I assume that many of you have already heard about the social network from Google, which goes by the name Google+. The social network was launched at the beginning of June 2011, and since then Google has been investing millions of dollars in advertising budgets in order to attract more and more surfers to use Google+ and bite into the market segment of their tough competitor – Facebook. Among the marketing activities taking place in Israel in terms of Google+ is the collaboration between Google+ and the soccer and basketball teams of Maccabi Tel Aviv, both of which have active and well-maintained Google+ pages (with the encouragement of the Google+ team, of course). According to unofficial data, there are currently about 200 million users worldwide, and in Israel the situation still does not indicate a change and a deep bite into Facebook's market share. Google+ as a social network, is increasingly connected to the search results of the Google search engine.
In this article we will mainly talk about an option that was opened for website owners a few months ago, and it is a phenomenon that is growing day by day in our local sector. What would you say if you were told that you could further emphasize the appearance of your site in the organic results? And when I talk about highlighting, it means increasing the surface area of the result plus details about you (photo, name and number of friends). In the past, Google mainly allowed viewing for those connected to a Google account some, pages that his friends shared through the +1 button, but now Google already allows the profile of the writer/website owner to be displayed even without connecting to any account.
Let's take a test case, this is a site dealing in the field of writing resumes (www.resumes.co.il). If we search Google Israel for the phrase "resume", we will get the following results:
When we look at the results visually, what is the most appealing result? I assume that most of you will gravitate to the penultimate result that includes a picture, who the site is from and how many people are in Google+ circles. The combination of the profile created an increase of tens of percent in the CTR (conversion ratio between exposure to the website and clicking on it) of the search results. This case has already been proven in hundreds of different websites, despite the low position of the websites on the same page, they will attract more attention than the competitors' websites.
How do I add my profile to the site's results in the organic results?
In order to set your profile as a creator page, it is necessary to perform several actions. There are actions that are performed in the profile itself and there are actions that are performed in the website code itself.
Let's start with the things to do at the Google+ profile level:
1. First, go to your Google+ profile in the Profile area > About.
2. Then click on "Edit Profile".
3. Go to the area"Contributor to" at the bottom of the page.
4. Click on "Add custom link" and add your website details (home page only).
Things to do at the website code level:
1. Add a link to your Google+ profile page. Recommended to link by your name. Examples and recommendations: "Written by X Y", "Built by X Y", "I'm also on Google+".
2. The rel= tag must be added to this link"author", so the link will look like this:
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/ID" rel="author">Google+</a>
3. check that the link appears on all the pages on the site (in order to get exposure to all the pages of the site in the search results).
Do you write a blog in Wordpress? Here are important tips for integrating a Google+ profile through Wordpress:
1. Enter your profile page (http://www.sitename.co.il/wp-admin/profile.php).
2. On the profile page, define a nickname that includes your full name as indicated on Google+. and then set a path "The name that will be displayed publicly" the same name
3. in part "Contact details", fill in your Google+ profile address.
Here are some important things when setting up the profile for the site:
1. Check that the link to your Google+ profile is correct (not broken) and visible to surfers.
2. Do you have a profile picture on your Google+ account? If you don't have one or if it is an unrelated image, most likely the operation will not succeed.
3. First add the site to the area"Contributor to" Before you added a link from your website to your profile.
For additional instructions from Google and troubleshooting, it is recommended to go to the appropriate help page on Google's website.
So this is, after you have performed these actions, the first thing you need to check is how your site will look after the change in the search results. For this purpose, the Rich Snippets Testing Tool exists. With this tool you can enter your URL/page and see exactly how it will be displayed in the search results. It is important to note that until you actually see the change, several weeks will pass, from my past experience it is between one and 4 weeks.
Who is it suitable for?
Adding the profile to the website's organic results in Google is of course not suitable for every website. I recommend making the addition for the following sites: blog sites, image sites where one person is highlighted (a business consultant who is a CEO"to the company and the representative figure of the company), freelancers with websites in various fields, news websites where a reporter will appear for every article he wrote, information websites written by professionals (such as a guide Website construction, online business management guide, etc').
Manage a news site or blog with several writers? If it is a Wordpres system, it can be used through the profile page as we mentioned at the beginning of the article, it is only important that each writer connects his profile on Google+ with his profile page on the website. If it is a news site, an about page must be created for each writer and a link to the writer's about page or Google+ page must be indicated in each article.
Who is it not suitable for?
After all, adding a representative figure is not the most suitable for every website. When it comes to a large site that does not rely on one professional, it is recommended not to add a personal profile but a company page (it will be detailed later in another article). Image sites for medium-large companies, index sites, sites that you do not want to disclose a connection to, all of these are examples of sites that are simply not suitable for combining a personal profile with a website.
I already made an attempt in the past, with a general site where I created a profile for the site (not a person, a site), I added the logo as a profile picture but it did not work. Which means, creating a fictitious profile or a website profile (not a Google+ page but a profile), simply won't work for you. It is mandatory to have a full name that includes a human image. I guess that Google receives daily reports about sites and profiles that do not behave properly and it is a shame to try at all.
Does this help in terms of the organic promotion of the site in the search results?
unequivocally not. Your site will not climb over other sites in the organic results because it is linked to your Google+ account. As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, the only advantage is in increasing the CTR percentage of the site in the search results, you can track these results with the help of a Google Webmaster Tools account which allows access to the CTR data of your site in the search results. It is recommended to perform an experiment and see if this helps you in increasing the number of surfers to the site without increasing the organic search results.