Every day my SEO alert newsletters emphasize how important it is becoming to utilize Google Plus, the new service that Google is using to try so hard to compete with Facebook. I don't spend the time on it that I do on Facebook, but I do look at the stream there often, and seldom see any real estate agents...at least in my circles. I probably have about 100 Realtors in my circles, but no posts. If you aren't posting your blogs and important page links on Google Plus, I firmly believe you are missing out on an important message to Google that you are producing great content and need to be noticed.
The better IDX providers and blogs are now including a G+ button. It's here on Active Rain. Everyone here should get a Google account (Gmail), create a Google Profile with all your websites and profiles linked on it, and you should be submitting all your blog posts everytime. Get your friends to do your pages too! It would be a miracle to see everyone on Active Rain joining together to boost all the blog posts that way.
Here's what to look for on Active Rain blogs:
That Google square will be white until you click on it. One click will turn it blue, which sends a vote of confidence to Google by itself. It also opens a little box, and in very light lettering you will see "Share". If you click in the comment box, it will post a link on your Google Plus stream just like Facebook does. It's best to add a comment using your real estate keyphrase too.
At this time, Facebook and Google are still sparring, and it's anybody's guess from one day to the next if Google will be able to see your links on Facebook. Right now, it's only the links on the business pages that are open to search engine spidering. It doesn't hurt to do it, but it may or may not be a tremendous help either. Twitter is supposed to also be very important to Google rankings. If you have a Facebook account, you can set it to post to Twitter and Linked in automatically, which is the easiest way to kill several birds with one stone.
If you don't have a Facebook account, at the very least you do need to have a profile on LinkedIn and on Twitter. When you do a blog, get in the habit of publishing its link on all these services. It really does help with the SEO of your website, that is...providing you are putting links on your blogs TO your website. But we are all doing this, aren't we? :-)
If you don't even have a website, or you're using your blog as your website, then be sure and fill out that Google profile anyway. If you have it all filled out nicely, when someone searches your name, it will show that profile front and center. No matter whether you really care about search engine rankings or not, you should...even the least effort will help a customer find you. And the more effort you put into it, the more leads you will see. I promise you that!
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