Ever since Google introduced its Google Plus Your World in January with integrated Google+ results into your search, businesses have been questioning how the lack of a Google+ presence could affect their organic search results. Ultimately, if you don’t have a Google+ page, your placement for various search terms may suffer.

A rapid change by Google’s search algorithm is nothing new, but the introduction of Google+ has created a new twist. You must know a thing or two about social media marketing to get better search results. On the positive side, Google has provided all of us a free opportunity to boost our SEO and separate ourselves from our competitors who are reluctant to dive into Google+ and all it has to offer.

First Step: Setup a Google+ Page

Setting up a Google+ account for your business is fairly simple. Just click Here to get started.

Step 2: Get In As Many Circles as Possible

This part is going to require more work. To start of, put as many people inside your circles as possible. Try adding individuals within the same industry as you, customers, referral partners, local community members, even your competitors. Unfortunately, you can not add yourself into someone else’s circles, they have to add you, but making people aware of your page is certainly the best place to start. Include a link to your Google+ page in all online and offline marketing materials such as an email signature, business cards, and your website.

Just don’t get desperate and buy into the idea of buying Google+ fans. According to Erin Everhart, director of web and social media for 352 Media Group, buying Google+ fans can be picked up by Google’s search algorithm and result in a lower search profile.

Step 3: Add Quality Content to Your Page Rich with Keywords

Work on adding content to your page that is rich with the keywords you are targeting to drive search traffic. Keep in mind, keyword use and keyword variation should be natural and not overstuffed. Don’t try taking the easy way out and listing as many keywords as possible.

Time your posts in the best way possible to post about relevant topics. Sparks, a feature provided by Google+, will automatically load videos and articles from the Internet to your stream. By setting keyword searches in Sparks, you will be able to see who else is using a specific term and what they are saying about it. This can be an extremely useful tool to help you create more relevant posts.

Step 4: Use the +1 Button
As you begin to +1 other pages you will start to notice more and more profiles of your Google+ friends coming up in searches. There can be a huge upside to clicking that free button. According to research done by a company called SEO Effect, getting 72 people to +1 its page resulted in a 20% increase in click-through rates.

Although the integration between Google search and Google+ is still very new, there is a strong case to be made for taking advantage of what Google+ has to offer. With the support of Google and 100 million users there is not much that could stop the growth of Google+ at this point. As a business owner it is time to stop putting off the integration of Google+ into your marketing strategy.

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According to Allen, “It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 signups, celebrity and brand appeal, positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks.”

Paul Allen is the founder of Ancestry.com and takes a rather eclectic approach on coming to his estimates. His staff and he run hundreds of queries on surnames that they’ve been tracking since July, to determine the size of the network.

If Google+ continues at this rate, it will reach 100 million users by February 25^th 2012, and 200 million users by August 3^rd 2012. According to Allen, by this time next year, Google+ will have nearly 300 million users and counting.

220 Marketing specializes in Online Marketing and Management for industries such as Insurance Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, and Mortgage Marketing.

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Simply Measured, who took a look at the Interbrand Top 100 Brands found that 61 of these had Google + bran pages. However only 13 of them had 5,000 or more followers.

Amongst the top of the list, Starbucks increased their followers four times in the last month, while H&M and Pepsi each surpassed 20,000 followers. Of course, Google is currently in the lead with over 100,000 followers winning the top brand position this month.

Brad Mattick, VP of marketing at BrightEdge, says the movement from 61 brands to 77 was a “big jump.” Mattick says he sees some momentum for Google+ over the past month. “I think brands are seeing more interaction,” he says. “There’s been a ton of growth.”

CEO of Simply Measured, Adam Schoenfeld, says he believes most brands are “just dipping their toes in the water” on Google+. Schoenfeld says he doesn’t see a lot to celebrate yet for Google. However, he says Google might be encouraged by the fact that the top 10 brand pages had 80% market share, which could prompt laggards to try to catch up. “I wonder if there’s a sense among the other brands that ‘If we don’t get on this, we could fall behind and lose ground,” he says.

The last time Google released Google + membership figures, they reported 40 million users utilizing the social network. Currently, Google hasn’t released a figure for Google +’s total membership to date. What we do know for sure is that most anticipate a massive growth for the social network membership in the year to come.

220 Marketing specializes in Online Marketing and Management for industries such as Insurance Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, and Mortgage Marketing.

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BrightEdge has been tracking Google+ brand pages since they were launched on November 7^th. However, the integration was not noted until December 20^th when identified in the search results for “AT&T.”

According to BrightEdge’s VP-Marketing, Brad Mattick, the addition of Google+ brand pages allows marketers to incorporate promotional messages directly in search results. This allows for a much larger audience through Google’s natural search results than it would gain from the brand page alone.

While AT&T appears to be one of the first brands to gain brand page recognition in natural search results, a recent search for Toyota also yielded two Google+ entries. Other examples of brands displaying Google+ in their search results are T-Mobile and Macy’s.

A recent tool rolled out by Google, Direct Connect makes it easy for users to find and follow Google+ brand pages through a search by incorporating the “+” in their search.

A representative from Google offered the following declaration about the search results: “Content from the +Page, such as recent posts, will appear as annotations attached to its associated web page under the site links in search results if that site is eligible for Direct Connect. It uses the same bi-directional link and algorithmic criteria as Direct Connect.”

With this integration of Google+ brands pages into search results, there is a huge incentive for brands to join and become active on Google+. Mattick has compared merging Google+ and search results to Microsoft’s inclusion of the Internet Explorer in its Windows OS in the 90’s.

When Microsoft used its near-monopoly in Windows to beat Netscape in the browser segment, it caught the attention of The U.S. Department of Justice.

Even though Google’s search market share is comparably less than Microsoft’s share at the time of the IE bundling, the move is attracting some unwanted attention for Google. Two U.S. Senators have requested the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google’s business practices. Could Google be abusing their dominance in the market to persuade brands to become active on Google+? What do you think?

220 Marketing specializes in Online Marketing and Management for industries such as Insurance Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, and Mortgage Marketing.

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