Since Google decided to be a bummer on us and potentially remove Google+ altogether, we've combined these two challenges into just one. No one is quite sure what will happen with Google+ but we do know that it's re-organizing. With that being said, participating on Google+ still appears to be good for SEO, so it may still be worth it despite the dwindling number of users. Read below if you're interested in gleaning all the SEO juice you can from the dying social network.
The Challenges
Week 23: Setting up Your Profile on Google+
Tech is not my strong suit… that might be why I've avoided Google+ for such a looooong time. It felt too IT-club for me. I was convinced that smart guys working furiously on “code” would be waiting to smirk at me for looking dumb if I dared to post there.
Then, I started hearing about really smart, talented women using the site, like Tiffany from the SITS girls and Stephanie from crockpot365. Both of these women mentioned recently in their podcast interviews that using Google+ is great for your website's SEO. (SEO… another big word for guys who know code, means search engine optimization. If your SEO is better, then you may rank high for a certain search term, like hand-knit hats for kids, if that's your thing, or how to organize your whole life, if THAT'S your thing…..) SEO is our friend, and when I find ways to improve it, I'm all ears.
So…. for the next few weeks we'll dive into Google+. Please don't panic and run in the other direction just yet! I'm not about to lock you in a room with spare computer parts and make you build a robot – promise! It won't be too painful if we just take things one step at a time. So, for week 1, we're setting up our profiles.
I've researched this process quite a bit, and came up with an organized, bulleted list of the things you'll want to include in your profile. This will be your guide for the week.
In the coming weeks, we'll dig into the specifics of what to do on the site and how to leverage it to grow your business. So stay tuned!
For this week, your challenge is to use my research and post as a guide, and create a killer Google+ profile.
Week 24: Getting Social on Google+
Last week, we set up our profiles on Google+ This week, we're ready to dive in and join the party! (Ok… fine… by party I mean this place online where people are …..and by fun I mean encouraging and sharing great stuff…. so if you're an online nerd like me… that probably does sound like a party to you!)
I gotta admit, when some lovely ladies asked us to dive into Google+ my first thought was…. “blech!” But once I took the plunge, I kinda got a little obsessed! I'm going to be hanging out on Google+ all week like it's the hip new place in town, and I hope you'll join me!
Head on over to the blog to learn some tips on how to maximize Google+ to gain new followers and more traffic to your site.
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it:
- Spend some time on Google+ each day this week.
- Share your content + other's content
- Comment thoughtfully on at least 5 posts per day.
- Find and add at least 10 new people to your Circles each day.
That's it! Anything above and beyond this is extra credit!
Can't wait to see you being Brilliant on Google+ this week!
Week 23 + 24 Update:
In the 3 weeks prior to messing around on Google+ we received 13 referrals and 20 pageviews from the social network. To see if we had, perhaps, any boost in SEO from being active on Google+, I measured our referrals from organic search as well. We had 626 referrals from organic search.
In the 3 weeks since I optimized our profile on Google+ (and started getting social there for about 1 week of that!) we received 19 visits and 29 pageviews from the social network. We received 857 referrals from organic search.
So while I'm not at all impressed with the few extra hits we received from Google+ itself, I will gladly take a 37% increase in traffic from organic search. Again, I'm not enough of a Google Analytics Guru to know how much of this increase in organic search was due to being active on Google+ and how much was simply due to continuing to put out good content each week, increase our traffic and social referrals overall, and therefore increase our search engine traffic.
Still, I'm encouraged enough to spend a few minutes each week just posting our content with a friendly comment. I probably won't spend time doing anything more, though. I'm not interested in digging into the communities and other aspects of Google+ at this point. (I am, however, interested in Hangouts on Air, as you'll see in the next challenge!)
What about you? Do you notice an increase in Search Engine Traffic when you're posting more frequently on Google+ I'd love to hear about your results!
~ Beth Anne
