Why should YOU be on google+?
February 8, 2012 in g+, Google+, Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, seo, Social Media, Websites
There’s a short answer to this: the google search engines LOVE websites that display the g+ badge.
This means that Google will prioritise websites that have the g+ badge over websites that don’t, i.e. they will be ranked higher in search results (and don’t we all want that!). And even when more businesses have clocked on to this, similar websites that display the g+ badge will be rotated so that they all have a fair go at the top.
Why is Google doing this? Well, apart from their desire to take over the world, they do seem to genuinely want the little guys who can’t afford to pay megabucks for specialist search engine optimisation to get a decent stab at high rankings when their websites deserve it – i.e. when they have quality frequently updated content that is genuinely there to serve the customer. They see the g+ pages as a way to do this…as well as to take over the world.
HOW TO GET YOUR GOOGLE+ BADGE
To display the g+ badge you first need to have a g+ business page – very similar to a Facebook Fan Page.
Create a personal page – as with Facebook, you need to create a personal page first.
If you happen to have a gmail email account, look up at the top left of your inbox page and you’ll see your name or ‘You’ with a ‘+’ sign attached to it. For instance, mine says ‘Liz+’. Click on this and it will take you to the Google+ set up page.
Otherwise, just do a search for ‘g+’ or ‘googleplus’.
Now create your personal page – it’s fairly straightforward, and if you have problems setting it up I expect there are plenty of online tutorials to help you. My experience was that whilst it’s not difficult, it’s not totally user-friendly for the average computer user. Sometimes it had me scratching my head, but I got there reasonably quickly.
You can either just create a very basic page or you can start to add people to your ‘circles’, add pics and posts etc. I’m sure the more you do this, the better it is for your profile and seo, but it’s not necessary at this stage.
Now create a business page – once you’ve created your personal page you can start adding business pages, however many you want but presumably Google expects one per business.
Once you’ve got your business page set up, copy the series of numbers in the browser box at the top. For example, it will say something like this: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/135414504249714470406/ but it’s just the long string of numbers between the last two forward slashes that you want.
Then visit this site: https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/badge/config
Paste your number string from your business page into the box next to ‘Link to this Google+ page’
Select whether you want a badge or icon and what size you want it. The page will then produce some code which you then need to copy and paste into your website. (If you don’t know how to do this you may need to get your web developer to do it, but if you do your own site, or have a content managed site, then it should be easy – for the latter for instance just paste the code wherever you want it on the page and save. When you check the front end the g+ badge/icon should be displayed.)
That’s all there is to it. After that you can develop your business page as and when. As with Facebook, the more time you devote to it, no doubt the more effect it will have, and I suspect that often the same sort of posts can be duplicated in each (although remember that g+ doesn’t allow competitions).
In the meantime, Google will surely be loving the fact that you are displaying its g+ badge as well as helping it in its bid for global domination…
Follow Us!