How Real Estate Agents Can Maximize Google+

For the most real estate agents, Google+ remains a mystery. Many ask; “what is it and why should I give it the time of day?”. When describing Google Plus, it’s a social network that’s a longer version of Twitter, coupled with a better version of Facebook, with the checkin capabilities of a Foursquare ALL fueled by steroidal SEO. While other social platforms contribute to the ranking signals measured by Google, the other platforms just don’t deliver the SEO pop that Google+ conveys! As far as committing your valuable time to another social network, maybe after reading this post you’ll determine it’s worth giving it a try.

What Can You Do on Google+?

You can create a profile, add, follow and engage with your friends adding them to your lists .. er circles, post comments, and share links, but it’s more. Way more!

Amped Up Social Network PLUS Search

Google+ helps Google achieve its Mission Statement to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. By creating and leveraging your Google+ profile you can contribute to its mission. With your profile you can link direct to Google. In its desire to identify “authors” who create high-value, compelling content, Google will pull your Google+ profile image in to your search engine results for your ranking keywords. Ironically, when Google filed it’s patent for Google+, these authors were actually called “agents”. This is called Google+ Authorship. To accomplish this you’ll need to add your “Contributor to” links to your profile allowing you to be identified as one of these “authors”.

Maximized Google+ Opportunities

Here are a few ways real estate agents should consider leveraging Google+:

1. Create a complete, optimized profile with keyword-rich “Contribute To” links to your online marketing hub (website/IDX/blog)
2. Add your Authorship Attribution (rel=author) tag to your website, IDX and blog to obtain distinctive SERPs pulling your Google+ profile image to the results
3. Add prospects, past clients, media types, SEO thought leaders, social media experts, real estate referral network members, news media types, and local techies to your Circles
4. Upload properly tagged images to your Google+ profile including a high-quality head & shoulders photo of yourself
5. Upload properly tagged videos to your Google+ profile
6. Share content links to validate you are a subject matter expert
7. Have fellow team members/referral network “+1” your content
8. Have fellow team members/referral network “comment” on your content
9. Have fellow team members/referral “share” your content
10. You +1 content, comment on content and share content from others
11. All of the above actives enhance rapid indexing of your content
12. Use the Explore navigation to search for your keywords and comment/share to that stream
    
13. Create Google+ Events
14. Write genuine Google Reviews
15. Create a Google+ Business Page
16. Using your Google+ Business page, create a Google Local Citation (your exact business address to be include in the mapped “7 Pack”)
17. Host  cool Google+ Hangouts (more on this in a follow up post!)
18. Create/attend local “Hangouts In Real Life” meetups. (HIRL-see image)
19. Use the private message/video chat features
20. Listen, learn, engage and make relationships as you would on any social site

What Other Ways Do You Use Google+?

Be sure to leave a comment and state how you use Google+ to help your real estate business.
Content authored by Bobby Carroll