Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Pinterest. YouTube. These are just a few of the many social networks in existence, but all of them are used as a medium to reach new customers, build stronger relationships with existing customers, and deal with customer issues. Businesses today must determine how much of their limited time and resources they are willing to commit to social media. With limited time and resources, businesses have to be selective in what platforms they use and how much they engage on each platform. Often, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are among the favorite choices (read our tips for using Twitter to grow your business here, or for Facebook read more here.) What many businesses often neglect, however, is Google +.

What is Google +

Google + is a social network designed by Google to compete with Facebook, Twitter, and the other social platforms. The adoption of Google + by the masses of daily social media users has been very low, in fact, most people and businesses with a Google + account don’t even know that they have one. Google creates the account for users that have any form of a Google account (YouTube, Gmail, Google My Business, etc.).

Google + is similar to other social platforms in that there is content that is user generated and posted allowing you can connect with friends and family. There are some unique differences including the use of circles that organize your contacts into groups. The highest engagement rates on Google+ occurs within the group and communities elements, so that is an area to dedicate time to as a business.

Why Use Google +

So if adoption rates of daily users is low, why would a business want to be active on Google+? What is the benefit of dedicating valuable time and resources to a platform that most of your target audience just doesn’t use? Many businesses dismiss Google+ before even considerings what benefits it may hold, but it’s simple really. SEO.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of taking actions that lead to your website ranking higher in organic search rankings. In simpler terms, you do SEO to have your business listed higher when someone searches for a keyword related to your business. For example, if you sell headphones then you want your business to be in the top 2 or 3 on the list of websites when someone searches for the keyword “headphones.” In order to rank with the top 2 or 3, you have to have a good SEO score from Google. So how does Google + help with SEO?

SEO through Google +

SEO is not a simple process. You are competing with thousands of other sites for a chance at the top spot on Google. There are many methods to improving SEO including enhancing site content, title and header tags, and improving the user interface to reduce bounce rates. One other very effective method is through increasing the number of backlinks to your site. What is a backlink? It’s simply a link from one site to yours. Backlinks from relevant sites add authority and credibility to your site, or in other words, they backlinks make Google think you are more legit. And Google likes legit.

Use Google + to link to your website, and do it often. Google is the largest search engine in the world. By using its service to create backlinks to your site, you will increase your SEO ranking. To be effective, the links need to come from quality posts with relevant content, but this is a challenge for companies with limited resources. Should you focus on Facebook where your customers are? Or on Google + to improve SEO? At ANS, we do both. While I don’t recommend duplicating content verbatim across most platforms, duplicating content onto Google + is a great practice. We recommendation creating content for the platform your customers live on, then reposting the same content to Google +. Using this method will save time in content creation while still giving you the benefit of backlinks for SEO through Google +.

Amerian Name Services can help get your social off the ground, email Social Media Manager Lindsey for more information.