While many of my HRmarketer colleagues have been actively leveraging Google+ for clients, I was late arriving to the party.
In fact, I just arrived this week. I signed up for Google+ on Monday.
My role is light on social media (I’m a content writer), so I guess my late arrival is forgivable. To be honest, I’ve been skeptical about Google+. From what I heard, it was similar to Facebook, but with a lot fewer users. Already being on Facebook, I thought, “Why bother?”
I changed my mind and signed up, in part thanks to +Erin Griffith's article in PandoDaily, “How Google Author Rank Could Change Content Marketing … and Journalism.”
Here is the most interesting section: “Google wants to prioritized content created by verified writers with authority in certain topics in its results … So now Google is verifying individual writers through its social network, Google+, with something called Author Rank. Now, if a website has connected its writer accounts with their Google+ accounts, search results show a writer’s headshot and byline next to the result for their article. Bylined stories rank higher, and they get more real estate. Most importantly, they return clickthrough rates that are 40 percent greater than normal, according to Greg Boser, President of SEO agency BlueGlass.”
After reading that, I realized that I needed to be on Google+ to maximize the views of this blog.
If you want to read some more supporting information, I recommend Fast Company’s “Plus-One This: Proof That Google Plus Will Prevail.”
+Dave Llorens’ argument is that Google+ will develop a “staggering” number of users by the end of the year due to its appeal to bloggers, small businesses and to the general public.
If you decide to join Google+ — and if you’re in content marketing, you should — you want to have your profile synced with your blog and other content that you create. That’s how you get rewarded via Author Rank.
To do so, you need:
- A Google+ profile photo with a recognizable headshot
- Your byline to be contained on each page of your content
- Your byline name to match the name on your Google+ profile
- To verify that your email address is on the same domain as your content.
The easiest way is to follow the steps laid out at https://plus.google.com/authorship.
I’ll see you on Google+, and in Google search results!
Post written by HRmarketer / SocialEars HR team member Eric Anderson.
Labels: content marketing, Eric Anderson, Google Plus, Google+
