Do More Google+ Followers Equal Better SEO?

How many followers do you currently have on your Google+ page? Without looking, how many of those followers are genuine people interested in your services?

When engineers built Google+, they knew they wanted to develop a force to be reckoned with in the SEO world. Google+ content is crawled, indexed, and ranked in Google search just like your individual webpages.

Quality over Quantity

The quality of the resource is much more important to Google than the number of followers the author has. Yes, Google does look at the number of followers, friends, and connections you have on social media, but you shouldn’t focus solely on the number of Google+ followers you have. It is all about the quality of the connections you have so that Google can determine if the author or business is a reputable source of information. A well-known company is more likely to rank higher for a post than an account with a low-quality following.

Google+ and SEO

There’s more to Google+ and SEO than just the number of followers you have. Let’s talk a little bit about links.

Social Shares Are Great For Link Building

Search engines deem your website “a quality source for information” when more people link to it. Google follows backlinks in order to determine how to rank a website. Try thinking of links as “votes.” The more “votes” you get, the better Google thinks your website is. Google focuses mainly on social media for link building since it is much harder to manipulate social shares. Increasing your number of quality followers on Google + will help with:

• Brand exposure

• Direct and indirect traffic that will generate leads

• Search engine rankings

Links are harder to build nowadays for SEO ranking purposes. Thanks to companies who made fake link schemes, Google now penalizes companies who generate illegitimate backlinks. To generate more web traffic and leads, you need to utilize different internet properties—like social media!

Since Google+ information is crawled just like your website, it’s important to have quality information on your Google+ page. Facebook and Twitter are also important when it comes to your marketing efforts; however, both exchange little to no data with Google—limiting their SEO capabilities.

Being social is the fastest way to expand your presence online and Google+ is the best platform to use for SEO. However, Google+ is only the third most-popular social media network. So, regardless of how much you share on the platform, there is a limit on the number of people you are going to reach.

Google+ and Local Listings

Google+ ranks in organic searches and also acts as a listing for local SEO. If you do not have a Google+ page for your business, you should do so solely for the purpose of getting listed locally. If you have a Google+ page, make sure to claim your business page in Google My Business (formerly Google Places.)

Google+ Followers

Say you are an HVAC company with 2,000 Google+ followers. If most of your followers are your 16-year-old daughter’s friends or family members from out of town, you can almost guarantee they will not be calling you for your services. As a business, you should be following influencers and supporters online who are genuinely interested in your services to ensure that they begin to share your company’s content with their network.

Know Your Target Audience

Back to the HVAC example, if your target audience is homeowners between the ages of 30 and 60 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, you should be connected with people who fit those demographics. It is also beneficial to connect with vendors and manufacturers that you work with as well as current and past clients. Knowing your audience and sharing worthy content will up the chances of your followers sharing your link. More shares = more traffic. More traffic = more leads.

Who Should I Follow?

If you’re making an effort to post on Google+ and you only have three followers, your posts will not generate the same buzz as a company with 3,000 followers. The more quality followers you have, the more likely your posts will be shared. In turn, the more shares you get, the more reliable Google thinks your website is, and the higher your rank will be.

Work on following quality accounts on Google+; they will most likely follow back if you share similar services.

At the end of the day, it’s all about creating great content for your visitors. When you do this, you will find that your website will naturally rank in Google search. Sharing your content on Google+ could help it to rank higher and faster. Google+ is a great tool for generating backlinks to your website at little to no cost. The links you post on Google+ will lead followers back to your website, if your followers are genuinely interested in your line of service. In addition, your Google+ posts might also rank in search engine results as well, allowing you to maximize your online real estate.

Get on the right track towards getting your business to rank on search engines by building an authentic social media presence. If you would like help developing a social media campaign, contact one of our social media experts—we’ll be glad to help!