When it comes to local SEO, there is a large component that relates to social media. As a matter of fact, Google has started placing a lot of emphasis on businesses that have a large social media following. The monitor websites and see how much traffic you garner for your website through your social media efforts. The reason for this is that Google wants to rank websites in their search engine results pages based on the value they provide to their readership. By having a large number of people follow you on social media that share your content around the Internet, you must have something important to offer, at least in the eyes of Google, which is why they rank you much higher on their search engine results pages than those who don’t spend a lot of time on their social media efforts.
While there are a plethora of social media platforms out there: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and many others, that can help you get the word out about your website, there is one platform that many businesses and even marketing professionals tend to forget about: Google+. Google+ is a relative newcomer to the social media scene. However, Google places more emphasis on this virtual property than any of the other sites. Why? Because they can glean more information from it about your business, your website and your followers.
But, Google+ doesn’t have near the population of bigger sites like Facebook and Twitter, so why would it be more important to Google? Outside of the obvious ownership stake in Google+, Google places special emphasis on Google+ business profiles because Google+ is the only social media platform, so far, that can’t be manipulated through third party apps. Think about it for a minute. All of the leading social media platforms have apps produced by third parties that allow used to schedule posts, auto create comments, and even purchase fans, likes and followers. Because of these inherent weaknesses in the system, Google doesn’t place a lot of faith in the popularity of many businesses on these platforms. However, Google+ doesn’t have third party apps that can system generate interactions or followers, meaning that the popularity created on this platform is genuine.
This means that if you are in need of a new avenue to help boost your website for both organic SEO as well as local SEO, you need to create a Google+ profile and begin building your following today. Experts have indicated that over the next few months, Google+ will become a very large influence when it comes to getting your website positioned well in search engine results pages. Add a +1 button to the bottom of all of your pages, encourage your followers on mainstream social media to follow you on Google+ and share your content via the +1 button and helping you create a buzz through Google+. It may be the most important move you can make for your website and your business. Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with Google+ today.
