Does G+ Really Matters?

[bizpublisher]

Over time though it has become clearer why businesses, no matter how big or small, should start taking Google+ seriously. There are now over a billion Google accounts that are enabled for Google+ and of these accounts more that 360 million are active Google+ users. The +1 button is now clicked on average 5 billion times each day.

Right now you have a golden opportunity to create a solid social presence for your business on this growing social network that all signs show is going to be the social network powerhouse of the future.

What do you think?

 

[altonroot]

Though, I would like to add that Google has denied it many times that Google+ has not any impact over rankings directly. It impacts on personalized results if any one logged in Google account and this perhaps the case in many computers. I agree with you, anyone should not ignore G+ for sure.

 

[Banksbroo]

1 bn accounts, 350m active, that's a very high sign-on-drop-out rate.
As it happens, I'm not a fan of social media, just not my cup of tea. But I do have a Google+ account, but have never use it, and don't intend to use it. I occasionally login to check settings, that makes me an active user as far as Google PR is concerned.

Does the OP have a service they are trying to sell in the social media area?

 

[aarthielumalai]

1 bn accounts, 350m active, that's a very high sign-on-drop-out rate.
As it happens, I'm not a fan of social media, just not my cup of tea. But I do have a Google+ account, but have never use it, and don't intend to use it. I occasionally login to check settings, that makes me an active user as far as Google PR is concerned.

Does the OP have a service they are trying to sell in the social media area?

Hi Banksbroo,

I think he said there are 1 billion Google accounts and out of that, 350m are active on Google+.

If that's the case, it's a good number isn't it? I mean, Gmail has been on for a lot more years than Google+, so that's a pretty fast growth in my opinion.

In reply to the OP's message, I'm a strong believer of utilizing every viable marketing platform to promote my business, and Google+ is definitely viable for me. After all, it has the same number of members as Twitter, and that's being used every day by every major brand in the world.

As for the comments about Google+ affecting search engine results, I'm not quite sure.

Again, you should utilize a marketing platform just because you can get a link out of it. That's the wrong way to go about link building, and that's the exact practice Google's been trying to eliminate with its umpteen updates.

If you want to use Google+ for your business, use it because it's a good place to promote your business and get clients.

Use that mindset and you'll find yourself with quality links that actually bring you traffic by themselves. Then, search engine ranking is just a matter of time.

 

[Banksbroo]

A good number, but a quarter of the accounts activated for Google Plus are not used, these numbers may improve, but people seem to be voting with their feet (or in this case by not using the facility).
I'm sure some busineses may find it useful, but I think Google has struggled to find it's feet in the social media marketplace.
My approach to social media tends to be from the opposite end of the spectrum, my websites already rank very highly, so using social media to improve ranking is not an issue.
Aarthi, I see from your website you have no social media links. I'd be more persuaded of the benefits of social media if companies promoting it as a service used it themselves. A physical address and telephone number wouldn't go amiss either.

 

[StevePoster]

I think Google+ really matters when it comes to brand awareness and has nothing to do with the search engine rankings. G+ is one of the best medium to reach your targeted audience.

 

[expmrb]

Yeah, G+ matters a lot. In case of authorship of bloggers its really important. Let me give you guys my personal experience about it. I had posted an article in my cricket site "Best Cricket Bats". A few days after publishing it i saw that my page had been ranked in the 4th page of google search results. But as soon as i had posted the respective post in my G+ account with a link to my page, the post of G+ is showing in the first page of Google with my profile pic in it. Now the fact that must be considered is by g+ i am not getting my page ranked well but i am getting the traffic in an indirect way.

 

[DrBradley]

Yeah. If you can convince Google that you are an authority author you can get your pic included in the serps and this increases the clickthrough rate to your site.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

I think for such a smart company, Google doesn't have make some naff and complicated to use products.

Adwords, Analytics, Wembaster tools, Google+.

Surely, these could all have been bundled into one package (okay maybe not the G+ for social) for business and made a hell of a lot easier to use.

Getting tired of their crap to be honest and I agree that they've not really found a proper spot in social media (something which I'm not a fan of mixing with business anyway).

 

[scootc7]

Every business should be using social media, it's a free marketing facility... why wouldn't you utilise this for your business?

I really enjoy using Google+ and it is great for driving traffic to my website. The thing I like about Google+ is the communities feature. You join relevant communities, post about your business, talk to others about theirs. It is a great way of gaining knowledge and getting your message out there to people who actually are interested. Try it, I can almost guarantee you will draw traffic to your website...

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Because these days most companies who want you to use their product/service will make it really simple and intuitive to use. Not like Google who seem to make most things seem like a chore.

 

[Jon_B]

I use g+ a lot and find it much easier and less confusing to use than Facebook. So many things frustrate me when using Facebook due to the way they work when using g+. Facebook just has more traction as people are addicted to it already. I also prefer the UI and layout as it is much cleaner and less cluttered, not to mention the lack of ads.

The integration with YouTube was great (though the transition was handled terribly), the authorship tie in, traffic generation benefits etc are all useful as well. I don't understand why people aren't using it if they are also using Facebook and Twitter, especially as there are services that let you post to G+ and then it will cross post over to the others.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Because it's crap. If it wasn't everyone would use it.

 

[DexSmart]

Matters. If you have the right people (influencers) in your circles and manage to have them shared your posts, you can get ranked some posts really fast.

 

[scootc7]

Because it's crap. If it wasn't everyone would use it.

I wouldn't say it's crap, I find it very effective for my business as do many of my clients/people I have asked about it. It just clearly doesn't work for your business and that is fair enough.

One thing I will tell you for sure that isn't crap about it and that's the strength of SEO it brings!

 

[money road]

Yeah. If you can convince Google that you are an authority author you can get your pic included in the serps and this increases the clickthrough rate to your site.

Google removed G+authorship images from search results
http://searchengineland.com/google-removes-author-photos-search-mean-195236
But g+ page linked with g analytics, youtube, webmaster tools- basicly this is the most valuable for social ranking (just my opinion). And this social network is not popular in all countries. If you try to get targeted visitors- try several social networks to find out

 

[nada_book14]

According to me now these day Google + have the unique feature of business listing and providing the business page for business owners. This feature may help more to promote business and help to increase business reputation and productivity. Google + post also included in Google search that is why G+ is also popular is SEO world.

 

[fisicx]

So much waffle and misdirection. Google+ demographics tend not to include the sort of person who buys stuff. My mum couldn't care less how many circles someone belongs to, she just wants to buy some buttons. It doesn't help brand awareness either because the people interested in the brand aren't usually G+ users.

If you are developer doing complex system coding then G+ may help you connect with other developers. But if you are selling socks being on G+ adds zero value.

 

[RizwanJavaid]

Yes it does!! Google plus is one of the most famous social media.

 

[fisicx]

Yes it does!! Google plus is one of the most famous social media.

No it's not. It's famous among it's fans but most of the world doesnt give a toss.

 

[RizwanJavaid]

No it's not. It's famous among it's fans but most of the world doesnt give a toss.

That's right ...

 

[Deepanshu Gahlaut]

Yes It is! It' I don't agree with fisicx. It's the most famous social media after Facebook but also important from seo perspective. There is an amazing correlation between Google +1s and higher search rankings. I'm quoting some text from moz blog -
"After Page Authority, a URL's number of Google +1s is more highly correlated with search rankings than any other factor. "

 

[fisicx]

That is complete tosh. There are millions of websites all ranking #1 without any google+ input.

I give anything moz pronounces on the same value I give to anything Matt Cutt's says.

 

[NickGrogan]

Yes It is! It' I don't agree with fisicx. It's the most famous social media after Facebook

Sorry, but that's rubbish.

Most famous SM are twitter and facebook, you can't avoid either of them
Third will depend more on age of the target market, instagram/flikr for younger, Linkedin for business, myspace for older people.

Many people don't even know the google+ exists.

 

[ricardo_varela]

If you are developer doing complex system coding then G+ may help you connect with other developers. But if you are selling socks being on G+ adds zero value.

To add to this (because it happens to be what we work on!): I pretty much subscribe to the opinion that "social media" activity is of little use to most businesses. However, in the specific case of Google+, google maps listings and local searches use the Google+ Place pages (now called Google+ MyBusiness)... and THAT is pretty important for business visibility, particularly if you are a business with a physical location and not merely an e-commerce

I'll even add that apart from Google Maps you want as many other directories as possible to increase relevancy, but would definitely pay attention to Yelp at least. Both Google+ place pages and Yelp collect reviews, and people care about reviews. Moreover, the more info I can find about your business on the web, the more likely I am to consider you over a competitor.

Please note that I'm not talking about making posts with photos of kittens and asking your customer circles if they feel like buying socks on a rainy Friday. I'm talking purely about posting info so that people are able to find you, see photos of your shop, know your opening hours and be able to call you to ask if you have these socks in size L in the shop. That is purely using visibility to boost business and most people don't even do that

Hope it helps!

---
ricardo @ localistico

 

[GoranaSmith]

Even though Google denies of including +1s data in computing Search Engine Rankings, i seriously doubt it. If i were you, i would definitely go for Google Plus as my prime social media sharing site.

 

[lmmanpower]

I find G+ very much good for me cause i find people much interactive and cooperative than compare to the other social media.

 

[altonroot]

I would like to put out few myths which have been researched in recent time by few agency,
> Google crawl and index content on Google+ real-time basis. This is wrong. In the study, it took 8-10 days to get index.
> The links in Google+ are dofollow so it passes page rank. This is perhaps wrong. In study, it doesn't get any benefits in ranking.
> Google+ shares impact ranking. This also proved a myth in the study.
So, you are using Google+ for all these reasons then you are wasting your time.
But if you are using it as social media platform to get exposure then you are doing right thing. The same study shows that if a page get visited no. of times in small time duration, it helps in crawling, indexing and ranking fast.

 

[freesoftware]

Whilst G+ doesn't have direct impact on your seo. It can drive traffic to your site. To do this you have to be willing to be active in posting threads on a regular basis and these can quickly show up in Google searches.

 

[BristolRemovals]

I think Goolge+ will evolve and become more like a cross between Twitter and Facebook, they have the majority share in search world and whilst Twitter and Facebook lean more towards becoming search engines Google will grow in the SM sector.

 

[money road]

I think Goolge+ will evolve and become more like a cross between Twitter and Facebook, they have the majority share in search world and whilst Twitter and Facebook lean more towards becoming search engines Google will grow in the SM sector.

not only marketing- some people using G+ insted of facebook and others to share their minds-photos and etc.

 

[Social Management Pro's]

Not a huge fan of Google+ for anything other than maybe making SEO look more natural.

 

[NickGrogan]

making SEO look more natural.

If this is something you have to think about, you're doing it wrong.

 

[alexdigital]

I love the communities on Google+, but I am quite techy. I'm sure it's a worthwhile activity sharing content and setting up your Authorship on your website in terms of the traffic you get and the extra link juice it could possibly bring..