Love it or hate it, it’s obvious by now that Google+ is here to stay, and is playing an increasingly significant role in search engine rankings.  This is especially true on Google’s own search engine, ethically or maybe not, and if you want to take full advantage of your Google+ profile’s power in granting authority to your blog posts, read on.

Here are five ways to ensure your Google+ page is helping to pump up your search engine rankings, and don’t be surprised to learn that some of them are contrary to conventional social media best practices.

1.  Complete Profile, Gain Followers

While this isn’t advisable as a way to better rankings when dealing with Twitter or Facebook, simply getting as many followers as possible does affect where your name or brand appears in Google search results.  Quantity here, at least for now, seems to be more important than quality.  Knowing Google, this might change in the near future, but for now, get out there and follow as many relevant people and companies as you can.  Get into some big circles, and do everything you can to bring more people into your circles as well.  You won’t be able to do this without a complete profile that is maintained and accurate, so make sure you have it all fitted out.

2.  Link Google+ with External Content

Your web site needs to be officially linked to your Google+ profile, and you need to officially link your Google+ page to your site, blog, and other social media be setting up a badge and using it.  Getting people to follow you on Google+ is easy, but keeping people paying attention can be really difficult.  Keep all facets of your Web presence connected, and update them regularly.  Also, content that is location specific will associate you with places.  For instance, if you are located in Michigan , you’ll eventually become more authoritative in that region than other people with similar content, in different regions.

3.  Get People to +1 Your Posts

In addition to attracting swarms of followers, you should also encourage people to +1 what you post to your Google+ profile.  It’s true that you can’t force anyone to +1 anything, but you can encourage it by doing the same for their posts.  If you get out there, get involved with a few of your followers every day, and really show that you care what they had to say, they will remember you, and will likely return the favor at some point in the future.

4.  Take Advantage of Authorship

Google is planning to roll out author information that can appear in Google Search and Google News results.  But in order to associate the content you create with your Google+ profile and establish yourself as the author,  you’ll need to follow the instructions for one of two methods outlined by Google here: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986

5.  Take advantage of the ability to share content via email sometimes, rather than always relying on profile posts to get the word out.  Email is considered more personal and inviting, as long as it isn’t spammy, and when used judiciously it can lead to more authentic relationships.

Using these tips, you should be able to improve your rankings in Google search.  Give them a try.

By: M. McLaurin