Why You Need Google and Google Plus More than It Needs You

Does Google make your head spin sometimes with all the changes to their algorithms? Do you feel like Penguins, Pandas and Pigeons are for the birds? We need Google because it creates tools to make our mission to reach our customers online easier. Yes, this means we have to play by their rules, but so does everyone else.

Google has our and our customers’ best interests at heart. Google Plus is just one of many tools Google created to help us reach our customers. (We will go into more detail about some of their other tools at the end of this post.)

Don’t think of Google+ as another social network you have to use, but instead a tool to reach your customers!

And Here is WHY …

Google Plus Fast Facts

• Google+ isn’t overcrowded at this point, so you can reach more people when you post.
• The blog posts you share via Google+ get higher preference in SERPs when you/your brand has been circled.
• Not everyone knows the ins and outs of Google Plus yet so it is not as easily gamed—organic is still king on G+.

Of course, this isn’t everything about G+. This list could go on and on. Here are the things I think you need to know right now.

Three Positive Features About G+

1. You can assign those you follow to a specific circle and send them an email when you post something special. They have to have circled you back for this to work, though. Don’t overuse this feature. If people start spamming with it, Google will take it away I am sure.
2. You can invite your circles to an event. As someone who plans events and attends a lot of them that others should know about, I really like this.
3. You can tag specific people or companies when you post, regardless if they have circled you back or not.

There are tons more features about Google Plus. I love this guy Martin Shervington, and recommend you read his stuff and circle him. By the way an example of the power of G+ is he added me to a circle recommending others circle me. Reaching him and getting this attention would have been a lot more difficult on an overcrowded social media platform.

Three Not-So-Positive Features About G+

1. Profiles cannot monitor, post or respond to those in your circles via a 3^rd party tool. (You can post to your local or brand pages via 3^rd party tools. Thank goodness!)
2. Google does not make it easy for local or brand pages to circle people. It can be done, but it feels like getting to the right place is like a contortionist act sometimes.
3. People don’t circle you back easily or quickly, especially true on pages. Often times, you will have a local or brand page with lots of views, but very few people have it circled.

So why do you need Google and Google + more than it needs you? Well, how do I say this kindly… It’s GOOGLE! It is the largest search engine and controls the 2^nd largest – YouTube. Enough said? I hope so.

We want our local businesses and brands to be seen online. Using Google and Google+ is one of the fastest and most direct routes to make this happen and it doesn’t cost a dime. (Except your time.)

Google has been kind to us and created tools to make our work easier:

• Google Analytics for us to understand what pages are visited on our websites, how often and ways to better identify why customers leave the site.
• Google Keyword Planner so we can easily know what our customers are searching for and give them what they want.
• Google Webmaster Tools to submit our sitemaps and easily identify broken links.
• Google My Business to make it easy for business owners.
• Google Plus Hangouts so we can have free webinars with our friends and potential customers online.
• Google+ so if we post there we can increase our chances to dominate search results.

This is just a few of the tools Google has created for us. Google listens to its users. It takes a little time for changes to apply, but Google does listen and make necessary adjustments.

An example of that is:

Google recently made some changes separating Hangouts from Gmail from Google+. You can now have one without the other. This change is good because you now have only one G+ profile out there drifting around vs. one for each email address that is managed by Google. This was a problem Google heard and fixed.

Thank you Google and Google Plus for keeping us on our toes and our learning curves on full speed ahead.

Comment below something you have learned about Google / Google Plus and how it has helped your business. No rants here – we want positive feedback, so each one who reads this can grow their business and brand on Google!

Lissa Duty

Lissa Duty is Social Media Coach, Author, Speaker & Trainer. 20 years of marketing, administrative and management experience working to grow your business.

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