32,000 Followers

Are You Taking Google+ Seriously?

Since Google+ launched a few years ago the overall general consensus was that Google+ was not something to be taken seriously when compared to the heavy weights of social marketing such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and when done right Instagram.

Basically Google+ was treated and is still being treat as a ghost town in the eyes of many big and small businesses.

Over time though it has become clearer why businesses no matter how big or small should start taking Google+ seriously. There are now over a billion Google accounts that are enabled for Google+ and out of these accounts more that 360 million are active Google+ users. The +1 button is now clicked on average 5 billion times each day.

Now when you compare these stats to those of Facebook that has 1.2 billion monthly activer uses these stats are small in comparison but Google+ is still the new guy in town and these numbers are far from ghost town figures.

What is important for business owners to realize is that these numbers are growing 30% annually and that means as these numbers increase the time is now to start building a solid foundation on Google+ as the momentum builds for this social network.

If you drag your feet too long you may find that your competitors have already laid a
solid foundation of their own and have built a strong social presence and in turn will make it a very difficult situation for your own business to overcome.

Right now you have a golden opportunity to create a solid social presence for your own business on this growing social network that all signs show is going to be the social network powerhouse of the future.

Lets take a look as to why businesses are now starting to take Google+ so seriously.

1. The Google+ Business Pages

Not only can you get a personal Google+ page you can create a business page as well that you can use to attract followers to and this alone has 3 distinct advantages...

A. SEO: Your page rank for your business page will grow as you attract more followers that are actively engaging with your business or brand and this in turn impacts the ranking of your main business website and this increases your whole online visibiity.

B. AdWords Ads: Once you attract 100 followers to your business page you will start receiving social proof endorsements automatically on your AdWords ads. This in turn means more click throughs on your ads than can lead to lower ad cost for you.

C. Free Advertising: When you create a business page on Google+ this gives you a high visible ad so to speak in the Google searches. It shows information related to your business page as well as social proof data like the number of followers you have for example.

2. SEO

I know I mentioned SEO earlier but SEO deserves more attention because SEO is not restricted just to the business pages of Google+ because your activities on the network will impact your Google search engine visibility.

For example your activities are now one of the factors on how your personalized results are created. If someone is following your business page on Google+ the odds are increased significantly that they will see your content that you have created or have given a +1.

Content creation will fall under Google Authorship and we will go over this further in
the article.

The number of followers you can attract and your search engine visibility work hand in hand and affect the amount of traffic that Google will send your way.

Many businesses have not grasped this powerful aspect of Google+ but its just a matter of time before they do and the earlier the better.

The businesses that are able to understand the power of Google+ sooner rather that later will have a huge advantage over their competitors.

3. Traffic Traffic Traffic

There are two ways to grow your traffic and that is direct and indirect. Direct traffic is about sharing your content through Google+ which results in traffic generated to your website from your followers and the traffic that is generated from your followers resharing your content with their followers and so forth.

Indirect traffic is gained from direct traffic but also from you becoming more visible in the search engines as your content becomes more poplulated on Google, you in turn gain more traffic to your websites and social networks as more and more people see your content.

4. Google Authorship

The power of Google+ really appears when it comes to Google Authorship. Your Google+ profile provides you with an online identity that can be associated with all your content that you provide.

What happens is your profile picture is displayed next to your content in the search
engine results and when your content appears with your profile picture it can increase your click through rate.

Another thing Google Authorship does is raise your online presence and helps attract more people to follow you on Google+.

A profile picture next to your content reinforces your authority and influence on those that are following your. It can also persuade someone to start following your that
wasn't already.

5. Targeted Communication

Communicating through email has becomedecreasingly effective with social marketing.
More and more people are wishing to communicate through social channels and for businesses this is a vital.

This allows businesses to be more personable and stay on top of negative feedback to increase customer satisfaction and show that they really care about their customers.

When you are able to increase your business presence to your customers you are able to build a stronger relationship with your customers, your followers and your prospects.

This can lead to brand loyalty and a raving fan base for your products which no amount of money can buy.

With Google+ you are able to communicate with your followers in a very targeted manner throught the use of circles.

You can separate your followers for example as one circle is for existing customers, another circle for prospects, another circle for business partnerships, and so forth.

You can create as many different circles as you choose and post to each circle with different content that will be appropriate for that particular circle.

Another tool to utilize on Google+ is Hangouts. Hangouts will allow you to chat live
or have video chat sessions with other Google+ users.

Many businesses are already taking full advantage of this powerful business building
tool with phenominal results. They are building strong relationships and brand loyalty and also using it to communicate with long distant co-workers.

Let me leave you with this powerful example.

Imagine you see two ads for an item that you wish to have. One ad shows you social proof by having over 20,000 followers and the other has no social proof or if they do its a far less number of followers.

Be honest with yourself, which one are you more like to go with? Which one are you likely to trust more? Which one seems to have more credibility? Which one are you more than likely to click on?

Now one more question... which position as a business owner would you prefer to be in?

I think you are starting to see the advantages that Google+ can give you and how important it is not to be left behind. Those individuals and business owners that make Google+ a central part of their social marketing strategy will be the winners in the long run.

As your followers grow so will your online influence and visibility... as stated earlier

they both work hand in hand.

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