Expert Feature: Three Search Engine Reasons You Need to Be on Google+
What’s Google+ (or Google Plus)?
Do you have a Google+ account? Do you know what Google+ is? If you’re not sure, or you set up an account, but don’t know what to do with it, this may be an article that will help you. There are several very big reasons to be active in Google+, which I’ll get to in just a second.
If you’re unsure what Google+ is to begin with, think of it as Google’s version of Facebook. A few years ago, they launched it as an invitation-only platform. You couldn’t just join. You had to get an invitation from a friend to create an account. Furthermore, at the time, there was no way to set up a business page.
If you have any type of Google account (Gmail, Google Analytics, YouTube, etc.), you’ll see a big red button inviting you to set up a G+ account.
If you’re a business owner I highly recommend that you do right now.
I’m not going to go into the minutia of how to use it, there are plenty of other articles out there that will show you the HOW (and there are many similarities to Facebook).
But as a trainer in the search engines and how to market online, I will show you that there are some critical things you need to use it for that actually influence Google search results.
Generate Eyeballs
Eyeballs is one of the best ways to get traffic. Assuming that you’re blogging (if you’re not, you need to), posting your articles in Google+ and making them “Public” is an excellent way to spread your information.
People will see your post, share it with their friends, click over to your website, and comment there or on the G+ post.
One of the cool things is that you track the social media clicks like Twitter, Facebook, and especially G+ by using the techniques shown in that article.
You should set up a Google+ Local Page for your business too. It’s separate from your personal page, just like your personal Facebook page is different than your business fan page.
The G+ business page will show up in search results for your business searches and the content you post there.
Generate +1s
OK, eyeballs doesn’t directly influence Google search results. But getting +1s on your articles DO.
If people give your article a +1 (like the Facebook “like”), it actually will influence the search results, especially for your friends.
In other words, if I +1 something because I like it. When one of my friends (who is also logged into their Gmail or other Google account) will see it in the search results as “Tom Petty +1’d this”.
It will bring that result up higher, because Google knows I’m connected to the author of that information or to you who has a relevant search.
Google Authorship
Google authorship is the new content validation process that Google is using now (it’s been around for a year or so, but no one seems to know about it).
What it means is that if you’ve validated your identity to Google, the more you blog and write articles under this validated Google authorship, the more your articles will be elevated into the higher areas of the search results, both for your friends and for the public.
Google wants FRESH content that they know is from a real person (not just a content farm).
It’s an extremely powerful way to generate high search results for your content above others.
How do you do set this up?
It’s actually not that hard, but you have to follow a process. Basically, you have to point you Google+ account at your webpage or blog, and you have to point your blog articles back to your G+ account.
It’s not hard, and you just set it up once.
If you use WordPress, you can even use a Google Authorship plugin that makes the set up even simpler.
But this isn’t hard to do manually either as I said.
How To Set Up Google+ Authorship
Once you create your G+ account, edit your Profile.
- Click the About tab on your profile.
- On the lower right, there’s a place for “Links”.
- Edit that, and point it to your website where you blog.
- You can add more than one website if you blog from others too.
- Then edit your profile on the blog under “Profile” (lower left).
- Scroll down to “Biographical Info” and put a profile description.
*Make sure your name links back to your G+ account, like this:
<a href=”https://plus.google.com/u/0/106038289838882297930?rel=author”>Thomas Petty</a> is a Certified Internet Consultant at …
So your name (in this case, “Thomas Petty”) has a link going back to my G+ account:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/106038289838882297930
and you append ?rel=author to the end. Save it, and as you add articles, Google will start to pick this up.
See down at the very bottom of this article, you’ll see that “Thomas Petty” links to my G+ account.
Now if you search one my past articles, say, “Three Productivity Tools All Small Businesses Must Have” you’ll see my article with my photo next to it.
This is an article that has been validated as MINE, and I’m building an online reputation with Google. They will position these types of articles higher than other non-validated articles.
Nice.
So get off the stick and start using G+ to help your content spread.
It’ll be worth it, I promise.
Related article
- “64 Google+ Content Strategies (INFOGRAPHIC) And Details On 10 Favorites (baybusinesshelp.com)
Tom, These are solid reasons for any business with a blog to get on to Google+. What if they are not a content creator though? Is the case still strong for people in that category? There are a lot of businesses on main street not creating content.
Hi Michael, Thanks for the question. Well, all indicators are that all businesses should be content creators, whether they do it themselves, or hire a copywriter. That’s the direction Google is going. However, they can and should also post other articles that are in their industry, even if it’s someone else’s blog.
The more businesses interact with people, the more it helps build trust.
Obviously, if they aren’t creating blog content, they won’t benefit from the Google Authorship, which would be a big loss for them.
So it still benefits them, they just don’t get all the great juice from the search engines.
Hope that helps.
Tom