Why Google Plus Matters to Your Business

Posted by Maura Rodgers

Everyone talks about the importance of being on Google+ but many brands are still not quite sure where the true value is or how to make the most of this medium. Instead, they turn their attention to more popular social sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest to boost engagement, with shares on Google+ being an afterthought. You need to invest your time where your customers are to get the best ROI but you also need to pay attention to Google+.

Here’s why!

359 Million Reasons and Counting

It may seem quiet over there but don’t be fooled, Google+ is the second largest social networking site in the world with 359 million active users. That’s bigger than Twitter, folks. Size doesn’t always matter but because it is growing, you have a better chance of connecting with your audience, expanding your reach and building relevant communities on G+. In addition, brand interaction on G+ grew a whopping 45.5% from Q2 2012 to Q1 2013.

Search Engine Optimization Factors

Google Plus Enhances SEO with Authorship

Google+ was launched around the time that Google’s agreement with Twitter to source real-time information ended in 2011, and as such, has served as Google’s source for real-time information ever since. This means that Google+ is very important for your SEO rankings.

Firstly, a link posted to Google+ will be “crawled” by Google almost immediately, greatly improving the chance it will be ranked in Google search. Whereas +1s do not necessarily have a causational relationship with improved rankings, correlations have definitely been established between rankings for content and the number of +1s it receives.

Additionally, Authorship is another benefit of having a Google+ account. When your Google search results include an author picture next to the result, along with a link to your Google+ profile, this is because authorship has been set up. Authorship helps improve click-through rates on links in search results. 

Builds Influence

Google Plus Builds Your Influence

Google also takes into account social signals and shares from various platforms like Facebook, Twitter and you guessed it, G+.  As you share more on G+, this helps Google improve the quality of its own search results by paying attention to the kinds of content and keywords people are re-sharing.

In addition, when people +1 your content, this can have a positive impact on your “authority” and also appears in search engine results (as pictured). When a Google search user that has a G+ account receives a search result, pages that have been +1ed by people in their network will be denoted within the SERP.

Reach Your Audience

Google Plus Circles Help You Reach Your Audience

Circles on G+ essentially make it easy for you to group your friends, family, coworkers, influencers and target audiences into categories. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, you have more access to a variety of people and can share specific content and posts with the public or select groups. For instance, I have several circles that I have created on G+ including a circle of just the Strutta team and another of social media leaders and experts I admire and have learned from, such as Mari Smith, Ekaterina Walter and Michael Stelzner. Circles help you share the right content with the right audience.

Build a Closer Connection

Out of all social networks with special features aimed at business, G+ is the only one to offer directly integrated video chats. Hangouts, as they’re known, allow for multiple users to easily connect through a video chat.

In the context of a brand presence on G+, this offers a unique opportunity to connect with your customers. Hosting a Hangout on G+ will allow you to run webinars and open discussion sessions or any kind of real-time conversation using video.

Now that you know why G+ matters, we will share more info on how to run a promotion in our next post.