How to Increase Traffic by Google+

1. Link Google+ to Your Blog Home Page

The first step in getting results from Google+ is connecting your profile with your blog’s home page. This is the gateway step to generating incredible results, including displaying your photo next to your blog post links and a wikipedia-style profile listing in Google search results whenever anyone searches for your name.

2. Build Strategic Networks with Circles

Circles allow you to organize connections into the groups you interact with in your life. Family, Friends, B2B, B2C, Local, Media, Influencers, Quilting (my hobby, about which I wrote an award-winning book). Not only can you view posts by Circles, you can send posts to Circles, yet another Google+ first.

Circle’s biggest benefit? People who add you to their Circles see your posts higher in Google search results. Another SEO boost.

3. Look Like a Pro by Offering Live Video Chat via Hangouts & Hangouts on Air

Hangouts not only up your level of branding by enabling you to host webinars for free, if you do a Hangout on Air, Google+ simultaneously streams it here and on YouTube, records the video, and sends you the recording to your email.

Upload that Hangout to YouTube, add the link to your blog and a keyword-rich description, and you’ve got a powerful SEO tool that doubles as a branding resource allowing people can see you in action.

4.Use Hashtags to Make Your Posts Search-Friendly

Just like Twitter and Facebook, Google+ offers hashtags to make searching for topics simple. It’s a great way to get found not only inside Google+, but in the larger world of Google search.

Combine your Circles strategy with hashtags, you’ve put your blog’s SEO on steroids.

5. Link to Your Blog Posts to Rank Higher in Google+ and Google Search

Whenever you have a new blog post, link to it from Google+ and make that post public. You’ve made your post publicly available both inside Google+ and in Google search results worldwide. Remember those people in your Circles? When they’re searching for your subject on Google, they’ll be served up your results first.

6. Use Ripples to Add Influencers to Your Circles

Ripples are a little-known feature of Google+ that identify people who shared a public post, as well as how large an audience they have. It’s a fantastic way of determining who has the power to spread your posts to the widest audience possible.

You’ll definitely see a trend when you start using Ripples and you’ll notice those outliers who have the power to get your posts seen by a huge audience. Add these people to your Circles and engage with them.

7. Want Engagement? Write Long Posts Inside Google+

Google+ posts that receive the most comments are resource-type articles with a lot of links. Those covering Google+ how-to information are heavily shared, along with any tutorials.

Write a killer post and link back to your own blog for additional resources. Use hashtags with relevant topics so it’s easily found, and you’ve created an outstanding resource that will get you noticed and increase traffic to your blog.

8. Use Direct Connect so People Can Add You to Circles from Google Search

The most powerful feature of Google+ is Direct Connect — think Facebook Like Box available in Google Search. By placing code between the tags on your blog, people will be able to add you to their Google+ Circles directly from Google search results.

Currently Direct Connect is available on a limited basis and appears to be offered to those pages with a large Google+ following. To be eligible for Direct Connect, you must have that link between Google+ and your blog’s home page I referred to in #1.

9. Use Tags to Reach Out to People and Brands Directly

Like Facebook, Google+ offers the ability to tag people and brands in your posts. This is a great way to connect with people and draw their attention to your latest resources, especially in a noisy digital culture.

As an example, I attended a public relations conference and tagged the people I met at the event in my Google+ post about it.

Give Yourself Time to Master These Tactics

Take the time to learn Google+ and engage with your community here. You’ll see results far beyond what any other social network can offer: both social engagement within Google+ and SEO in Google

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