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GaGa for Google + - Who to follow + Tips 11/13/12

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I don't know about you, but there are so many Stagers in my city, that it's very difficult to rank very high on Google.  Wouldn't it be great if there was a magic bullit that could propel us higher?  Well guess what?  There is!  It's called Google+.  Debbie Gartner (The Flooring Girl) has written a great post that spells out the benefits of Google+ and how it works.  It would be great to see more Stagers interacting on Google+ and helping each other.

Original content by Debbie Gartner

This is the first of a new weekly feature called GaGa for Google +.  In this weekly series, I (and other Active Rainers) are going to provide some weekly tips and a few people to follow on Google +

 

google +Are you on Google + yet?  Well if you aren't, you should be...and seriously, you should do it Today!   I mean it!  There have been several posts about this lately, and each time, a few more join the bandwagon.

 

So for this time, the first time, I'm first going to explain why you should be (oops I mean NEED to be) on Google +.  I'm then going to give a few tips and then a few recommendations on people you should follow.

 

Why Google +?  Well plain and simple, it's great SEO!  Using Google + in conjunction with Active Rain  is the perfect recipe to enhance your website's SEO. How?

  • First, this is the only social network that google is passing along Google juice on...so your posts can get indexed and as you link to your website (yes, I've seen on my own posts)


  • When people who are connected to you do google searches, your posts come up higher in their results (yes I've seen this...and I seem to come up multiple times and extra times)


  • Third, and probably most importantly, it can improve your author rank...which in turn will help boost you in the search results.  This will become more important over time.   ( it appears that this is helping my click through rate and hits to my site - this is anecdotal).


While I don't have scientific data, I will tell you that since I started using Google + and using it more actively, the hits to my website started to accelerate.  So, I highly encourage you to get on. Google + is not like Facebook.  When done right, it's much more interactive and the quality of content is much better.  I have to say that I've been learning a lot more of SEO and gotten some wonderful tips from reading articles shared on there as well as the strong knit AR group there.  We are all helping each other learn this platform and improve our SEO.  It's been highly productive and fun at the same time.

 

So, what seems to matter on Google +/What leads to success???

 

 1. Write good content.  Everything starts with good content.  I tend to post links to my blog posts (with an intro) and will often share items from Active Rain that are interesting and I try to share some SEO/Social media articles.  I also will reshare the posts that others have shared/written (similar to the reblog concept here).

 

 2. Get more followers.  Yes, the more followers you have, the more Google trusts you...after all, why would all those people follow you?  I currently have almost 2,000 followers.  Bill Gassett has almost 3,500, so he is doing something very right, and there are some out there with many many more.  In future posts, I'll share some tips on growing followers, but the most important thing...drum roll...is to provide great content.  And, of course the more followers you have, the greater chance that someone will shar

 

3.  Participation matters.  The more you post (without being spammy), the more it helps your authorship.  And, importantly, the more that you interact and others interact with you, the better.  All of this helps your authorrank.  The ideal is that you write a great post and others want to share it to their stream.  It is also wonderful when you get comments.  That give the post a boost, as well as your authorship.  And, getting +1's helps too (but not nearly as much as comments and shares...again similar to Active Rain, reblogs and comments on your post.

 

What you want to try to avoid:

1.  Just posting from Active Rain and never interacting.  While this is better than nothing, it won't get you nearly as far as interacting.  So, do a combo of both.

2.  Posting a ton of blogs/links all at once (including +1'ing all of your Active Rain posts at once).  This is going to annoy people.  And, I'm guessing Google doesn't look well on this either.

 

So, here are my tips for this week.

1.  Interact.  Read some posts, post some comments. and even share a few articles.  Maybe give some +1's to articles you like.  This will improve your authorship and you'll get more followers. 

 

2.  Organize your circles. And, do this early.  It will make your life so much easier, especially in filtering which posts you want to read (kind of similar to a subscriber list).  Among my circles are 1) priority, 2) Active Rain, 3) SEO people, 4) Local people, 5) Misc.  I have several others.  You can filter your results to only see the posts from 1 of these groups at a time.  I've now created this priority list which has the info from all the people I like to read/interact with (even though they may come from 4 or 5 groups).  It's a good way to prioritize my time on the higher quality conent. 

 

By the way, you can add people to more than one circle and it's very easy to shift people and out of circles.

 

3.  Follow others.  Many will follow you back.  I'm going to give other tips about this in the future, but for starters, follow the people I mention below.  You can click on them and when you click on their page, just hit the red button that says "add to circles."  Once you are on Google +, anytime you see someone, you can just hover over their name and do the same. 

 

4.  Mention others by name.  If you write a comment and then add a + sign followed by their name (no spaces), their name will be highlighted.  This is a nice way of recognizing others (and helping their authorship).  Also, they get an email notification.  If you write a post, and add people's names in the post, they'll get an email alert (and/or an alert on the upper right with the red box which shows the updates.  Many of us have done this to get input/advice from others.  Likewise, when you share someone's post, it's good to mention them by name like this.


5.  Make your posts public.  That way, google will index them.  It's just like have a rainmaker account on AR vs. writing members only posts (which are not indexed).

 

Who to follow:

What I want to try to do here is highlight a few Active Rainers each week.  I can only do a few each week, and it's a hard choice, especially since there are so many of us that are interacting now...I will get to everyone soon.  Also, while my focus on here will be to connect you w/ some great Active Rainers in a new setting, I'm also going to try to expose you to some others that are "doing things right."


And, for others using Google +, please feel free to reblog this and/or create your own version, as well as leave a link to your profile in the comments.


  • bill gassettBill Gassett - I think we all know Bill, and if you are not yet following him, you definitely should.  He is a master at Google + and interacting.  He shares so many wonderful articles on how to better use Google + and improve your SEO



  • melissa marroMelissa Marro While I first knew Melissa from AR (just a bit), I feel that I really got to know her on Google +.  One of the great things about her is that she asks so many great questions and gets the conversation going. I've learned a lot from her.  She's been a real giver in sharing info, sharing posts and even commenting on my wordpress blog.


  • carra rileyCarra Riley - I recognized Carra immediately from Active Rain.  I was impressed right away that she has over 13,000 followers.  Clearly, she is doing something right and she has taken Google + to a whole new level.  You have to follow her to learn what she is doing.  You'll see that first, she posts on a variety of topics and second is always giving back/sharing with the community. She has also participated and hosted many google hangouts.


  • bobby carrollBobby Carroll - Bobby is from Active Rain, but I didn't know him until I was on Google +.  I met him thanks to the other wonderful Active Rainers that were interacting with him.  He is from Dakno Real estate marketing and knows a ton about SEO and Social Media.  He has given us all so much advice on optimizing our profiles.  He is a must follow, too.


  • mark traphagenMark Traphagen He is an SEO guru and is always sharing interesting articles about SEO and Google +.  He has over 25,000 followers and he is definitely a cut above the rest.



  • stephanie davisStephanie Davis is one of the first people I started following when I first joined Google + (a year and a half ago).  I think she may be part of the Lucky Strikers Social Media club and she is right here in NYC.  She is a wealth of knowledge and has over 50,000 followers now. I love reading her posts. Again, she posts on a variety of topics including social media and just fun stuff that you really want to share.  She has hosted several meetings and webinars about how Google + can really help your real estate business.  I think she's become a psuedo Google + celebrity.

Anyway, I hope you'll join Google + (and feel free to follow me Debbie Gartner).  If I had to prioritize all the social media out there, I would put Google + first.  It's the only one that simultaneously improves your SEO and google authorship.  I highly recommend it.

For anyone who is using Google Plus, feel free to add your Google + URL below in the comments.

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