By Alan Coleman on 22 Aug 2013
You probably all know by now that we are seriously fanatical about all things Google+. Don't judge us...we are not douchebags for having such deep feelings. Google+ is not a dead social network; it is a goldmine of SEO juice. Did you know that posting on Google+ is a great way of gaining link equity? That is according to this really interesting post from the Moz blog.
How you should post on Google+
1. After writing your epic blog post, use a URL shortener such as bit.ly to shorten your URL 2. Copy and paste this link into your Google+ page status update box 3. Write a compelling blurb based on the content you are sharing 4. Don't forget your hashtags! In the past, people (myself included) have been making great use of the visual appeal of Google+. Photo's look great in the Google+ stream. People have been following Facebook best-practice posting of "blurb - link - photo". But then again, Facebook isn't as much of an SEO goldmine as Google+ is.
This means we have to approach Google+ from a different perspective. It turns out that external links you add within status updates are nofollowed, meaning these do not provide any link equity. BUT links that are shared in the way we detail above are followed, meaning you get organic link value from them! SCORE!
So what are we saying?
Well...while uploading an eye-catching image and including a link in your status update is a great way to get noticed in the Google+ stream, if you approach Google+ posting from this perspective all the time, you are missing out on link juice. What we suggest you do is this: share the link the first time you post your blog post link to Google+. Assuming you schedule your blog post to repost a few days/weeks/months after its original publication, why not publish it with a photo? This has the double whammy effect of avoiding that scenario where it looks like you are spamming people with the same article over and over again...
Interested to hear people's thoughts on this!
