Tips for taking advantage of Google+ for SEO

When engineers built Google+, they constructed an SEO juggernaut to control search results above all other social platforms. Although Facebook and Twitter are essential to marketing efforts, both restrict Google from accessing much of their data. This limits their SEO effectiveness. Not so with Google+.

Here’s an experiment: If you use Google+, perform a search for your name and check the domain sharing of first 100 results. Even though we use Twitter and Facebook far more often, Google+ dominates the search results. This below graph showing the result for particular profile name search.

Follow your Profile Links

Google+ not only allows you to link to your other profiles across the web, but you can embed followed links directly into your bio with the anchor text of your choice. If you can raise your visibility by getting more people to engage with you, share your posts, or link directly to your profile, the more valuable your profile links become

Embed post links

Like profile links, Google+ also allows you to insert followed links directly into your posts – as many as you want. Simply insert the full URL and Google will automatically format it as a link. The value of these links increases the number of times the post is shared, linked to and +1’ed. If your post goes viral or is reshared by high-authority profiles, the value of those links increases.

Optimize your G+ title tags

The first sentence of your Google+ post becomes part of the title tag, which is highly correlated with rankings and greatly influences click-through rates. Choose your keywords carefully and consider that the first sentence will be the first thing most people see.

Unlimited editing power

Google+ is just like your own mini personal blogging platform. This means you can fully edit any of your posts at any time. This is important if your Google+ post goes viral and you want to make updates or changes. If need be, you can also update the title tag and any attached media as well. You may not own the platform, but Google+ gives you a broad amount of control over your own content.

Index new content lightning fast

If you share new content on Google+, chances are that Google will index the page very quickly.

Connect with influencers

Google+ lists 17 different notification triggers that can help you connect with influencers in your industry.

1. Mention them in a post 
2. Share a post with them directly 
3. Share a post and you're in a circle they subscribe to 
4. Comment on a post they created 
5. Comment on a post after they comment on it 
6. Add them to a circle 
7. Suggest new people to add to their circles 
8. Tag them in a photo 
9. Tag one of their photos 
10. Suggest a profile photo for them
11. Comment on a photo after they comment on it 
12. Comment on a photo they are tagged in 
13. Comment on a photo they tagged 
14. Start a conversation with them
15. Send them an invitation or update an event
16. Remind them about events
17. Any activity on events they created

Optimize your author pic for more traffic

If you successfully implement the author tag and have a catchy photo, it often doesn't matter if you rank 2nd, 3rd or even 4th. With an eye-catching pic you can often grab free traffic away from even your competitor's #1 ranking.

Test drive a G+ social media dashboard

Google Analytics has progressed greatly with social media reporting, but if you live and die by social traffic you want to bring the information front and center.

Adam Singer created an awesome social media dashboard that you can use for free. At one glance you can view all your essential metrics from Google+ traffic and all other social networks including:

• On Site Social Actions, i.e. Google +1's
• Revenue per Visit by Social Network
• Overall Traffic Stats by Social Source

Install this dashboard for free in your Google Analytics

Try it now by pasting in your Google+ URL to chart your daily follower growth, the virality of your posts, and even see your "CircleRank" score compared against all other Google+ profiles.

Be an awesome (Late) early adopter

Even with it's explosive growth, only 1 in 4 people use Google+ once a month. The rest log in even less, although this number is growing fast.

None of these tips matter unless you actually use Google+. Out of the 400 folks I've circled in my Google+, only about 75 actively participate. No surprise, these tend to be the more savvy SEO and media types.