7 Ways To Increase Blog Traffic with Google+

Recently I’ve noticed authors’ posts (and their profile picture) attaining first page rankings on Google due to leveraging the power of Google+.

Here are 7 ways to increase blog traffic with Google+

1. Google+ Communities

This is a great traffic tip I’ve used recently that teaches you how to leverage existing audiences within Google+ communities by sending them to your own website or blog.

Example
The Star wars community has over 89,000 members. When you become a member you’re able to share text, photos, links or videos with the other members.

How to find a Google+ community

  • Create a Google account if you don’t have one already or login to your existing one
  • Fill out your Google Plus profile
  • Click the drop down menu at the top left of your Google+ page under “Home”
  • Click on “Communities”
  • Enter a keyword in the search box to find communities related to your niche
  • Look for a community or communities with 1000 members or more
  • Once you’ve found a niche community click “join this community.”

How to leverage the traffic from your Google+ community

Use the 80/20 rule when sharing content. This means 80% of the time you should share valuable content before promoting your own products or services.

For example if you’ve written a great blog post or created a powerful video then share it with your community.

If you place a link in the description all the plus ones count towards your link.

Start experimenting with Google+ NOW. It’s a very powerful strategy for leveraging an existing audience to generate more traffic.

2. Google Authorship

Google Search Results
Have you noticed many search results display an image beside the content. This is known as Google Authorship. Your profile image captures the attention of visitors seeking information for the keyword they Googled. This gets them to explore YOUR content over other content that’s listed on the same page which don’t contain images.

Here’s how to link your Google+ profile to the content you created:

You can link content you publish on a specific domain (ie www.domain.com) to your Google+ profile.

  • Sign up for Google+ and create a Google+ profile.
  • Upload a high quality headshot
  • Make sure the byline containing your name appears on each page of your content (for example, “By John Smith”).
  • Make sure your byline name matches the name on your Google+ profile.
  • Verify you have an email address (such as johnsmith@domain.com) on the same domain as your content.

For more information on Google Authorship visit:

Google Authorship
How to Get Visitors To Discover Your Great Content In Google
How To Use Rel Author for Higher More Visible Search Engine Rankings

3. Connect your Google+ page to your blog

Connecting your Google+ page to your website or blog helps you get more followers. If your badge is prominently displayed it will cause visitors to click on it.

View the example Google+ Badge displayed on
Web Marketing Strategies About Page

How to add a Google+ Badge to your website

4. Get readers to Plus One your content

Encourage readers to +1 your content by including social sharing buttons at the top of your posts. The easiest way to do this on a WordPress Site is to install the shareholic plugin

What are the benefits?

The number of +1′s a page gets helps it to show up in search results, even when the searcher is not logged into Google+. When you see a search result where the author belongs to 1000s of Google+ circles you’re more inclined to click on those results because of the social proof.

5. Completely fill out your Google+ Profile

Google prioritizes different areas of your profile for both on-page optimization and in search results. For example the first 55 characters of your Introduction are important for search results within Google+ because it’s what appears first in the search engines.

6. Google Hangouts

Hangouts give your business a great opportunity to engage in a highly personal way with potential customers. For example you can have webinars or meetings with people in your niche by holding a group video chat even if they live in a remote location.

Ultimate Guide to Google Hangouts
How to Hold a Google+ Hangout and Why You Should

7. Use Google+ for Networking Opportunities

One of the key features of Google Plus is “Circles”. It’s a highly effective way to categorize your contacts for different interests and network with them. For example one of my interests is customizing Genesis Child Themes for web design clients. By interacting with others who share the same interests I improve my web designing abilities.

Want to know how to use Google+ for your business?

Download the Amazon Kindle Ebook by clicking the image on the right or visit:
Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything
(2nd Edition) (Que Biz-Tech)

Wolframalpha – a computational search engine that compliments Google

Google has been the dominant search engine for many years and still covers 60% of the searches over other search engines. Wolframalpha is different to Google in that it’s a a computational search engine. This means it users numerous databases to compute likely answers to questions.

I took wolframalpha (wolframalpha.com) for a spin and was impressed with it’s speedy feedback. Here’s some examples you can try:

Enter any date (e.g. a birth date)
Enter any town (e.g. a home town)
Enter any two stocks
Enter any calculation
Enter any math formula
Enter any two first names
Enter any food
Enter any measurement
Enter any chemical formula
Enter any musical notes

Pros

It’s extremely good at getting answers for any kind of calculations. It was created by an English mathematical scientist so you would expect it to calculate data very well.

For example it you enter red + yellow it will show you orange and present the hexadecimal data, nearest named colors and complimentary colors.

Cons

Since the search engine is still in it’s infancy it did not return searches for all my queries.

Recommendation

I would use it primarily for calculations or mathematical data but not use it as a replacement for Google but rather as a complimentary search engine.

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Do you want to attract targeted visitors to your web site,
receive high search engine rankings and obtain lots of backlinks?

Please visit my Search Engine Optimization Services page to view my SEO packages.

Market Research – Will Your Ebook Be Profitable? Part 2

Google is one of the best tools to conduct market research on your ebook topic. It’s the most popular search engine people use to find information. Using the list of the web sites below will help determine if your ebook idea will be a profitable one.

google.com/trends – provides trends of what people are searching for.

www.google.com/alerts – subscribe to google alerts to receive up to date news based on your topic. This content can also be used to update your blog.

Google.com – use quotes around your keyword to display the number of sites in google. Not using quotes will give you a larger number because it includes other words mixed in with your primary keyword.

allintitle:keyword – enter allintitle:keyword in the google search box to find sites that display your keyword in the title of their web site.

allinanchor:keyword – enter allintitle:keyword in the google search box to find sites that display your keyword in the anchor text.

link:www.competitorssite.com – enter link:www.competitorssite.com in the yahoo.com search box to display the number of backlinks for a competing site.

Forums and Blogs
To find a list of forums or blogs in your niche enter keyword+forum or keyword+blog in the Google search box. Participate in conversations related to your niche by interacting in the forums and commenting on blogs.

Survey your niche
Use http://www.surveymonkey.com/ to survey potential customers in your niche.

Per Per Click
Create a pay per click campaign to determine if people are interested in your niche. Write different ads to see which one pulls the best then use this content in your ebook and on your web site.

Read
“The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords”

and

“Find your best keywords using PPC”

Note: Use an excel spreadsheet to display the results of your research. This makes it much easier to view the whole process
and decide what topic you will write your ebook about.

Working through this market research phase will help determine if your ebook will be profitable. You will know where your audience resides on the Net, what the latest trends are, how much advertisers are willing to pay how popular your topic is and if you can make money with it.

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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization