Why Your Business Needs to Be on Google+ Now

Why Google+? The quality and corresponding engagement around your search engine visibility stands to either noticeably improve or gradually decline. Here are some recommendations on what you to do with your Google+ Pages for businesses and brands.

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Date published
January 26, 2012 Categories

Here was my reaction to the introduction of Google+ around six months ago:

“Sweet, Google’s rolling out its own improved version of Facebook. Wait, it doesn’t look like there’s anything going on for businesses with this. Wow, not many clicking on the +1 buttons. Hmmm, none of the cool kids are playing much here – guess we’ll wait and see if this thing grows legs.”

Today, 90 million users later, wait mode is over. Google+ is running on fresh legs – and beckoning us to join while the echo from the starting gun can still be heard.

Jury’s still out, you say? Don’t really want to hear it, as you’ve hit a good stride with other social media activities you must manage? If this aligns at all with your thinking, then now is the time to pretend you have been a bad salesman, and I am Alec Baldwin, who has been sent on a mission of mercy to help set you straight.

The New Necessity of Google+ for Business

Regardless of your experience with Google+, you may still find yourself needing to articulate, even justify (to yourself, your clients or boss), why attention must be paid to this effort.

The most significant reason to get your business on Google+ is simple: The quality and corresponding engagement around your search engine visibility stands to either noticeably improve or gradually decline.

At the heart of this lies the new “Search Plus Your World” algorithm (also referred to as “Search+”), which relies on data collected from logged in Google+ users. The output is search results that display/promote People and (business) Pages in Google+.

This is a bold direction for Google, delivering search results based on a new range of personalization signals that include elements of user engagement we’re familiar with in Facebook (comments, shares, likes – or in Google’s case, +1’s).

Yes, this is still relatively early-stage, but make no mistake. New patterns are being established for the long term. Now, more than ever, is go time.

2 Top Advantages of Google+ Pages for Business

Although related changes to search results were an easy prediction several months ago, there’s now plenty more visible evidence from recent Google algorithm updates that demonstrate the importance of Google+ practices effecting search results both inside and outsidethe Google+ environment.

To clarify on the significance of that last sentence, consider for a moment the work that goes into maintaining status updates and community response on an active Facebook fan page.

Can you get relevant, topical access to Facebook engagement via a Google search? No way. But guess what? You can’t on Facebook either.

Status updates/wall posts come and go. Got a post on your Facebook fan page that got over 350 comments? Cool, but too bad it’s here today and gone tomorrow – soon to vanish with no commonly known way for anyone to look for or happen upon it in the future.

Like Facebook, you’ll see updates from those you follow (Circle) in Google+. But unlike Facebook, the content in your Google+ posts may turn into highly ranked search results on Google (again, inside or outside the Google+ environment) – providing keyword and topic-relevant search engine visibility that improves based on your “AuthorRank” and content-specific engagement levels.

A second key advantage relates to how you can target your messaging and more directly interact with your followers, organizing those you follow into the circles (groups) of your choosing. Google+ has done a good job of enabling a fairly intuitive way to track and engage with segments of an audience curated by you.

Learning From Early Adopters

Perhaps the most valuable piece of advice I can share with you as a marketer who is just getting setup in Google+ or wants to learn more is to create a circle called “Google+ Resources”, then begin to add people and pages who are on the cutting edge of this subject matter.

A good first Google+ page to add would be Google’s own Google+ Your Business page. Toby Stein, the Pages and Mobile Community Manager for Google+, is great about referencing helpful articles and other expert resources in the field.

Just this week, Gideon Rosenblatt created a circle that now has over 100 G+ influencers who have demonstrated various levels of thought leadership around social media in the context of this platform. You can follow all of them in the click of a button.

Additional Next-Step Recommendations

I’ve summarized some favorites here, many spelled out in greater detail on Mark Traphagen’s post regarding the “First 5 Things You Should Do with Your Google+ Business Page”:

Search Results I See Are Looking Less Like Search Results You See

Despite the strong opinions in this post, and in hopes of convincing you I’m really not a Google groupie fan boy – I will acknowledge that Google’s changes, even with our ability to control multiple query settings, have continued to evolve in a manner that arguably supports the “filter bubble” problem presented in Eli Pariser’s Ted Talk.

Helen Brown recently referenced this, along with a statement I’m empathetically compelled to quote: “Just to do one search in Google the way I used to just last year, I have to turn off two things and turn one on. Every. Single. Time. This is progress?”

We face a slew of other issues and challenges as Google and digital marketing in general continue to evolve. For today, hopefully you gained something that will inspire your next action on Google+.

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