How to market and build your brand with Google+

If you know anything about today’s business world, you know that a strong online presence is vital to your long-term success. An excellent way to market your business online is to take advantage of Google+. Google+ is a widely used social network that lets people easily interact with family members, friends, acquaintances, clients and businesses.

Why should you use Google+?

Google+ is free and very easy to use. If you already have a Gmail account, you are only a few clicks away from creating your brand or business profile. One unique and very useful feature on Google+ is Circles. Circles allow you to sort your audience into different groups, such as children, adults, college students and so on. You can then promote or post updates to one or more of these groups whenever you wish.

While on this site, your goal should be to network with as many people as possible. Try to find information about your audience, so you can build an even better relationship with them.

Google+ Hangouts

A very unique and useful feature called Google+ Hangouts can help you do just that by hosting face-to-face video chats. You can use this features to hold a video conference with one of your business partners even when they are out of town. However, you can also use the hangouts as a way to communicate directly with the public by holding Q&A sessions.

Maybe you are already marketing your business or brand online, and seeking another source of traffic? From my personal Google search experience I can say that websites that include a Google+ button on their sites, allowing visitors to vote for and share pages, have better visibility on SERPs (search engine results pages) than those sites that completely ignore Google+.

Setting up your Google+ page

Make sure you set up your Google business page properly and regularly post quality content to it. You should include as much information as possible on your profile page, including your company name, a bio or brief history of the firm, your website address and other contact information. The last thing you want is to lose customers who landed on your page and could not figure out how to get in touch with you.

You should post daily updates on your Google+ profile. You want to have as many people as possible to share your content. For example, if you run a local bakery, you can have a Google+ profile for your delicious products. Then once you have a strong following, you can post coupons people can print out, share announcements about special deals or even upload a video about a particular product.

Try to think outside of the box to separate yourself from your competitors and be ahead of the game. Customers are more inclined to do business with businesses they can trust, and Google+ is one of the tools that can help you build that trust.