Why Authors and Business Owners Can't Afford to Ignore Google+

I work with authors every day via MindStir Media. Most of my authors use social media on a daily or weekly basis to promote their books. I know authors find it difficult to keep track of all the social media opportunities out there. It seems like a new social network pops up every month. Admittedly, I find that frustrating as well. At the moment I mainly focus on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogger, Wordpress, YouTube, LinkedIn ... and most recently -- Google+.

Don't get me wrong, I've been on Google+ for a while -- maybe a month or two after it was made available to the general public -- but until recently I didn't see much value there. Facebook seemed much more active and let's face it: It's hard to keep up with another social network. But Google+ is now the second largest social network according to Wikipedia, making it a force that you as an author or business owner simply cannot ignore. Not only is Google+ a place where you can network with other authors (and potential readers or clients/customers), it's also a great tool for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I won't get into all the details here because there are other articles on the Internet that do a great job explaining (in great detail) Google+ and its impact on SEO (including charts), but essentially Google treats +1's as a "social signal." Social signals -- including +1's, Google+ shares, Facebook likes and comments, etc. -- are treated by Google as "votes," indicating popularity to the search engine. Research shows that the more votes a page has the higher ranking the page will receive...

Google+, a Google product, apparently has a greater impact on SEO than Facebook likes and comments and Twitter retweets and other social signals. This is really good to know especially if you're an author or business with a blog/website. Not only should you be active on your own Google+ account, you should also add Google +1 buttons on your blog/website so readers can +1 each individual post/page. If one of your posts/pages is a huge hit and attracts lots of +1's there's a chance Google search will give that content more visibility (i.e. higher ranking), which should result in more traffic to your blog/website and potentially more sales!

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This post is sponsored by Page SEO Company, a top NH SEO agency.