Tag Archives: G+

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You’re optimizing the wrong page on your Google +

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This blog was posted a while back, and I thought I would update it today. So much has changed on G+ that the truth is you really shouldn’t try to “optimize” your G+ profile or posts much at all.  The value of G+ posts on SEO is highly overstated, as a stand alone practice.

USe your G+ profile like any other about you page.

You’re optimizing the wrong page on your Google +

I had a discussion with Stephan Hovnanian ( https://plus.google.com/105076725141939280120/about , who is someone you might want to follow by the way on Google Plus) about optimizing your Google plus profile. Here’s the deal in my opinion. People are always talking about “optimizing” your profile, when that’s a long term losing game.

Your profile page is like a scrolling screen. Google probably see’s every post you make as a new page, and every time you make another post about cute cats, or your amazing insight into… whatever… every post you made previously gets pushed down the page (or buried under more stuff). That causes your links in those posts to gradually diminish in value, both from a readership standpoint (come on, when was the last time you read more than 3 or 4 of the most current posts on a profile page) but also from a SEO value.

Your “About Page” on G+

You could be optimizing your “About ” page, and getting far more SEO value. The About page doesn’t scroll, and is attached to your profile page. Every time you get a mention of your about page or add it as a link on an decent authority site, you are getting far more value when it comes to SEO.  Not that you want to ignore all the very cool and important ways to utilize your profile and posts.  That IS important. But a complete focus on your profile is a short term strategy.  If you build the value of your about page…. it will naturally build the visibility of your profile, and… you don’t have to constantly update, plus, mention, post, engage…

Places to add your About Page URL

Here are places you should mention and add your About page:

  • Your Facebook page

  • Your Linkedin Profile

  • Your Web site  (the Google badge goes to your profile, why not add an additional mention  and link to your About page)

  • Any other social directories you participate in.

  • Twitter

  • Any forums you participate in

  • Blog comments you make from time to time

  • On your blog

  • Add to your email signature

I bet you  can think of many more. So what happens if I do all this you ask?  Well, all the things you hope will happen as far as your sites, blogs and authority will get better.

Needless to say, if you are going to start paying more attention to your About page, please read up on all of the good info out there on how to build a good one.  And trust me, it can be a very powerful page for your internet visibility, and therefore every page you have a link to on that page..

So, if someone were to ask me, would you rather have a link to your site in a post on a profile which slowly just loses it’s value as it sinks deeper and deeper into the G+ (or Facebook, or whatever) catalog of millions of posts that are made every day, or on an About page, which never moves down into that cavernous digital vault of old posts.  Which makes more sense?

By Mike Bayes. My About Page on Google Plus


 

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Google Plus for SEO. A Fellini Movie Set in Algorithms.

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Google + for SEO. A Fellini Movie Set in Algorithms.

SEO practitioners are, by their very nature, curious. I think this is the main reason they continue to research and track and measure in a business area where there are no “right answers, or at least, not that stay right  for very long. SEO is a changing landscape like no other I’ve experienced in business. It’s more analogous to a game of chess where the rules change every three moves. The queen becomes the pawn, the pawn becomes a soccer ball. Its a Fellini movie set in algorithms.

According to wikipedia.org “Curiosity killed the cat is a proverb used to warn of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation. An easier definition of the phrase curiosity killed the cat would be that being curious can sometimes lead to trouble”. As SEO companies we all understand that we ultimately are lead to trouble when we become completely focused on the newest SEO rage, currently the Google plus platform.

It seems like every 30 minutes there is a new post (on G+)  about the miracles of G+  and SEO.  It’s a mass conscientious thing. One well known SEO makes a post or blog stating G+ has potential, and then every young SEO gun slinger wants to prove it is so. The young guns do a lot of the early testing,  and when one or two stumble upon some curious correlation between say… the alt tag in your g+  profile picture and one high ranking low competition keyword, the content marketing crowd goes to work flaming the fires of curiosity, all for the benefit of traffic, not truth.

Even if all of this discourse on Google plus for SEO has a substantial amount of truth in it, the fact remains, (and this is where so many of us fail, and get “killed”), there is no one historic case you can point out where an SEO gold mine platform, wasn’t converted conveniently by  Google  into just another web page over time, leaving those who invested too heavily in it, poorer than when they began.  Can any one who has been working in the SEO community for more than a few years, honestly say, that even IF G+ is the greatest SEO platform in the world today, that in a blink of an eye, it won’t just become another web page or site, like any other, at any moment.

We should be curious…  but diverse. We should view all new trends and correlations with historical perspective, and not let the current mania du jour  form our operating principles.

 By Mike BAyes


 

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