5 Reasons to Create a Google+ Page

Welcome to another edition of the “5 Reasons” blog series. This will be a weekly blog series, with a fresh post every Monday. Last week’s topic was “Five Reasons to Test Your Marketing Email Timing”.

This Week’s Topic = Five Reasons to Create a Google+ Page

So it’s not as new or as hot as when it first launched, but Google+ still has a role to play in your business. If you avoided getting involved early, you weren’t alone. But it’s time to forget about all the reasons you had for not joining when it first came out, and get involved.

Here are 5 reasons you need to create a Google+ page for your business:

1. Help your SEO. Google won’t come right out and say it, but linking your Google+ page to your website is going to make it more likely that people will find you when they’re searching on Google. It allows people to +1 your business, which makes it more relevant in Google’s eyes.
   
   
2. Add to your Google ads. If you run paid ads on Google through Google AdWords, you have some enhanced options available to you once you’re page is set up. You can add the +1 button to your ads, helping you stand out from the crowd of other advertisers who are bidding on the same terms.
   
   
3. Boost your brand’s search results. When you have a page on Google+, you are likely to show up on the top of the right hand side, within the paid results, when someone searches your brand.  Your business will show up, along with a logo and contact information. To see what I mean, try searching for “University of Phoenix”.
   
   
4. Tell Google why you’re relevant. In a world where Google controls a large majority of searches and referrals, it’s more important than ever that Google knows how you are. That’s why we submit sitemaps to Google, seek inbound links, and keep fresh content on our sites. And it’s why everyone should create a brand page on Google+ and link it back to your website.
   
   
5. Reach people who are using it. Not everyone uses Facebook and Twitter. Google+ has regular users who are in there on a daily basis. And you want to show up if they are looking for something that you offer within the network.

As always, if you have your own tips, please include them in the comments below.

Social for Business (on joining Google+)

About a week ago I received an invite to Google’s latest and greatest attempt at going social, Google+. Of course I signed up, if for no other reason than to evaluate what it was and what it could be for myself. I like to evaluate things for myself whenever possible instead of reading all of the reviews.

As I wondered through Streams, Circles, Sparks, Chats, and Posts, it got me thinking about social media on a much larger scale. For marketers and businesses, social media means something vastly different than it does for everyone else in the world (the users). But still, we’re users too, just a different kind of user. A user that wants something from all of the other users.

Those of us that are good at what we do will look past the obvious promotional opportunities (someone hands you a megaphone and you yell about the same offer you’ve been whispering about for years) and find new ways of doing things. Those of us that are willing to experiment with time and money to discover channels of communication with consumers that didn’t exist before will reap benefits.

But, for so many businesses, social media is just another thing to worry about. Here’s something most people won’t tell you: you don’t have to be involved in social media. As a company, as a marketer, it’s okay to say “that’s not for me”.

Twitter and Facebook are mainstream. To me, that’s a different story. A presence there is now a good thing even if you don’t capitalize on it. But give yourself time to look around, to explore, and to let other companies make mistakes before you feel the need to be “social” just to be “social”. It will save you time, money, and resources that you can spend growing or running your business in other ways.

And even though this post was never meant to be a review of Google+, I would feel like I short changed you if I didn’t at least weigh in. In my opinion, it’s too similar to Facebook to cause anyone to choose one over the other, and Facebook came first. I understand why Google would try it, and I think there are some opportunities there (music!), but you need to give people a reason to accept a Facebook replacement in order to win here long term.

For more random thoughts and pointless musings by yours truly, subscribe to “I” of the Consumer today!