“What is the big deal with Google+? Is it important enough for me to pay attention to it?”
My answer based on all of the research is YES business owners shouldn’t ignore this valuable social platform. Why? Well first simply because anything that is managed by Google has merit of paying attention to. Google+ is the up and coming social network. BUT it is neither Facebook nor Twitter. Google+ is an integrated social structure that allows your business growth potential that Facebook and Twitter can’t offer.
There are 5 ways that you can optimize your account so that it is creating the most brand awareness for your business.
1. Pay Attention to your Profile Links
With Google+ not only can you link to your other awesome profiles across the universe, you also can embed followed links directly into your bio with the anchor text of your choice. If you can let your personality shine, and get more people to engage with you by sharing or direct links to your profile, the more valuable your profile links become. Also there are the areas of your Google+ profile where you can get follow links back to your website.
2. Don't Forget Titles and Meta Descriptions
You may have been optimizing your website and blog titles and meta descriptions, but my guess is you never thought your online brand could do it either. So here is a little nugget of info that is frequently overlooked. You can control some fundamental SEO items on your Google+ profile such as Meta Description and Titles. How you ask? Well here is what you need to remember.
- Title Tag: The SEO title for your Google+ profile is your name followed by Google+. This means try to create an organically sound way to incorporate your name and anything else you want to rank for.
- Meta Description: That's right you control the Meta description for your Google+ profile! Items such as your name, your tagline, your occupation, and even your location, and some of your introduction content are included.
3. Know your Business
For a local business page on Google+, the on-site SEO stuff isn't as exciting as profiles or regular pages. Your Title tag will be the name of your business and your Meta description will reflect the description you entered about your business, so be very cautious and thorough when you create your company description as this will come up in search results. Now even though you can't add links to your descriptions like you can in profiles and regular pages, the link to your website here is unfortunately a “No follow.” Don't let that deter you from claiming your Google+ profile and add it as it does appear in local search results.
4. Side Bar Links
The side bar area offers up a real opportunity to do some meaningful optimization when it comes to you or your business. Google loves links to other profiles, areas of contribution and recommended links, and they want you to showcase these if possible from a links perspective. Here you can build your professional profile that steps up your content to the next level of brand awareness.
5. Optimize your Content
Optimizing your content for semantic search is a vital and very often overlooked. Remember you profile attributes such as photos, abouts, and posts all stream together to form one big picture of you in the eyes of Google. So think of whom you are, and what you stand for, and if you want to recognized as an authority within a given subject; you should be very careful about what you post on your Plus profile.
Claiming and optimizing your Google+ profile shouldn’t be neglected. The Google search engines will notice you, and then your prospects and leads will be noticing that you are moving to the top of their search results, which means more potential revenue for you!
What value have you found with Google+?
