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how to use google for business guide to using google s social network for business a publication of

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how to use google for business how to use google for business is this ebook right for me not quite sure if this ebook is right for you see the below description to determine if your level matches the content you are about to view introductory introductory content is for marketers who are new to the subject this content typically includes step-by-step instructions on how to get started with this aspect of inbound marketing and learn its fundamentals after reading it you will be able to execute basic marketing tactics related to the topic how to use google for business by magdalena georgieva maggie georgieva is an inbound marketing manager at hubspot responsible for creating new offers including ebooks and webinars maggie has previously helped with hubspot s email marketing program and the company s landing page creation and optimization maggie is a prolific marketing blogger and has also written for publications like bostinnovation.com and the st petersburg times intermediate intermediate content is for marketers who are familiar with the subject but have only basic experience executing strategies and tactics on the topic this content typically covers the fundamentals and reveals more complex functions and examples after reading it you will feel comfortable leading projects with this aspect of inbound marketing follow me on twitter @mgieva advanced advanced content is for marketers who are or want to be experts on the subject in it we walk you through advanced features of this aspect of inbound marketing and help you develop complete share this ebook mastery of the subject after reading it you will feel ready not only to execute strategies and tactics but also to teach others how to be successful www.hubspot.com www.hubspot.com share this ebook!

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1 how to use google for business how to use google for business 2 on the day google announced the release of google business pages hundreds of media outlets i expect brands will notice this and will build marketing plans around it bradley horowitz vp of product google covered the story and drew attention to its importance while many reporters and bloggers viewed it as a great improvement to google s feature set some decided to take a more controversial angle viewing the story through the lens of a facebook rivalry pcworld for example led off with a story about how in mark zuckerberg s words google is trying to build their own little version of facebook it has long been discussed that google seeks to penetrate the social market which it previously attempted to do with google buzz which has now been shut down will google be the key weapon the search engine giant needs to achieve its goal can this new network with its improved feature set beat facebook these are all questions we don t quite have the answers for yet but one thing is clear marketers are provided with a completely new platform to explore and leverage www.hubspot.com launched in june 2011 google is a new social network that has attracted the attention of marketers in just a few months the platform amassed more than 40 million users nearly one third of linkedin s 135 million membership base despite this impressive growth the adoption of google doesn t yet compare to that of facebook which has more than 800 million users ever since its launch google has been open to individuals to share stories with their circles get involved in discussions post photos and participate in video conference calls called hangouts however the social network didn t provide businesses with much value and many marketers were left wondering how to truly benefit from google in early november google finally rolled out business pages now the platform not only enables companies to create pages but also encourages businesses to grow their following i expect brands will notice this and will build marketing plans around it said bradley horowitz vice president for products at google in an article for the new york times his statement definitely share this eook reinforces the potential of the social network for marketing purposes www.hubspot.com in this guide we will help you make sense of this new environment we ll give you step-bystep instructions for how to set up and optimize your google business page as well as the best practices to use in order to generate more buzz around your company lastly we will touch upon different aspects of google that will impact your search engine optimization and blogging efforts welcome and we hope you enjoy the read share this ebook!

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contents what google is and why it matters /3 how to set up a google business page /6 the benefits of google in search /11 6 best practices for marketing on google /22 conclusion additional resources /27

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how to use google for business chapter 1 3 make the same kinds of lasting connections with your customers online the way you can in real life dennis troper product management director google pages what google is and why it matters google is a social network powered by the search engine giant google many see this platform as a challenge to facebook s domination of the social media space with more than 40 million users and a growing influence on search google has definitely emerged as a key player in the online marketing ecosystem google allows businesses to create pages and develop relationships with prospects and customers on multiple levels individuals can add a brand to a specific google circle share a google page with their network and interact with the content posted by that company for instance users can +1 or in other words endorse the updates a company publishes leave comments upload photos and tag the brand in them an interesting aspect of this platform is that its hangouts feature enables companies to engage with fans prospects and customers through video conference calls video chat is definitely the element that distinguishes google from other existing social networks we want to help you make the same kinds of lasting connections with your customers online the way you can in real life wrote dennis troper product management director google pages video communication is one way to make this happen share this ebook www.hubspot.com

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4 how to use google for business how to use google for business 5 10 quick facts about google 1 pages can t add people to circles until the page is added first or mentioned 7 pages don t receive notifications via email text or in the google bar pages can be made for a variety of different entities whereas profiles can only be made for people 2 pages don t have the option to share to `extended circles 8 3 them the default privacy setting for elements on your business page is public 9 pages have the +1 button local pages have special fields that help people find the business physical location google pages automatically unfollow you if you unfollow 4 google pages can t even mention you unless you re connected 10 share this ebook 5 6 pages can t +1 other pages nor can they +1 content on the web share this ebook www.hubspot.com www.hubspot.com

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how to use google for business 6 set up your google page in 5 easy steps chapter 2 how to set up a google business page while google indicated that google pages wouldn t be immediately accessible to all they re actually becoming readily available in fact we ve already created hubspot s google page so you can follow our updates and add hubspot to one of your circles by clicking here you are probably also eager to create a google page for your own business the process isn t difficult and in this section we will walk you through it step by step 1 choose an accessible gmail account if we learned anything from creating our own page it s that google pages administrative capabilities could use improvement avoid creating your business page through just any old account such as a personal gmail account instead choose a gmail account that is accessible to multiple members of your marketing team e.g companymarketingteam gmail.com and use that account to create your page share this ebook www.hubspot.com

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7 how to use google for business how to use google for business 8 step-by-step tutorial because google pages administrative capabilities currently aren t as sophisticated as say facebook s which enable you to assign multiple page admins regardless of the page s origins you ll want to choose a host account that makes your page as accessible to multiple contributors as possible the `google your business google page has indicated that google has already started working on multi-admin support and ownership transfer for now we recommend making your account as accessible to other team members as possible after selecting your classification fill in your basic information including your page name i.e your company name your business website url your category i.e your industry and visit http plus.google.com/pages/create and if you see the option to create a google page get started follow the wizard it s much like facebook s page creation wizard and choose the most appropriate option to classify your business share this ebook share this ebook the classification of your page s content i.e any google user 18 years of age or older etc you ll be able to select from the following options local business or place product or brand company institution or organization arts entertainment or sports other have questions post them to hubspot s google page 2 create a page with the desired account www.hubspot.com www.hubspot.com

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9 how to use google for business how to use google for business 10 time into optimizing your page and sharing a few links to valuable content before you start promoting it to the masses 3 promoting a blank page isn t a great way to customize your public profile convince people that your page is valuable enough to add to their circles so invest some the third step involves customizing your public profile the profile basics include your tagline think of it as your business elevator pitch and an image your company logo is a great option keep it concise yet descriptive 5 4 promote your page optimize further at the most basic level this is really all you need to do to get your page launched but as any smart marketer knows the `basics aren t usually enough intelligent marketers understand the importance of optimizing their page to make it not only more engaging but also more valuable and effective for lead generation in this step follow google s prompts to create an effective page and remember google is a social network although every social network has its specific nuances and behaviors many of the same best practices will still apply regularly share fresh content react and respond to your fans be engaging and optimize for lead generation then measure adapt your strategy and optimize your presence based on your own individual results and goals share this ebook at this point you ve created the skeleton of your page and google will now prompt you to promote your page our recommendation is to customize your page even further and start sharing a few updates before you begin telling the world about it share this ebook www.hubspot.com www.hubspot.com

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how to use google for business 11 5 ways google changes search chapter 3 the benefits of google in search here at hubspot we ve picked out a number of ways google will influence how you will get traffic from google s search engine whether by boosting your position in search results increasing the chances that people will click into your site or other factors 1 improving google s intelligence what you are reading but now they can also see which of your friends are most important to you in the past they could have had a broad vision of your followers on twitter but now they can directly see exactly how you interact with those people for example do you frequently share links with only a small handful of people share this ebook as a result of google google will be able to improve its search engine results pages through the enhanced information it will be able to collect from your social circle google offers a lot of elements that will allow google to understand trends and what people are interested faster than ever before not only can they see what you share with your friends or www.hubspot.com

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12 how to use google for business how to use google for business 13 authors and you tend to prefer a few of them or specific topics that the blog covers google can better adjust its rankings to show what you are interested in google will now know which of your friends you trust and listen to the most also google will have better insight into who your favorite authors are on certain blogs if a blog has many google is getting deeper vision into how individual users share discuss things on the internet google can now more easily police who has a real profile and who is a spammer if you have a very tight relationship with a small network and a broader network that you are less engaged with google could know to promote your tight relationships in search results or use ads over the broad network essentially google is getting deeper vision into how individual users share and discuss things on the internet in the past it had a limited vision of this now google can own the complete picture when placing recommendations on the results pages or looking for a certain page to promote share this ebook 2 improved search results quality share this ebook www.hubspot.com another benefit that google brings to search is that results become much harder to cheat google can now more easily police who has a real profile and who is a spammer and watch how they try to influence search results when google sees a profile that only shares and votes for things on one website and nothing else it knows who target as a spammer if it sees profiles dominated exclusively by +1s it might get suspicious let s take this one step further if profiles are only following other profiles characterized by such behavior google might consider them suspect less gaming in google s results is a long-time goal for the search engine giant some spam sites are trying to sell +1 votes already but it is unlikely to be worthwhile-google can easily watch for profiles that do nothing but spam votes and discount the value of those votes www.hubspot.com

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14 how to use google for business 3 changing how you get traffic google also rolled out its version of the tweet or share button the +1 these +1 buttons appear in google s search results and can be embedded on other websites as well they are tied to a destination page address just like shares or tweets are +1 be aware that the number of +1 votes you have for a specific page can affect its quality score which is critical when working on a budget for your paid ads this isn t a huge problem but it s important to be aware of every time you move a page or change the address of something you ll be resetting the +1 count for that page the +1 count that is displayed on each button is based on the address of the page where it sits this detail is really important to be aware of because this may influence how you design your website if you re creating landing pages for paid search campaigns and your pages have several variations all of the +1 votes that you earn will be broken down separately for each page address also incorporating the +1 button on your blog share this ebook www.hubspot.com

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15 how to use google for business how to use google for business 16 no +1 button with +1 button websites using google s +1 button get 3.5x the google visits in order to determine the value of google s +1 button we looked at data from hubspot s entire customer base of more than 5,000 businesses we compared referral traffic levels from plus google.com google for websites that have google s +1 button installed and for those that don t the result websites that use google s +1 button generated 3.5 times more traffic from google than websites that don t have the button installed what s the marketing takeaway use social sharing buttons while this statement second social sharing buttons act as a callseems obvious many businesses overlook the value of social sharing buttons and don t use them social sharing buttons serve two important purposes first they make it super easy and quick for a visitor to share your content on social media sites share this ebook to-action on your blog that helps remind visitors that their online connections might be interested in the content as well if you aren t yet using the google +1 button on your website it s definitely time to start www.hubspot.com

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17 how to use google for business how to use google for business 18 4 improved click-through rates dan suggests that there could be a powerful first post effect that marketers can leverage in other words people might be more willing to share a piece of content if they have a chance to be one of the first people to spread the word in any case now google gives us more opportunities to speculate about social proof and its effect on social and viral behavior online the fourth major factor here which is an often forgotten attribute to seo success is click-through rate or how often people who see you on their results page actually click on your page in the results one of the powerful ideas behind the +1 votes is that if you can see that certain results are extremely popular or that people found a specific resource particularly helpful you have that information available without even clicking into the site share this ebook you can see that 500 people have already found a certain page useful before you ever click or read any other details about it you can see that 500 people have already found a certain page useful before you ever click or read any other details about it this is similar to what twitter and facebook have given us access to with some of their customized buttons that reveal numbers of times something has been shared in fact hubspot s social media scientist dan zarrella has discovered some interesting data around social sharing the access to this insight will strongly encourage searchers to click on specific good pages and ignore ones that are not as popular with their readers if you d like to see an example of how this can work look at your google webmaster tools dashboard google provides a chart to show your click-through rate with and without +1 results in the search results share this ebook www.hubspot.com www.hubspot.com

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19 how to use google for business for example in this diagram from google you can see that people who saw hubspot in the search results with +1 information next to our website s homepage were substantially more likely to click on our link this is great reinforcement for us to place +1 buttons across our site so that all of our pages can take advantage of the improved click-through rate 5 direct connect as you can see google is not just like any social network out there it has the power to affect our search habits and the search engine giant is not afraid to use that to its advantage to penetrate the social media space while here we covered most of the important ways in which google will affect search results there is one more element that needs to be discussed with the launch of google business pages google also rolled out an interesting new integration between google and google search the name of this integration is direct connect and in the next section we will discuss share this ebook what it does and how to set it up www.hubspot.com

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