The Social Networking Platform Google Built and Why It Shouldn’t Be Ignored
When it first launched in 2011, Google Plus was aiming to take over the social networking space dominated by Facebook. With opportunities to share pictures, post status updates and hangout with your friends online using Hangouts, Google Plus has all the elements of social networking in place.
Since then, Google has struggled to pull users away from Facebook onto its own platform instead. But, as a New York Times article stated earlier this year–Google isn’t worried.
As author Claire Cain Miller said:
“[Google Plus] is central to Google’s future — a lens that allows the company to peer more broadly into people’s digital life, and to gather an ever-richer trove of the personal information that advertisers covet.”
Because each G+ account is connected to all your Google-owned accounts, including YouTube, Gmail and maps, Google is learning more about its users than we may know about ourselves.
Google+ For Business
The Big G is learning more about our business as well. As a driving force in search engine optimization, establishing and maintaing a Google Plus account for your local business becomes critical. When your business is present and active on Google Plus, you not only open another platform to engage with potential customers, but you serve to improve search results for yourself and your business. Because Google indexes and ranks G+ pages, being present on this platform can boost your business’s SEO and SERP results.
Creating a Google Plus page for your business can be done in a few easy steps, as this infographic demonstrates. Still not sure why you need to create and manage a Google Plus page? Here are several reasons why we think G+ is critical to your social media marketing strategy:
3 Benefits of Using Google Plus for Business:
1. Help Improve Your SEO
Google is the leader in search results rankings. They control the algorithms that determine which pages show up first when searched. Posting and sharing content on this platform makes it easier for your content to be indexed by Google. The more content you have indexed, the more valuable Google perceives your site, thus the more boost in rankings you are likely to receive.
Therefore, wouldn’t it make sense to create a profile on the platform that determines your rankings? We think yes.
2. Help Make Google Smarter
Google is getting deeper vision into how individual users share and discuss things on the internet. In the past, it had a limited vision of this. Now Google can own the complete picture. When placing recommendations on the results pages or looking for a certain page to promote, Google will now know which of your friends you trust and listen to the most.
3. Help Get Your Content Shared
Google’s version of the “like” button is the +1 button. Installing this social sharing button on your website or blog helps increase the chances that your content will generate additional shares. followers and readers. Tying your website, blog or landing page back to your G+ page can incrase the likelihood of your page being read by as much as 3.5 times. That’s a lot of traffic potential!
Plus 3: Additional Resources for Optimizing Your G+ Page
These are just three of the reasons why Google Plus should still be a critical component of your social media and content marketing strategy.
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