Why You (and Your Company) Should Be On Google+
If you don’t have a Google+ profile yet – you need to set one up through your Google account ASAP! As one of the fastest growing social networks owned by the most popular search engine in the world, there are countless reasons why you – and your business – should have a presence on Google Plus. By optimizing your Google+ profile and creating a Google Local business page, you instantly improve your company’s website, social networking strength, and brand reputation. Best of all – it’s completely FREE to set up, and Google makes it super easy and user-friendly by making everything accessible through your Google or Gmail account.
Sharing your blog posts, videos, photos, and links on Google+, and encouraging your friends and followers to +1 your content is generally the same as asking for Facebook “Likes.” There is one key difference, however, in that the +1 directly affects how your content ranks on Google. Google favors websites, videos, and other content that have more +1’s, because it sees those pages as being more relevant and credible in the eyes of its users. While Facebook and Twitter are great social networks for marketing, they block Google from accessing their data, limiting their SEO effectiveness.
Social signals like +1’s, Likes, Tweets, and Shares account for 7 of the 8 most highly correlated ranking factors in Google’s search engine results, according to Searchmetrics. Social networks reveal what real people genuinely care about and deem “share-worthy” with these social activities, and the search engines respond by promoting this highly-active material. Google +1’s are the strongest form of social signal, followed by backlinks and Facebook activity.
Google+ posts are also crawled and indexed almost immediately, making it easier for content and videos to appear quickly on search engine results pages. Google crawls Google+ profiles and pages just like other websites, and looks for keywords and social activity to determine which profiles are most relevant. Therefore, your Google+ profile should be optimized for keywords relevant to your business, just like your website. Post pages from your website to your Google+ profile to get them crawled and indexed faster than submitting a sitemap.
Google has also integrated it’s social network with Google Places (now Google Local), Reviews, and even YouTube. You can access all of these Google applications by logging into one Google account. This also means it’s important to monitor and collect reviews and comments on your pages and YouTube channel, as all are connected and contribute to your brand reputation online. This integration also makes it easier to share YouTube videos directly to Google Plus, where they will be indexed quickly, making it easier to be found for relevant keywords and get the views and engagement you want.
For more information on why your business should be on Google+, contact the experts at In Focus Studios. You can also follow us on Google+ to see how we’ve implemented the social network into our own marketing strategy.
