Google + Direct Connect

How to Use the Google+ Direct Connect Function

Every week, a representative from Black Box Social Media, LLC, will be sharing with readers and fans of Brian Horn how to use social media in order to improve SEO for their website.  No question that Brian is one of the leaders in the world of SEO, and our company has certainly benefited from his trainings.  We look forward to bringing you news about how social media can boost your websites SEO every week.

Today we’re going to focus on Google+ for business and how Google+ can impact your SEO.

Using Google+ Direct Connect | What is Google+ Pages for Business?

Google+ was released a little while ago and earlier in November, Google+ Pages for business was released.  Google is promoting Google+ as their social networking platform and are integrating it with all Google platforms including Google search. Obviously Google search is going to put more emphasis on users of Google+ than any other social media site, so that alone should be reason enough to get an account.   Now, Google+ Pages also would become like any other content pages in the internet.  Google+ Pages for business is similar to the Facebook Fan Page with some of the following unique differences:

  • Google+ Circles– Circles allows you to break up your users into specific categories.  For example, if you have multiple businesses, you can separate your fans by specific business locations.  If you have a website with regular subscribers and premium subscribers, you can break them up accordingly.  Then, unlike with Facebook Fan Pages, you can create specific messages targeted for fans by specific categories.  This segregation will allow your posts to remain relevant to each set of eyeballs that view it.
  • Google+ Hangouts– Hangouts allows you to create a video chat room with up to 9 people.  Hangouts works well with companies that want to personalize their customer support, demonstrate ‘how-to’ do something, or have contests in which a select number of people can participate with a celebrity or athlete.

Google+ is a pretty popular topic and using Google+ Direct Conntect for SEO purposes is one of the reasons for it’s popularity.

Using Google+ Direct Connect | What is Google+ Direct Connect?

The Google+ Direct Connect functionality gives Google+ Pages more visibility in the search engine results pages when custom operators are used.  People can use Google+ Direct Connect feature to navigate to a Google+ Page from Google search, by simply typing the keyword prefixed with “+” symbol. For example, if you type +Pepsi, you could be taken directly to the Google+ page of Pepsi. To make this work, the Google+ page and website home page must be connected each other through couple of different ways suggested by Google.  The video below will show in detail how this process works.

As the video shows, Google+ Direct Connect can help you get found on search engines by using the ‘+’ function in search.

Why else is the Direct Connect function so important?  If you do a Direct Connect search, you’ll get only one result, an official page, or to be more specific, Your Page that you will want people to see. If you don’t set up Google+ Direct Connect, then you end up with the classic “10 blue links” which might do things like suggest your competitor or a negative critique of your product or service.  When you think about it, the Direct Connect function is almost a bribe from Google to business owners stating that if you use our Google+ product, we’ll allow you to promote your message while pushing down any negative comments or articles about your product or service.

I hope you enjoyed this article and video and see the value of utilizing Google+ Direct Connect into your website and implementing social media marketing into your marketing plan.

About Black Box Social Media:

Black Box Social Media (BBSM) is a ‘managed for’ social media marketing group.  Social media allows an unprecedented opportunity for businesses to connect and interact with their current and potential customer…if they effectively utilize social media.  Black Box Social Media specializes in creating and implementing proven, successful social media marketing plans for their clients.  BBSM also created Social Media in 7 Minutes (SMI7M),  a revolutionary do-it-yourself online training program designed to not only educate small business owners on how to apply social media into their marketing plan, but also to provide a practical tool which will allow them to implement their marketing plan in just 7 minutes a day.  This product is designed for small business owners who want to learn and implement a social media marketing plan for themselves without paying thousands of dollars for employees or outsourcing companies.