Set up Google Authorship & Publishership – forget about the rest of Google+ for now

Profile – yours sorted yet?

Google+  – we’ve all heard of it, and most of us know that we probably need it for our website SEO. But what is it, how do we get it, and do we really need it?

Everyday website owners are being asked to sign up for today’s web ranking good idea. We’re all wittering and chattering and posting and pinning, so do we really need yet another social presence?

Well, yes and no! At the moment Google+ is probably not the most effective social media platform (My opinion, others may well  disagree!), but it does offer one unique advantage. It gives you the opportunity to present yourself and your business to Google as a credible, trustworthy business by allowing you to use your Google+ Profile to gain authorship within the Google+ system. If you are not sure about the whats and whys of Google+ Authorship we have  this authorship page that  guides you through it.

What we’d like to do now is help you create your Google+ Profile.

A Google+ Profile is similar to a Facebook Profile – it must belong to an individual – a real proper, living, breathing, walking upright kind of individual! This human profile can then add a ‘page’ that is associated with a business/group/club/ etc – anything that is not an individual. This human profile can be linked to a number of pages (businesses/groups/etc), and a page can also be linked to a number of profiles.

SO, a profile = a person, and a page = a business.

How to set up your Google+ Profile

Hopefully you already have a Google account for other services such as Google Analytics/Adwords etc. If not, then you really should! Google Analytics is  vital for monitoring and understanding traffic flow to your website, so go and create a new Google account now .

Nww might be a good time to emphasise that it is best to have all your Google related activities (Adwords, Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Google+) in the same account. It makes things much simpler to access, and allows Google to provide more accurate analytics etc.

Assuming you have a Google Account you can go to the  Google+ page to create your new Google+ account.

You will be asked for your date of birth, phone number, etc at this stage.

You then have the option to “follow” people. It’s a good idea to choose a few, but when you’ve had enough click “Continue anyway”. Google likes you to have at least 10 people so by choosing them this annoying window stops popping up! You will then get the window below.

Further basic information is required such as where do you work, where do you live? Now add your photograph – I do recommend including one as this image will be used for ‘authorship’ later. Now click “Finish” and your basic Profile has been created.

Once you have successfully created a Google+ Profile you can then add a page for your business.

How to set up your Google+ Page (Tells Google which websites are yours)

On the left of your “profile” page is a list of icons. Select “More” and within this select “Pages”.

You then have a page to manage your Pages so click on the red button that says “Create New Page”.

Choose your category and add your business information – business name and website etc.

You have now created a Google+ Profile and a business page for your website.

Remember, profile=person and page=website.

Now that you have created you Google+ Profile and Page, you can set up Authorship and Publishership for your website.

You can also go and build circles within Google+, and start following other people and pages, although at this point in time the benefit of social interaction within Google+ does appear to be limited.

Good luck with your Profile creation, and let us know how it went.

So What Does It Mean to Small Business?

Set up Authorship & Publishership – forget about the rest of Google+ for now.

What do you think? Post your comments and own experiences below . . . . .

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