Google+ Part I: Why You Should Be Using Google+

When it comes to social networks for business, everyone thinks of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but people seem to forget about Google+. It could be because the activity level on Google+ isn’t as high as the other social networks, or it could be because people don’t really know how to use it properly. The fact is, it’s absolutely foolish to ignore Google+, especially because the most used search engine in the world owns it.

There are undeniable search engine optimization benefits from using it. If you own a Google+ profile (which most Google searchers do) and have personalized search on, you will see posts ranked within the search results pages.

Source: http://www.virante.org

Even if you don’t own a profile or have personalized search off, you can still see Google+ posts in search results.

Source: http://www.virante.org

There has been a shift towards social search over the past few months in Google’s algorithm. The only way to take advantage of this is to create a Google+ profile and become active on it.

So how does it work? 

Being a content-centric platform, it is extremely important to create quality, shareable posts.  Other than the obvious, these are some facts that differentiate Google+ from the rest of the social networks:

• Each profile is similar to a website. A profile can gain PageRank as backlinks and engagement increase.
• Each post is similar to a page within a website and can be linked to individually. Posts that you want to rank should target keywords that you want to rank for.
• Links posted on other social networks are not crawled by Google, thus no link authority back to the linked site. Links posted within Google+’s “featured link field” (NOT the body), are crawled by Google, so link authority transfers back to the linked site.

Reading the above, you can see how powerful the platform can be, if used properly. Here is a great resource if you want to learn all you can about Google+: http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/01/23/our-guides-to-google-for-business-and-personal-use/

Truthfully, our Google+ presence is somewhat lacking and we need to boost our follower count and engagement. In Part II, we will be illustrating the efficacy of some of the tips and techniques illustrated by the “power users” (i.e., Mark Traphagen), and how exactly you go about executing these tips by using them right on our own page.

Follow us on Google+ and track our progress!