Lessons

Lesson Info

Kim: Building a Traffic Engine with Google +

Google Plus And who thinks Google Plus is just one more thing? Yeah, Okay, while hopefully I'm gonna give you some ideas and, ah, of why I think it's so very important that you need to be there. Google think about Google. I mean, it's not Ah, it's not just, um, Google. Plus, I mean, they have so many other tied and features, you know, they've got the Gmail, they've got the Google plus Google events you've got, you know, Google Voice, Google Doc, school counter. I mean, you could keep going on and on. Um, they haven't amazing integrated platform with a lot of value added services that, um, is not just tied to their Google plus platform. They're also not in the same boat as Facebook and having to monetize their platform. Because what they're Google people are buying PP PPC ads all the time. In fact, you know that's there. They have amazing monetization plan business model already. They do not need to monetize Google. Plus, um, I think they're playing the long game. Honestly, they have be...

en just continuing to build out and, uh, you know, do amazing things there. Platform just continues to evolve, but The interesting thing is again, it's a great way to get free traffic. The Google Plus, If you have a Google plus Platt Google plus account, I'm gonna make a case for having one. Um, obviously, people spend billions of dollars to market on Google. We we know that people are paying for pay per click ads all the time on Google, but wouldn't it be nice? We didn't have to pay him anything and you could still show up on the first page of Google. Anybody argue that point now? I mean, wouldn't it be nice? Well, let me should make a case for a couple of things. Google plus authorship. Um, again, this goes back to your content. And some of this may be like, what in the world is she talking about? But Google plus authorship is basically a way Teoh claim your content and claim it in a visual way. Even so, if you'll notice, um, I have set up Google authorship on my block on my website, and I am showing up under how to pin on Pinterest on the first page of Google, and I'm not paying a penny for that. Okay, so that's great, right? That's one great thing. But you'll also notice that my photos showing up because I have Google authorship set up. So who's who are they gonna click on? What do you think? Are they going to click on the 1st or they gonna click on that? My post. So if I'm still in traffic from the search results because I have the Google plus, I mean the Google authorship set up. So I encourage you to set up Google authorship. There's actually a blawg post on my website that tells you how to do it. If you'll just search for, you know, Google Authorship and kim gars dot com, you'll you'll be able to find it, Um, but it's quality real estate. Essentially, let me show you the difference and why. I think that having the Google plus profile is just so important. Let's take a look at this. This is else is Mexican with no Google plus account, and you can see you know Yelp comes up a few others. The actual website is way down here, and you know there's no no map to it. No nothing, right? Okay, let's take a look at Taco Bell. Both Mexican restaurants, obviously, Taco Bell's, um, national chain, but they have a Google plus presence, and you can see it. They've got 3 368,000 followers on their Google plus account and why, and look where it shows up. I mean, it's obviously in the sidebar. And see the visual of this is so much better than, um, the visual that you saw from the poor Little small. But the interesting part is that small business owner that could be could have this very easily just a lack of knowledge and not having a Google plus account. Is that pretty amazing or what? That is really amazing. Especially the your two points there about having your photo there your picture because people connect and want to know. And those other people have paid to be there exactly, and that you're working around that exactly. It was a free source of, um, traffic. I mean, why wouldn't you want that right? I think that would That's pretty pretty clear. Your Google plus profile it has S e o value, meaning it can be searched and found on Google, plus obviously, um, e the title is, um, got s seo capabilities. So you want to make sure that your Google plus profile name is, um, you know, has some keywords in it. Your description is we're gonna talk about these in a little bit more detail in just a moment. I'm going to share with you how you can actually make some specific things in these particular areas. Your description, your links. Unfortunately, you can't change that link, is it? Displays on Google. Plus, you know you'll it shows this great, big, long link, But for advertising purposes, if you want a link that vanity link for lack of exactly what it is, you can go to G plus dot t o and grab a branded vanity name for your business so that you don't have to tryto use this big long Google Plus link that they assign you when you sign up for an account. OK, but there's a couple of ways that you can specifically pull in things into your profile. There the introduction area. You can put your links and their meaning. Your website. You can also link to specific things like if you'll see here I have helping business owners grow a successful business in today. Social world that link business owners takes them back to my Web page, where I'm selling the social media course so you can actually link back Teoh other things. Other things. Whether it's your social profiles, you could include links to your blog's your Facebook, your twitter, your linked in, um, all of those things you can actually provide links to within your actual profile. Um, I'm also a big fan of keeping if you're if you're wanting to leverage social media for business, you know, keeping your profile public because, I mean, if you're not going to be social, why, why bother? Um, there is a lot of ways that you can can can of control your content on phase on Google. Plus, it has mawr control for content than any of the other platforms out there. You know you can share with specific people, whereas there is no other platform out there that allows you to do that. So there is some some privacy features built into Google, plus that none of the other platforms have, but again, to keep on track with the S E o value. Share your block content on Google. Plus now why would you do this? Well, guess what? I remember what I said was Googles the only one that sharing on pulling results from Social. But that's true, and they're pulling results from Twitter and LinkedIn and other places, but they're also giving preference to content that's on Google, plus first. So and you just try it, for example, goaded and type in something and see how many pages come up in the organic search results that are based in a Google plus. In other words, there post, where somebody is posted it in Google Plus and it's coming up in the organic search Search results on the first page. So there is it's huge that you share your content on Google. Plus they index lightning quick. Um, it's so amazing to me because I used to do this years ago. It was a pain in the tush to get your you are else to be crawled by the search engines and it took forever. Well, Google does it almost instantaneously now, so your content is getting out there literally, very, very quickly, and you can you can do this right from your website if you have social share buttons set up. You can go to your Web page as soon as you publish a blawg or, um, you know you've got something new on there. If you've got your social share button set up, you can just, you know, literally click on the plus one button from your Web page and share it to Google. Plus, instead of going to Google plus proper and going to their all that, or you can also schedule it through Hoot Suite or some of the other platforms. Or you can go direct to Google, plus whatever is most convenient and time saving for you. There's some ways Teoh do this very quickly and easily, though, but you want to be sharing your content to Google. Plus, that's the message, Um, and then using the hash tag. So we talked about Hashtags, just briefly with Facebook, that Facebook hashtags are fairly new. Just within the last month, Hashtags have been and originated on Twitter, but you can also use them on Google plus, so they're used for organization finding stuff. People are actually actively searching for content again on Google, plus, just like they are on Twitter eso contents big. How do others use them? They use them in the Google Plus search bar. Like you just mentioned that actually, And then how can you make them? They're basically just the pound symbol with a keyword and or a keyword string. In other words, like social media marketing versus just social media or Facebook marketing versus just Facebook, for example. And you would keep those no spacing between those words, you want to keep them together so that when people are searching for those keywords phrases, they find them under the under those particular hashtags. But honestly, um, and I think about the middle of December of 2000 last year, um, Google Plus came up with something that I think is a game changer from a community building standpoint. Um, who anybody have a Google plus community yet? Okay. And I heard a Google plus communities all right, Good. Well, Google plus communities are basically just a kind of like groups on Facebook for lack of a better way of describing them and ah, they're a great way to build community around things that are a group of people that are passionate about the same things. So and or want to know about something that you know, like, for example, of I'll use me for an example. SOCIAL MEDIA A lot of people are wanting social media knowledge so you can set up groups that air topic based around your niche, where you're giving back value to your audience. The key is you want them to be searchable. So when you name your community, use keywords that people are searching for. So my my Google plus community is, you know, boom social with Kim Garst actually boom social media with Kim Garst I because again, who's gonna be looking for just the word social? Right? But who's gonna be looking for the key phrase? Social media? A lot of people. So it's It's a great way again to connect an audience around something that you can give value back to, um, and again it's a It's a off. Tell you why. I think it's important. There's several reasons, but they're great listening tools. In other words, now you have an audience of people who are probably your ideal client because not only can you invite them to your community through Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and all the other platforms. But you can also be found on Google simply because people are searching for you. They're searching for content and communities, particularly because again, a lot of people are wanting to belong to communities where they can get access to great information. And resource is from other people s. So they're great listening tools. You can discover what your audience pain points are. They're also great ways to generate blawg ideas. I hear this a lot. People are always saying, What do I blogged about? What do I talk about? Um, not only blood content, but even content that you share on social media. You can get a lot of ideas just by listening in and discovering what other people are talking about. You can also get ideas for products and services. So if people are talking about something inside of your community, something they need something they want Now you have an opportunity to develop a product or a service that, um, and sell it because they've already told you they wanted right. Um, but this is the key, I think with Google plus communities right now. Um, and I'll tell you my story. I set up this, um, social. I set up a community on Google, plus about well within a few days after Google opened them up and again a little varied. Not well. I'll share with you what I've done. I think that's probably the best way. It's Ah, again, the keyword social media is in the title of my of my community. And then I started sharing it on Twitter just on Twitter, which a couple times a day, I say Join us on our Google plus community. In fact, if you feel I've been following me, you may have seen it where I'm advertising the Google plus community. So that was in December. It's what, the middle of July roughly, and there's over 6000 people in that community right now. Now, if I had started that, uh, there's others too, Like there is a Google plus community that grew and the title that was good learn Google plus or something like that. Um, and they grew to like 80,000 people in just a few weeks simply because people were again wanting to know and wanted that community and wanted to knowledge around Google. Plus, so that's my point. You have an opportunity. Teoh. Let's say, for example, you know you want to build a personal training community or people who were interested in, um, you know, getting more information about getting healthy. What are they looking for? You know, use key phrases in your title and, you know, build out Ah community because I think you have, ah, window of opportunity here to build out a huge community on Google. Plus before your competition does just a quick question we got from the community. Gary P. Is there a difference between circles and communities? Yes, there is a circle is basically you're just putting people into a circle. That's kind of like a kind of like a list on Facebook or list on Twitter, that kind of thing. Words. It's themed. In other words, it might be friends. It might be, you know, college acquaintances. It could be people you go to church with. It could be business associates. It could be category based, Even with a community. A community is where you know, people can literally come in in the door and engage with each other, and with you they can share their own content. You could categorize content within side of the communities. So, like, for example, in mine I have things categorized like Facebook Twitter. You can click. There's in the sidebar. There's different categories and people confined. If they're looking for Twitter information, they can click on Twitter and all the Twitter content pops up. So you know you can categorize content, which is very appealing to me, you know, and again, you know, different businesses air have different models in different ways that they can break content down. But I love the fact that you can categorize info inside of the communities. And you really can't do that. I mean, basically, with circles, you're just sharing content with them. Thank you, Yeah. Can you speak to how you Obviously, there's difference between the people that you let in your circles on Google Plus and what you do on LinkedIn and kind of how you decide who's in your circles and you fully open up communities and requesting people to be in your circles well in circling people to begin with. It's a whole whole chain, I think, ultimately, but I think again, with Google, Plus is, you know, try to connect with people and allow people in categorized people into your circles based on how you want to engage with them. So if they're prospect, for example, you could put them into a prospect circle if they're in the way that you would. This is what's really neat about Google, Plus, is that you can communicate with those that segment of your audience totally differently than you would maybe your clients or your college friends. In other words, you compose things just to your college friends. You compose things just to your prospects. Um, you can't segment, you know, post in any on any other platform. In other words, when I post something on Twitter, everybody sees it. I can't say Okay, I just want my prospects to see this post. Um, no, Everybody sees it. Same with, you know, Facebook. I mean, you can do a little bit, but nothing like, um, Google Plus, where you can segment your count content. But going back to I kind of think what your original intent of your question Waas, Who do you circle, you know, and do you circle everybody? I would say, No, you don't if you don't think it's somebody that has value either to your business and or from a personal standpoint, then you know, I probably wouldn't. There's a lot of people out there. Have knowledge around specific industries where you could build out like, you know, if they're techies, for example, um, you could build out a technology, you know, segment of a circle, you know, so you could do those types of things. But it's really need Google. Plus does give you a lot of capabilities, and a lot of people will say, Well, it's a ghost town over there. Oh, no, it's not. It's just a whole different segment of the social media environment. You know, people are on Twitter there on Facebook. Pretty routinely, you'll find people there your fun. Some people just on linked in the people that are diehard ghoul Folks are just a totally different animal for lack of a better way of describing it. They're just different people, and that's why there's and I don't mean that ugly. I mean, they're just different. They're just there. No, the way they engage the way they interact, they're usually more technologically savvy. They're usually male. Um, not to say that's always the case, but that's kind of your screen and giving kind of a stereo type of a Google user. You'll find a whole different market on Google plus than you will in some of the other platforms. But they're I mean again. They're diehards. They had sold the vision for Google plus out the gate, and, ah, they love it and leverage it very well. But again, the Google plus communities have just a huge value. I think across the board, to us from a community standpoint and again building out that community cause that ultimately that's what's going to drive our businesses is building out those small, tight, um, social connections where you can give value back to your audience. Um, but why Google plus communities again drive traffic as you engage with others in your community. You will have opportunities to share a BLAWG poster article from your website. So when I first started my my community, I went through my entire blawg and I, um, basically posted everything by category in my Google plus community. So when people wanted Twitter information, guess who's content popped up mine. When people wanted Facebook content, Guess who's content popped up mine. So now, now that the community is so large, other people are sharing their content to Ah, so there's more content there. But again, every time you do a block post, you share it to your Google plus community. It's going to generate more traffic to you to your website, so it's a great way to build out and drive traffic. So I got anybody excited about Google Flash at. You have a lot of people way. Have some People were like we should do a whole seminar just on Google. I've done webinars before on just Google Plus and a lot more detail again. This was such a time restrictive time that I just was one I wanted to share. Why? I think Google Plus is so very important from a content standpoint and from a traffic general, free traffic not paid traffic free traffic. Um, and the capabilities that the Google Plus communities have, I think for our business. I have a question from a class down here. Yeah, I have a question. So what are some key differences between a Facebook group and a Google community there? They have a lot of similarities, Theo nly real big glaring differences is the content segments. You know where you segment the content with a fan page. I'm sorry. With a group on Facebook, you basically can't have categories of content. For example, there's no way to organize your content with inside of the group. I'm I mean, you can post, you know, let lists inside of your group and stuff like that. But again, it's very hard for people to find quickly and easily find content within your group on Facebook on Google. Plus, you can actually segment that content and make it very easy for people to find it. You do have to have a personal profile to have a business page. Um, and what the The biggest drawback honestly, to a business page, I think you have to have one first, let me clarify that. I think if you're a business owner, you probably should have a Google plus business page similar to the Facebook pages. You know where you have a personal profile and I and you and you need a business pages Well, so I think you definitely need ah, Google plus Business Page. But the drawback and the biggest one and the one of the reasons that I haven't really embraced it or really spent a lot of time on my business. Page is you cannot circle and connect with people on your Google plus page unless they have first circled you. So it's very hard to build out connections on your personal. I'm sorry on your business page because of that restriction. There was a rumor going around for a while that Google was going. Teoh pull that limitation. So far, they haven't. That's been months ago. Eso um basically, what I have done is continued to leverage my personal profile to build out connections in order to have an opportunity to open the door to the business side of things because that is a little bit of a restriction. I think it's a huge restriction. Honestly, it's very tough to build out those connections on your Google plus page, but your Google plus page will get you, um, you know, listed in the Google rankings when people are searching for you. So I would encourage you toe have one. I think you need one absolutely. From an S e o standpoint. So a question on a number of questions coming in about these communities because a lot of people, including myself, want to familiar with them. However, now I just went and join your community. And we do have a creativelive community on Google, Plus as well. So already. Go find that enjoin too, if you'd like both of those. But the question is, um iss Can I from Big Steve? Can I create a Google community using the name of my website just for my site visitors. And then I had also seemed from huge fuser. Do you make it public? Do you make a private? What are your recommendations? You can have it either public or private on your in fact, your communities can be either or but it goes back. Teoh while one What is your goal? I mean, if you want a very maybe you have a mastermind group and you want a community on, um, you know, on Google, plus that you you know, you have 10 people or so in there, and only you guys can engage with each other. But if your intent is to build out a community of people that you know, a large community that is interested in what you are marketing, what you are sharing then I don't see any in any purpose whatsoever in having at private. I think it should be set to public, um, as it relates to the specific question of whether they he could name it, his his business name. I don't know what that is. And our people, in other words, are people searching for that. You know, personally, I think you should probably stick with instead of doing it. Doesn't mean you can tie your business name in similarly similarly to what I did. But if people aren't searching for that, then how are they going to find you? How are you going to get the benefit of the search on Google? Plus, um, under que specific keywords to build out your community if you don't use keywords in your title of your community. So I think the key word application inside of the the name of the community itself is very, very important. Not the question came in Google having been known first of search engine than providing email service. Do you have just a preferred email system out there? Like I know, people have made fun of our personal choice. Marty, email providers. Okay, I'm gonna admit it. I still Hey. Well, OK, years back, Okay? I don't use it from is my primary, but I still do have one. Um, I don't recommend it. No, it's not my personal recommendation. I think having your there's there's case to be made for several different things. So let me just broach a couple of ideas with you. Um, personally and professionally, I think having your own domain name and having your user name at that domain name sends a very strong business message. Meaning your you own your own business, you own your own domain and you're in in business. And it's very easy for people to identify that by the fact that your email represents your business in other words. Or, you know, if you're a personal brand, same thing you know, I have Kim and kim gorse dot com. I have cam at boom social .net. Um, but there are a lot of people who have gone to Gmail, you know, they're using Gmail accounts for a variety of different reasons. Some of them are marking, you know, because we all get inundated with 1000 1 emails. Probably. I don't even wanna look at my email box after a couple of days of not paying attention to it. But eso a lot of people have leveraged that. Plus it's on the go, and Google has done a phenomenal job of giving us tools that we can leverage from anywhere on. And ultimately, you can even pull in your domain name into Google the to the Gmail system and check your email directly from within Gmail. So I think there's some Definitely If I had to choose, I would say, Maybe you want to have both. I have both. I have I leverage the Gmail system and, um, simply because it's convenient. I can access my email from anywhere at any time. Um, and, um, and having your own personal domain name, I think has a lot of legs as well, did we? And I'm not sure if we talked about this much, but in terms of brute this a question from brute camp. What benefits do you get by following everybody who follows you? So on Google? Plus, are you Is it your practice to circle everybody that circles you? Or do you want to be more of an influencer where you just what should we dio with our circles? Well, there's and then I wish I had a pat answer to this because it depends. I think there's a lot of value into building out quality connections with the people that you're most interested in being connected. Teoh, Um, and I think it's very different on Facebook. I think it's very different on even on Google, plus than it is on Twitter. And so let me make this clarification right now. There's a lot of people that are in specific niche niches, and there are considered influencers within their spaces that they'll have huge followings. And then they'll follow, You know, 120 people to me on Twitter. Uh, that sends the wrong message that says to me that they are. And again, this is my personal opinion. I understand while they're doing it. So I'm no disrespect when I say this about people were doing it. But to me, it says, I'm interested in you know what I say? I'm not really interested in what you say so again, because Twitter is just a different environment. I think there's a little bit of a reciprocal thing. It doesn't mean that I think you should follow everybody that follows you back or follows you on Twitter. If, for example, you know they're fake accounts or their spammers or yes, I'll say it. They have a set of bouncing Tatas in their profile picture. You probably don't want to come back, but but, you know, across the board, you know, I think there's some some a case to be made for. Sorry. A case to be made for following people back on Twitter because it saved if, after a period of time, if you don't follow them back, they're gonna Owen follow you and a lot of cases. Um, S O that said, that's Twitter, um, with Google. Plus, though, and most other platforms, I think you can and should probably be a lot more diligent about the connections that you build out post containing questions. Increase your comments by 92%. I think this is true not only on Google plus, but some of the other platforms as well, because again, when you ask somebody a question, they're they're just into it. I mean, it's just part of the human processes. There want to respond to you post that had that have questions at the end. Get two times as many comments is questions. Ask in the middle, which I think is very interesting again. It's the last thing that people focus on. And, um, this is huge across the board. This is true on Facebook. This is Tyrone Google. Plus, as for the comment asked people, What do they think? 3.3 times more comments when you ask for it. If it's a share, whatever you want people to do, ask for it because you're going to get more engagement when you ask for it. UM, seven times more likely to get a share if you ask for it. Um, and again the likes three times more likely to get a like if you ask for it again. Big, big thing post is often is possible on Google Plus, but don't overdo it. You know, it's kind of similar to ah, probably Facebook. I would say it's not a Twitter type of situation where you can post a lot more content. It is static, so it doesn't move, so whatever you post out there is like a site similar to Facebook in that sense, but next we're going to talk about Instagram and a Pinterest And why, um, the visual platforms air so very important outside of the fact that they're growing like mad. How do you use them in leveraging for your business?