SEO for estate agents: Google+

SEO for estate agents is changing and your participation in social media is becoming more of a necessity as time goes on. Google+ may not being the most popular social network in the UK but it is the social network that is favoured among most SEO’s.

Does Google plus have an effect on SEO?

 Google+ is definitely one of the most important social networks for SEO because –

• Local SEO – To gain better rankings within the local businesses listing you need an active Google+ business page.
• Google Authorship – Google Authorship is now a ranking factor. The fact that you need a Google+ account to implement this shows how important Google+ is to SEO.
• Recommendations – If you search Google while logged in you will notice recommendations from people in your G+ circles. To gain any benefit out of this you need a strong Google+ presence with many followers. It may be difficult to achieve this but it can be very beneficial once you have.
• Owned by Google – Google is able to retrieve all the data it needs from Google+ profiles and pages. This is something that Google can’t fully achieve with Facebook or Twitter.

Optimise your Google+ profile for SEO

• You need a good headshot photo for personal profiles and a good quality logo for your business page.
• Fill in all the fields in your profiles including your contact information and address.
• In the “contributors to” section add any website that you are connected to.
• Also link to your other social profiles (Facebook, Twitter, etc).
• Aim to get as many followers as possible by sharing interesting and valuable content.

Google+ vs. Facebook and Twitter

Many times Google+ has been referred to as a ghost town but as of June 2013 Google+ has 500 million members, with 360 million active monthly users.

Compared to Facebook’s 1.15 billion active users (as of March 2013), Google+ doesn’t drive that kind of traffic but it does have more of an advantage for businesses in some areas of marketing.

And although Twitter is quite popular among Estate Agents and has proven to be a great marketing tool for businesses, the fact that most people turning a blind eye on Google+ because they consider it a ghost town is completely wrong as Twitter only has 200 million active users compared to Google+ having 360 million active users.

Google+ is definitely worth getting involved with, even if it is just for the SEO benefit. Make sure you don’t overlook this social network for the wrong reason!