Detailed insight into creating a Google+ business page!

Google is now allowing businesses, brands and any non-human entities to participate in its Google+ social network, through new Google+ Pages.

What follows is a detailed insight into creating a Google+ business page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creating A Google+ Business Page:
Those using the create a page tool will have the following five categories from which to choose:

• Local Business or Place
• Product or Brand
• Company, Institution or Organization
• Arts, Entertainment or Sports
• Other

Once you reach the page creation tool, this is the sort of welcome you will get:

 

Administering A Page:

The creator of the page is the administrator too. As of now, there are no features to support multiple administrators, but this option should be added soon. There are no business name URLs yet, but only a long string of numbers. Google has not given any information on when this may change. Once you change the name of your page, your account verification will be null and void and you will need to get the account verified again.

Like Facebook, you will access a page through a personal account and can choose whether you want to use Google+ as a person or a page.

 

Multiple Pages:

You can operate multiple Google pages from your personal account. As Google says, “Pages can be made for a variety of different entities whereas profiles can only be made for people. If you’re a business, you could have a page for the overall business (say Pepsi) as well as for a particular product (say Diet Pepsi) as well as for an event (say the Dew Tour).”

This is a great idea for brands with multiple products. It allows you to have an individual pages for each product.

What You Can Do On A Page:

On a business page, you can share pictures, videos and links apart from chatting as in conduct hangouts.

As of yet there is no way to automatically post on a page using native and third-party tools. Most likely the integration tools will come as part of a future Google+ API release. As a page, you can follow those fans that have followed you. This is totally opposite to Twitter, where Pages can follow people first.

How Fans will Follow Your Page:

On Google+, for a fan to follow a page, they have to “Add this page to their Circles”. If the fans click the +1 button on the page, the page will still be out of their Circles. Similarly, if a fan clicks on the “Add To Circles” it does not mean that the page will be “+1ed” too. The +1 count that you see on the pages shows the number of people who have +1ed the page.

This number is the number of +1s the Google+ page has gotten and not the +1s of the website.

Get A Badge!

In an effort to inspire brands to get followed, Google+ is launching a new icon with badges. Go to this badge maker page to explore further. At present, you can get an icon from here and use that in linking your site to a Google+ page.

Pages For Local Businesses:

Local business pages have the additional option of entering phone numbers, so that people may connect quickly. As Google said, “Local Google+ pages are unique from other categories of pages because they have features that allow customers to easily connect with that business’s physical location. For example, local pages include a map of the business’s location and feature its address, phone number, and hours of operation.”

How to Add Pages To Circles From Google Search:

You can now reach people searching for your brand or business on Google, by adding pages to circles from Google search. This can be done either by including Google+ pages in search results, or via a new tool- called Direct Connect.

If users want to connect to a Google+ page straight away, they have to add a plus (+) sign before their query and they will be taken to that Google+ page. Like +Google, +Pepsi, and +Toyota.

How To Link Pages To Sites?

If you link your site to your page, then the chances of a Direct Connect get enabled. Here is how you can link your site to the Google+.

• Rel=”publisher” (this is to link your site to the Google+ page)

To protect unauthorized users from creating your page (as at present anybody can create a page for a site they are not even associated with), Google recommends the use of the new verification icon and badge. This badge is only awarded if the page is connected to a website. This ensures that only authentic people behind the page can get the badge.

No Contest Allowed on Google+ Pages!

Google is pretty clear it wants nothing to do with liabilities of hosting contests. One reason Google has taken this stand because it wants to avoid spam and potential fraud contests that would be associated with the network.

It can also be seen as a move to be differentiating itself from Facebook, which allows businesses to run contests while following set guidelines and using certain apps. But this has led to many pages 'bribing' people (giveaways and free gifts) to 'LIKE' their pages. Maybe Google wants to avoid the same when it comes to 'Add To Circles' or '+1ing' a page.

Whether it is brands, products, companies, groups, they are prohibited by Google+’s Policies to hold any sort of contests on their platform. A look at the Google’s Google+ Pages Contest and Promotion Policies section, will tell you very clearly the huge 'don't' that has been placed before holding contests, sweepstakes, offers, coupons or similar promotions. The only 'do' is to post a link on the Google+ page that will take users to a different site hosting the promotions.

New Google+ Pages will likely have a dramatic impact on +1s in AdWords !

Google is now allowing businesses, brands and any non-human entity to participate in its Google+ social network, through new Google+ Pages that are launching today, promised to be available to everyone shortly.

This will likely have a dramatic impact on +1s in AdWords.

When businesses create a Page on Google+, they can link the page to their web site URLs and also to their AdWords account. When that’s done, +1s for any of the linked URLs — on web sites or landing pages for AdWords ads — will all accrue to the brand, making the numbers much larger.

Share This and Add This Integrated With Google Analytics!

Recently Google Analytics has officially announced integration with social sharing services ShareThis and AddThis. Now webmasters can get the social analytics sans the code implementation.

As Google Analytics says, “To enable the integration for all of your AddThis buttons, you are now just one line of code away, and ShareThis users don’t have to do a thing. If you have Google Analytics installed, and you are using a ShareThis widget, simply login into Google Analytics and check out your new social reports!”

So now with a simple code, webmasters can collect content interaction metrics from sharing tools like Google+, Facebook, Twitter and others. This integration allows for the integration of the other sharing tools except Google+ (which is tracked automatically).

Google Explains Improved transparency and choice !

Google is always trying to make ads more relevant to users online. Earlier this week Google released improved transparency. When you search a query in Google today you will see up in the top right corner of the ad "Why these ads?" This system is to help users only see the ads that are relevant to them.

When you click on the Why these ads? you will have a pop up that will read "This ad is based on your current search terms. Visit Google's Ads Preferences Manager to learn more, block specific advertisers, or opt out of personalized ads."

You can now login to your Gmail account and block any specific advertiser per the search query that you just searched. You can choose to block ads from specific advertisers or opt out of personalized ads entirely.

Google Changes Search Algorithm!

Google announced a change to its search algorithm that the company says will impact 35% of Web searches. The change builds on top of its previous “Caffeine” update in order to deliver more up-to-date and relevant search results, specifically those in areas where freshness matters. This includes things like recent events, hot topics, current reviews and breaking news items.

Google says that the new algorithm knows that different types of searches have different freshness needs, and weighs them accordingly. For example, a search for a favorite recipe posted a few years ago may still be popular enough to rank highly, but searches for an unfolding news story or the latest review of the iPhone 4S should bring the newer, fresher content first, followed by older results.

Google Include AdWords at the Bottom of SERPs !

We mentioned couple of months earlier that Google is testing ads placement in the bottom of the SERP result.

Turns out, Google has now confirmed it to be a new feature. It will now start serving AdWords at the bottom of SERPs in addition to the ads at the top and to the right of the page.

Google Jerry Dischler, Director of Search Ads Product Management, blogged “Starting today, ads that have previously shown to the side of the results may in some cases appear below them. We dynamically optimize each search page, including its ads, to provide the best experience for our users.”

Initiative by Google: ‘India Get Your Business Online.’

Google India is launching a nationwide initiative that offers them a chance to get online with a free website, personalized domain and hosting.

This initiative by Google is termed- ‘India Get Your Business Online.’ Google wants to break through the barriers stopping small businesses from getting their services and products online. The search engine giant is offering them a quick, easy and free tool to set up and host a website. The program is to run through a period of three years, and Google India aims to get more than 500,000 small and medium businesses online.

Google has taken up this program in collaboration with web hosting provider HostGator. This is the process that the business owners need to follow:

• Log on to www.indiagetonline.in to get to the free tool
• The tool is empowered to help users get a free, easy-to-build website and web hosting (This will be powered by HostGator for a whole year.)
• Business owners will be getting a customized domain too (.in) along with tools, training and resources to help them run their online businesses successfully.

Google’s new initiative to Mobilize your site!

Google has launched a new site - http://www.howtogomo.com/en/ . The purpose of the site is to act as a mobile website training and testing ground. Webmasters can key in their sites to see how mobile friendly their sites are, and see their sites exactly as users see them on their Smartphone’s.

Webmasters can key in their sites to see how mobile friendly their sites are, and see their sites exactly as users see them on their Smartphone’s.

There is a feature on the GoMo site called the GoMoMeter that analyzes your website, and provides a downloadable report of customized recommendations for mobile optimization. The site also gives the site owners the option to find mobile site developers, and see for themselves some recommendations of mobile friendly sites.

This site is an effort to encourage site owners to create mobile-friendly websites. Google has stated in their blog post that webmasters lose potential business when their sites are not optimized for mobiles.

Google introduce AdWords Express for UK and Germany !

Google has made its AdWords Express available in the UK and Germany, as the internet giant targets small businesses with a simpler and faster way to advertise on its search ad network.

The service, which was launched in the US in July, is designed for “local businesses looking for local customers. It's for business owners who want the benefits of a targeted online ad campaign without having to spend time managing it.”

The process is much faster that standard AdWords as listings. Users just have to enter their Ad Headline, Ad Description, and their maximum monthly budget and Google will do the rest.

In a blog post, Google said: “AdWords Express will figure out which searches should trigger your ad to appear and displays it when these searches happen.

“Your ad will be shown in the Ads section of search results pages—on the top or right hand side—and in Google Maps with a distinctive blue pin. Customers can see your ad whether they’re searching on laptops or mobile phones.”

When a local search is made, an ad will appear above the organic listings and Google will also put a blue pin on the map so the location of the business is easily visible.

All users in the UK and Germany should be able to start using their service this week.