Google Health is a personal health record service by Google.  With Google Health you can manage and store all of your health information in one place.  Many of you may be wondering, is it safe?  According to Google it is very safe.  Your health information belongs to you and you decide how much or how little information you want to share and with whom you share it with.  

You can create your Google Health profile using your free Google Account.  Once you create you profile you can add as much health information as you want.  Profiles can contain health conditions, medications, allergies, procedures, test results, and immunizations.  By clicking on the more information links you can get detailed information on a condition such as symptoms, treatments, causes, etc.  You can also create profiles for additional persons such as your kids or parents. 

Importing your medical records is also possible with Google Health.  Google Health has partnered with hospitals, labs, and pharmacies that allow you to import your medical records and prescription information from providers that treat you.  All you have to do is login at the partner’s site with the username and password that you use with them and then confirm that you want to transfer data to Google Health.

Another great tool of Google Health is Drug Interactions.  Every time you add medications and other information to your profile, Google Health will check with potential interactions with your allergies, conditions, and prescriptions.

Make your health information work for you.  Once you set up your profile, you can refill your prescriptions online and get personalized health information.  You can link to these services the same way you link to partners to import medical records. 

More and more people are shopping online.  Bing shopping offers a great way to save money while you shop online through Bing’s cashback purchases.  So how does Bing cashback work?  You’ll first have to search for cashback deals using Bing.  There are many stores that offer cashback if you shop through Bing.  You can see the stores that participate by clicking here.  Each store offers a cashback percentage.  While browsing through the list of stores, I noticed that some stores offer up to 20% cash back.  The first time that you shop using Bing, you’ll be asked to provide your email address so Bing can tell you how to open a Bing cashback account.  Each time you shop through Bing cashback, Bing will email you to confirm your savings.  You can request your cashback after you have at least $5 in your cashback account and about 60 days after your purchase. If you would like to learn more about Bing cashback click here.

Last week Microsoft unveiled a new search engine to try to recover some ground lost to Google.  Bing actually replaces Microsoft’s Live Search which did not really compete with Google.  Microsoft has been trailing in third place in search engines, after Google and Yahoo.  In April 2009 Google had 64.2% of US search queries, Yahoo had 20.4% and Microsoft had only 8.2%.  

Bing is being described as a “decision engine” which it is designed to understand what searchers are looking for.  One of the features of Bing that I really like that is not offered by Google or Yahoo is in the search results page.  When you hover over the search results you’ll see a small description of what the page is about.  This will let the searcher know if it is what he or she is looking for before clicking on the page.  Another feature that Bing offers is the seasonality of results.  Depending on the time of the year, Bing returns different results for the same queries. 

Microsoft has estimated to spend 100 million on advertising.  Will Microsoft change the way people search?  Will people start saying “I’ll Bing it” instead of “I’ll Google it.”  In my opinion searchers are too accustomed to Google to give it up, but I guess only time will tell.

We have all heard that a blog benefits a business, but do we know in what way?  I have listed 3 ways your business can greatly benefit from taking the time and blog on your website. 

1. Position yourself as an expert in the field. Your clients want information about your products or services.  A blog gives your business an opportunity to share your expertise.  A blog will also give you the opportunity to expose a new or little-known product idea.  By writing about your expertise you’ll building a community by connecting to a wider audience.
2. Increase website traffic.  By writing on your blog on a regular basis, your visitors are likely to come back and read your recent posts.  Your website will in return have more visitors.
3. Improve Search Engine Ranking.  Blogging offers an inexpensive way to have web presence.  Your blog will reside on a page that can be searched by search engine spiders.  Each entry will exist as a separate page that can also be picked up by search engines.  If you blog on a regular basis, you’ll have many pages that can be indexed and appear in search engine listings.