Google_ for Business_ How Google's Social Network Changes Everything - Chris Brogan [71]
Does this mean you should rush out and seek to be part of yet another numbers game? It depends on what you want from your experience on Google+. Remember, you can’t make people add you to a circle, so your only real option is to be interesting. (You could beg, but that wouldn’t be attractive, would it?)
On the other side, perhaps you should consider who you’ve added to your circles because if this is how Google starts to understand who you value, it might be interesting to know how that impacts your search efforts and any other measures of influence that Google might try to understand.
Circle who you want, and don’t worry about how this impacts any search algorithms. To be circled by influential people, say interesting and unique things. Be helpful. Comment on their posts with meaningful information. Or just leave it to chance and focus on creating useful material for your core audience. (That’s what many people do.)
Serving Suggestions for Using Google+ to Improve Your Search Results
Building search value inside Google+ simply requires that you create posts with terms that others might tend to search for later in Google. Not unlike other web pages, there’s no value to stuffing the post with repetitive search terms (Google actually discounts for actions like this), but if you write something that would appeal to a human reader, chances are you’ll have created something within the parameters of what Google considers okay. Do this with an example.
If you sell lobsters, for instance, you might write a post that looks like this:
Maine Lobster Shipped Anywhere
When the team at JR Booker’s Lobster says it ships lobsters anywhere, it really means it. It recently received an order for a half-dozen lobsters to be sent up to the International Space Station! The little fellers are going to be astronauts!
Here’s a picture of the lobsters before putting them in the special packing container that can ensure their fresh arrival into space.
(with an appropriate picture, of course)
This is (obviously?) a fictitious example. I’m not sure anyone’s had lobsters in space. But in this case, the post is titled with something that might be searched on in Google, “Maine Lobster” but also “Lobster Shipped.” “It ships lobsters anywhere” is in the first line of the post, in case that’s what someone might ask about. Other things could be added, such as the company’s phone number, a street address, and an email address. But then it would start to look like an ad. That works sometimes but is not so great all the time.
But overall, this post might be of interest to the stream at large. It has some search terms embedded in it, near the name of the company, and hopefully with some potential for being found useful to someone who stumbles upon the post out in the larger world of Google search. The goal to make this useful to a potential buyer should be met. But you can consider a few other areas.
Ensure that some of the links in your profile use good anchor text. (The blue words of the links should be words that relate to a search term that you hope someone will find valuable.) For instance, I sell a product called “Blog Topics,” so I put a link to that offering with the anchor text “writing advice and blog topics.” Try this. It won’t hurt.
Use Your Profile
Although covered in a previous chapter, make sure your profile on Google+ has several ways for people to contact you. To continue with the previous example, if you’re James Richmond Booker, and you run JR Booker’s Lobsters, you’ll want the company website listed in the links on the right of your profile. You’ll want your introduction to talk about how your company ships lobsters anywhere. You’ll want to enable the “send email” function, if you are willing to check your