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As I mentioned before, in the past year I have started to utilize Google+ and have really grown to love it!
I have not given up on any of the other social medias as they all reach different people, but Google+ has many plusses that make it a social media that should not be neglected by bloggers.
In my first post about Google+, I shared many reasons why Google+ was beneficial for bloggers. Some of them are self-explanatory, but many of the points I said I would expound on with more posts. In today’s post, we will go over these three reasons how Google+ can help bloggers:
- How it benefits SEO
- How to make sure your YouTube channel is linked to your profile.
- How to claim Authorship
The SEO Benefits are HUGE!!
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Everytime you post to Google+ about one of your blog posts, it helps rank your post higher in Google’s search engine. Google is the highest used search engine globally, and it get 65% of the United States search traffic. Therefore, you want your posts to score high on Google searches. How do you do this?
You can try to use keywords that will give you great SEO juice. However, you are competing against huge websites that are many times using the same keywords that you are using, so many times keywords are not enough by themselves to push you to be on the first page of Google’s search engine.
However, if you combine your keywords and sharing your post on Google+, then you Google+ post will show up on the first page of Google’s search engine, and your Google+ post can lead people to your blog post.
For example, I made some free Frozen birthday invitation printables for my daughter’s birthday party. There are a million and one Frozen items available on the internet right now, but I continue to get great views for my printables. I thought maybe it was Pinterest that was giving me the views, but when I check my stats, views from Pinterest are not coming from my Frozen pins. But views from the search engines have been my #1 referrer the past couple of weeks!
When I search for Frozen birthday invitations, I get all the party store invitations, but about half-way down the page, I get these two results:
On page 2, the link to my blog post shows up, but Google+’s posts showed up on page 1!
Now, there is a catch to this. Those Google+ posts get moved up higher in Google’s search engine by being +1’d, commented on, and shared. This means you need to grow your circles and communities within G+ and be active on that platform. Also you want to claim authorship in Google+ to help your G+ posts rank higher in the Google Search engine.
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For SEO purposes, you also want to put your link in the attachment area which gives you a DoFollow link from Google+ (according to Social Media Examiner.)
Another wonderful feature of Google+ is that you can attach your YouTube channel.
This is great if you download videos to YouTube or you Vlog. Everytime you add a video, the video can also be seen on G+ without you having to share it, which means more views for you! You can have it not seen on Google+ if you don’t want it seen there. It is also easy for Google+ users to see that you have a YouTube channel and go follow you there. This is important for everyone who does a hangout and records it. The hangouts can then be seen on YouTube. So if you want to watch a hangout later, but you can’t find the original thread on G+; go to YouTube, find the channel, and watch the hangout.
- If you want to attach your channel to your pages, that is very easy to do. HERE is more information about how to attach your YouTube channel(s) to your Google+ account.
- HERE is a great explanation of the differences between attaching a channel to a profile and a page. If you are going to have multiple managers for your YouTube channel, you would want to attach it to a page.
I already had my YouTube channel attached to my profile, but it is very easy to attach a YouTube Channel to your G+ account.
Lastly (for this post), you can to claim authorship of your content by using Google+. This has definitely helped my G+ posts show up high in Google searches where my blog posts still might be on later pages way down in the search.
Go HERE to see how to claim Authorship.
FYI — Just because they say that you are verified does not mean that your picture will show up next to your blog posts in Google Search. Pictures no longer are seen next to blog posts in Google Search; but they do appear next to the Google+ posts that show up in Google search. Authorship will help your Google+ posts rank higher on Google’s search engine.
Take away for maximizing SEO with Google+:
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Post a status on Google+ for every blog post you write. Include searchable keywords at the beginning of your status!!
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Have a Google+ network that will boost your post by +1’s and comments!!
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Put your link in the attachment area.
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Make sure your have claimed authorship for your site.
I am not an expert in Google+; but I keep learning as much as I can, and I hope this post has been beneficial to you. My next post will be about circles, communities, and hangouts on Google+. I would love to see you on Google+! Please come circle +Katrina Tyrell-Thom who manages the Thinking Outside The Box Google+ page HERE and +Tammy Doiel HERE!K
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Another great post! Can’t wait for the next one 🙂
Thanks, Meredith! I’m glad you are finding the posts useful!
Landed here from the fb group. Great series on google+. As you have posted above about attaching link for SEO purposes, do you think there’s a difference between posting a blogpost to google+ directly from our blog’s social media sharing buttons and posting the blog post as you have covered in the article?