Google+ does not yet command the colossal membership numbers enjoyed by Facebook and Twitter, but thanks to its close integration into many other Google products, the platform is perhaps more crucial to your SEO success than any of the other social networks combined.
Here are 4 ways maintaining an active presence on Google+ can help you boost your search ranking and increase organic traffic to your resort’s website.
1.) PersonaliSed Search
Whenever someone makes a search while logged into their Google accounts, they are presented with personalised results based on the pages they have shared and businesses they have interacted with on Google+. In other words, Google recognizes an individual’s interests and preferences, and tailors the results it displays accordingly. This is all part of Google’s push to provide only the most relevant results for its users.
Of course, to take advantage of this effect and climb the search results of your guests, you need to claim your Google+ page and initiate a campaign to gather followers and drive +1s, comments and shares.
2.) Google+ Local
Google+ Local is Google’s social and interactive business directory, designed to help users find and rate nearby businesses online. Setting up a page on the platform is another great way to achieve better visibility in the SERPs. Each time a user makes a search for a particular service, Google pulls information from relevant Google+ Local pages to display in search results. If a user searches for a specific brand, they are presented with a profile image of the business, location map, reviews, address and contact details. All this information is pulled from the brand’s Google+ business page – if they have one and have taken time to complete it fully of course!
3.) Social Media
Google’s search bots crawl the posts on Google+, index these posts and incorporate them into search results. Yet again, this gives content creators on Google+ an exposure boost in the SERPs – and the effect works even with less recent posts.
Google has incorporated pages from social networks into the search results before, but in the past, it’s been predominately profile and community pages instead of posts. Needless to say, the search company gives preference to its own platform above every other social media network when it comes to ranking social content in the SERPs.
4.) Publisher Rich Snippets and Author Rank
One of the most recent ways Google+ is influencing what internet users see in search results is through Authorship and Publisher rich snippet markup. Simply by adding a code on your resort’s website and linking it to your property’s Google+ page, you can ensure that additional information from your Google+ page is incorporated into search results, this can include your ‘author’ name, your follower count on Google+ and images from your posts. Moving forward, it seems Google+ won’t be the only social media site used to determine social popularity and relevance, but it is thought it will play an important role in the algorithm the search giant uses to determine author rank.
The growth of Google+ has made social media and SEO more closely entwined than ever before. If you want to reach your resort’s full ranking potential, and reach more guests than your competitors, it’s essential you incorporate a Google+ presence into your online marketing strategy as soon as possible.
How is your property using Google+ to your advantage? Let us know in the comments below!
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