…