Google+ #google+ is more than just a social media #socialmedia network, it’s also a powerful tool that can help bump you nicely up the page and search engine rankings. In fact, some people are calling it the future of search, a massive game changer.
Although launched and operated by the world’s most popular search engine, your rankings success is not a given. However, there are a few tips #tips and tricks you can employ to help you along the way. They involve a few SEO basics and Google’s authorship tool.
Customize Your URL
The first thing to do is to look at your Google+ page to see if it’s pulling its SEO #seo weight. If not, then it’s time for some tweaking. The SEO Title is the name of your Google+ business page and this should be your company name. You can now customize this page’s URL with Google’s new Custom URL feature.
Your customized URL will look like this – https://plus.google.com/YourCompanyName. To convert your existing URL go to your page then click on ‘About’. In the links box you’ll see your current URL, click on it and Google will ask if you want it to be converted to the new format.
You can also look at your Meta description to ensure it includes at least two of your target keywords #keywords. Remember, in everything you do, keyword stuffing is a big no, no and a waste of time. Google’s algorithms are so sophisticated they’ll send your pages so far down the rankings you might as well be in oblivion. As most people confine their searches to a handful of page results you’ll have no chance of being found.
Authorship
Google works for its users who are searching for useful and accurate information that’s going to help them in some way. Therefore, the search engine #searchengine wants to make it easy for them by returning quality information when they type in their word searches.
One way that Google recognizes quality is through the number of people who are linking to a page and passing it around. The more buzz there is about your material the more people will want to bring you into their network, and the higher you will climb.
In his book, The New Digital Age, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said: “Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”
What he meant was that if you really want your content to rank well on Google, you need to build your author authority. That means mastering the social network’s authorship tool that associates web content directly with its author.
What You Can Do
The first thing you can do is to add Google author tags to your blogs #blogs and other pieces of content. Consequently, your name and photo will appear next to the search results, making it easy for people to see who you are and include you in their network. Google has provided a guide to help you do this.
To increase your visibility still further, connect your Google+ profile with every website you publish content on. This means that whenever a piece of content #content that you have authored appears on the web, your profile will be displayed alongside. This should automatically increase your following and ultimately your ranking.
Once you have sent your material out into the big, wide cyber world, don’t just sit back and hope that it’s going to get some big love. Take advantage of Google’s tools to track every piece of Google+ material.
You can do this by assigning a custom URL to your content and then reviewing the stats in Google Analytics. This allows you to see what’s working and what isn’t and to refine your strategy #strategy accordingly. You can set up a custom URL in Google’s URL Builder.
Content Still Wears the Crown
It is well worth spending some time getting your Google+ strategy right to make it easier for readers to connect with you and to boost your search engine positioning. The bottom line is that content is still king, and with a little Google+ know-how yours can be an even bigger magnet that attracts a large audience.
