How To Promote a Google Plus Business Page – SEO Video

Hello and welcome to todays video blog, entitled “How To Promote a Google Plus Business Page”. Since Google Plus’ arrival at the end of last year as a social platform to rival the likes of Facebook and Twitter, there has been much anticipation about its ability to impose itself in such a congested space. With the backing of the power that is Google, if any new social media platform had the chance to muscle its way into this market it was Google Plus.

As expected its initial release was well received. Anticipation was already high, only increased by the ‘invitation only’ that Google put into place – only giving a lucky few the chance to try it out. Once its release, there was a huge surge in people signing up to try it out, to see if it could live up to the hype. Despite its advanced features and general ease of use, the initial fervour wasn’t followed by continued use from the majority who signed up.

Now many months old, the platform is starting to gain some momentum; there are nearly 100 million registered users with around a third of those actively using it. This is only going to increase over the following year, through organic growth and through Google’s “pushing” (for example, Google Places pages been automatically converted into Google Plus Places pages, meaning you have to be a registered Google Plus user to leave a review).

What has increased the interest in Google Plus from a business and SEO point of view however was the introduction of the ability to create pages for businesses. Just like a business page on Facebook, Google Plus business pages can be created to represent a company online. Therefore people can interact with their favourite companies or brands, as they do already on other social media platforms.

The benefits of creating an online persona for a company is many fold. The increased possibilities of engagement help not only create but retain customer relations. It provides an outlet to promote offers and company products, and it helps to give your brand an identity and presence online.

If you have a look at the success of some Facebook and Twitter business profiles, you can automatically see the potential Google Plus has a tool for businesses. If Google Plus does manage to make itself a main player in the social media world, then the potential to reach a large customer base must not be ignored.

So, with this in mind, you’ve set up a Google Plus page for your business. The big question now is how do you go about promoting it? How do you make sure that what you do on your page is seen by your existing and potential customer base? We’ve put together some tips that will help you make sure that you are making the most out of your business page and make sure that your business page is as visible as it possibly can be;

1. Have a Google Plus button on your website that links to your business page – this seems obvious, but it is easily something that can be easily forgotten. You have to make it as easy as possible for customers to find your business page, and that means putting a link everywhere you can, including in your blog.
2. Promote your business page through your Google Plus personal account- if you have an active personal account with many people in you circles then utilise this for the promotion of your business page. Remember, people are much more likely to follow and use a business that has been personally recommended to them.
3. Promote your Google Plus page via your other social platforms – if you already have an active profile on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media website then let your followers know. Create posts asking them to add your page to their circles and add it to your business profile descriptions.
4. Create circles – follow related companies and industry relevant people and organisations. The more you can interact with others in the same industry, the more they will interact with you.
5. Keep your page updated with relevant, engaging and most of all appealing content. Getting people to your page is only half the battle – keeping them there, and getting customers to return and interact is vitally important. If you want to develop relationships that will last, you have to provide attractive content.

What is also important to note, from a business point of view, is the potential of Google Plus to help your websites SEO campaign. Though still in the initial test development stage, it does seem that signals from Google Plus will be used a ranking factor to determine the SERP’s. In what form and by how much, though is yet to be confirmed, and it is something we as an SEO company are currently trialling out. Here are some tips though to get you started;

1. Ensure your Google Plus business page is linked to your website, in the ‘about’ section
2. Encourage your followers to ‘plus 1’ your actual business page
3. Encourage your followers to ‘plus 1’ your website
4. You can also add internal, followed links from your business page via the ‘about’ section. Maybe have a play around here to see if any links you do build have an effect on your rankings.

Be wary, however, of the effectiveness of plus 1’s currently. Matt Cutts recently said that the systems at Google are not yet advanced enough to use them as a strong ranking signal. So don’t give up your link building campaign just yet!

Google Plus looks set to stay and to only ever increase in popularity and influence. From a social side the importance of a Google Plus business page is looking already like a necessity for any business. More and more of your potential and current customer base are signing up for personal accounts daily, and you want to make sure that you’re there to harness any possibility of forming relationships.

And from the SEO viewpoint, creating a page now appears to be the smart decision to stay ahead of the game. If any social media platform is likely to help with SEO and rankings, it’s going to be Google Plus. Google have instant and easy access to social signals that they can’t access as easily elsewhere, so it’s inevitable they’re going to use this information for their benefit.

Well that’s everything for today. We hope you’ve enjoyed this video. Let us know if you have any further questions in the comments box below. Bye bye.

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