Geo-Targeting

It is important to include an address into your Google+ page so that when someone in your area is doing a Google search, Google knows to pick your page over another who is not in the area. Google tries to deliver the most convenient results to its searchers, so make sure it is convenient for them to find out where your business is located.

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Multiple Admins

The best way to start growing connections on your Google+ page is to invite people that are connected with you on your personal profile. Google+ page allows you to have multiple admins so more than one person can control the content on your Google+ page. The advantage of multiple admins is that you have multiple personal accounts that you can draw from and invite to follow your Google+ page. This will give your Google+ page an extra boost in connections and help you grow in the long-run.

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The Visual Effect

Once you get people on your Google+ page, you want them to stay there for a while. Make your Google+ page more visually interesting and more interactive by adding pictures and videos. This will give your page a unique and personal feel that people look for.

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Hangout

One of the underutilized features of Google+ is the ability to “Hangout.” A “Hangout” is a live video chat where you can have conversations with your followers without ever leaving the office. You can use these Hangouts to demo new products, have an impromptu workshop, or deal with customer service issues. To get started with a Google+ Hangout, you must first install their Hangout plug-in

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Vanity URL

Vanity URLs make it easier for people to remember your page URL and hopefully lead more people to your page. Although Google+ currently doesn’t have a vanity URL system, there is a work around to this problem. http://gplus.to/ allows you to put in all those crazy numbers at the end of your Google+ page’s URL and create a much shorter URL. To show the difference, we did it for the IWD Google+ page.

Original URL: https://plus.google.com/b/103030410129179150428/

Gplus URL: www.gplus.to/infinitewebdesigns – See how much easier this is to remember

If you have any other suggestions or questions about Google+ Pages, leave a comment below or contact IWD.

There have been a few changes to the Google search engine and Google+ that is imperative for you to know about. These changes will affect how people use Google search and what you need to add to your online marketing plan to get good results.

Google Search Changes

Google search engine has now created two different ways for you to search on their website. You can now select between personal (Custom) search results and global search results. The global search results are what we have now. This will display results from all over the globe, and rank them based on their relevancy to your search inquiry. The new search type is your personal search results. Personal search results tie in global search results with posts from your friends on Google + and other social media sites. The results will be ranked not only by relevance but also by your relationships with the people posting the information. For example, if you are doing a search about “Pepsi”; your friends, who have made comments about “Pepsi,” will pop up on the top of your personal search results before other global search results. This gives a larger voice to the people you are personally connected to.

To learn more about the specifics of this change please visit Google’s Official Blog

The interesting thing about this change is the fact that on the personal search results, Google+ posts and pages are favored way more than Facebook, Twitter, or any other major social media site. For instance, Pepsi’s Facebook page has a lot more activity and followers than their Google+ site. However, the Google+ site will rank higher than Facebook. Many people in the industry believe this is a very bold move by Google. Because of this bias it forces the hand of marketers to adopt Google+ into their online marketing strategies.

To see these changes in action, we have created an Infinite Web Designs Google+ page.

To create a Google+ page, you need to create a personal Google profile and branch off of the profile to create a business page. It is a similar structure to the Facebook profile and the Facebook business page. The steps are very easy to follow and you can put as much or as little information as you want. Check back on Friday we will have a blog with our top tips for a fabulous Google+ page.

Results

Below is just one example of the results I found after our new IWD Google+ page had been live for 25 minutes. Please take note that these personal search results show a bias towards Google+ compared to all other sites, making it a necessity to have a Google+ page to rank well.

I typed in “web design Fairfield ct” into the Google search bar, using my personal search results. IWD’s Google+ page ranked 3rdoverall. The Google+ page even came before the IWD Homepage, which was ranked 5th & 6th. When I switched it to the global search results and kept the same search entry, the IWD Homepage jumped up to the 1st ranked position and the IWD Google+ page was nowhere to be found. This just goes to show that almost instantly; you can see results when you create a Google+ page. You cannot get these types of results, this quickly, any other way. To show up ranked so highly often takes months (not minutes) of SEO and online marketing to achieve. If you don’t have a Google+ page you could be missing out on potential visitors using the new personal search results feature. To learn more about Google+ pages and how IWD can help set you up with one, contact IWD today.

Using eye tracking technology, you can record the path your eyes take while on a website. It also records how much time you spend on a particular section of a webpage. Mashable has now applied this same concept to social media sites. Understanding how people look at your social media sites will help you design and take advantage of reader hot spots.

YouTube

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YouTube, of all the social media websites that we are featuring, gets the most eye action. People tend to stay on YouTube for a longer period of time and as you can see, more time looking at the information on the page. It is no surprise that the videos are the main focus. If you want to catch people’s attention on YouTube, make sure that the thumbnail of your video and the title are enticing to a viewer.

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Twitter

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People tend to read twitter vertically instead of horizontally like you would most websites. It is good to see that people spend some attention to the artwork background. This definitely proves that imagery is important on Twitter. The most time is spent on the actual tweets. People will take more time to read the more recent comments in comparison to older ones. So, if you want to gain more attention on Twitter, you will want to post often so that you can consistently be on the top of the page, where people are reading, and not on the bottom.

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LinkedIn

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Based on the eye tracking technology, it looks like people only care to look at the main profile overview section. Your picture, title, and the basic job information is what people notice first and spend the most time looking at. This information needs to be accurate and up-to-date. Make sure that the first impression of your LinkedIn profile is the impression you want to make.

Overall, we see very similar results when you compare how people read websites and how people read Facebook pages. The common “f” pattern emerges in both studies. As you can see in the picture below, most people read left to right, for about 2 lines, and then more quickly, scan farther down the page. With Facebook there are some unique patterns due to the layout of their pages. People spend the most time on profile pictures, quick info facts, and your most recent wall post. People spend less time on the Facebook advertisements, your friends, and older wall posts.

What This Means for Your Business:

Focus your attention on the top

Your profile picture, title, and small facts matter most – So make them count! Analyze your page and make sure that these three pieces of information represent your business the way you want it to be represented. The best test is to show someone not familiar with your business just those three sections without anything else. They should be able to tell you what your company does or sells, in 20 seconds or less.

Be Active

If people tend to only look at the most recent post, make sure they are always reading something new. The more times you post, the more messages you can get out to people. If people keep coming to your page and read the same post many times, their interest level will go down, and you will miss the opportunity to communicate with current or potential clients.

Forget Facebook Ads

As you can see, Facebook Ads don’t seem to get a lot of attention by viewers. With an increase of scams on Facebook ads, people do not trust them as much anymore and the attention span of most readers is little or null. You will probably have better luck investing your money on other types of online marketing or search engine optimization.

STAY TUNED: If you thought this was interesting check out this Friday’s blog! IWD will be sharing with you the eye tracking maps of YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Pinterest is a cross between the image search engine results and a social media community like Facebook. It is a virtual board where people can share pictures of virtually anything. When you click on a picture on Pinterest, it links back to the original site that it was found on. Unlike Google or Bing searches, all the results on Pinterest are posted by people, not algorithms. Your Pinterest profile contains “boards.” These boards contain all the pictures that you want to save for yourself and share with others. You can “follow” people (just like Facebook) and see all the pictures that that person has put in their boards. It creates a large “word-of-mouth” community where people can get suggestions for things to buy or ideas of services to use from friends and strangers alike.

How Pinterest Can Help Your Business

If you sell products or B2C services you can take advantage of this fast growing social media site. When you join Pinterest, you download a link that allows you to grab pictures from websites outside of Pinterest. Below is an example of the process.

1. You are on a website that has this really awesome book you want to share with friends. When you click on the special Pinterest link, it will automatically grab all the pictures from the webpage for you to pick from. In this case, I will click on the book I want to post.

2. Once I add a description of the picture it gets posted for all of my friends and strangers to see.

The example above would work for any products you may sell. If your company offers a service, like interior design, or masonry, you can pin your most recent project, like a portfolio piece.

Don’t wait for someone to happen upon your website and share something – take it into your own hands. There is nothing against creating an account and posting your own stuff. Who knows, it may really catch on, which will increase the traffic to your site and potentially grab new customers.

Get a jump on things for next year, start building your email lists for 2012 to help you prepare for next year’s corporate holiday email cards. To learn more about how to build your email list check out our “Growing Your Email List” blog. To simplify your life in the future, sign-up for our newsletter to get a holiday card reminder next year-