Google+ for SEO

For most people, Google+ seems somewhat of a ghost town. And while it’s true that certain communities are definitely active on there, in general it’s nowhere near as active as the other comparable social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

But are your Google rankings important to you? Does it matter how high you are in the search results for topics related to your business?

Those things don’t matter to everyone. But if they’re important to you, you should have a minimum viable Google+ presence.

A minimum viable Google+ presence

“But Tim,” you may be asking, “what’s a minimum viable Google+ presence?”

First off, kudos on using the plus sign in your question. That’s amazing, considering I’m assuming you asked it out loud.

Second, I’m so glad you asked, and I’m happy to answer.

A minimum viable Google+ presence is made up of some one-time activities and some ongoing activities.

One-time activities

Invest some time in setting up your Google+ Page. You do that by setting yourself up in Google My Business. If you can verify your business via phone, you should be able to do this in 30 minutes to two hours, depending on your comfort level and how much information you have handy immediately.

If you’re already publishing to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, you’ll want to set up an account on a site like Hootsuite, Buffer, or SocialPilot. Really any services that lets you schedule updates to those sites and Google+ will work.

You’ll want to connect all your social media accounts to your chosen scheduling site so you can do your ongoing activities.

Ongoing activities

Once you’ve got everything set up, use the services you set up to publish your social media, and simply check the Google+ option as well each time you schedule social media.

At minimum, I recommend you post every other day. For most, daily is even better, and I find that twice a day is the highest frequency that many organizations can handle before they have to employ someone in-house to handle their digital marketing.

The one-time activities may take a few hours, but the ongoing activities shouldn’t be much more than you’re already doing, assuming you’re already active on another social media platform.

If search engine rankings are important to you, this approach to a minimum viable Google+ presence helps with some low-hanging SEO fruit.