In the past couple of years a lot has been said about social media for companies. Most business owners believe that social media marketing will increase brand awareness, cultivate trust / confidence among users and even generate more leads. But what about SEO (Optimizing the search engine)? Do these social media networks really help with the SEO of your website?

If your website’s SEO is your main focus and you don’t have time to fiddle-fart around on Twitter , Facebook, Pinterest , LinkedIn, Tumblr, Vine, etc. etc. etc. etc., then I’d recommend Google Plus to choose from. Many companies still don’t use Google Plus, but it’s probably the most advantageous for SEO. So if you only have time for one Social Media channel and your primary concern is SEO, then Google Plus should be your go-to.

Is Google Plus “A Desolate Wasteland”?

NO, it is not! Google Plus is just the new kid on the block, so people like to talk about it a lot and give it a hard time. Plus (no pun intended), it’s a Google entity, which makes it a pretty easy target.

Here are two screenshots I took from Business Insider articles that were made pretty much at the same time, contradicting each other. Kind of funny…

So if you’ve heard bad things about Google Plus, then try to ignore it. It’s really just a lot of noise. Besides, you’ll be ahead of the game if you embrace it now – especially in the SEO world.

Google +1’s and Higher Search Rankings?
There was a recent study from Moz about the correlation between Google +1’s and higher rankings in the search engines. Basically, they’re saying that the number of Google +1’s for a page on your site can increase the search engine rankings and SEO of that page.

The article became somewhat controversial and led to a Google representative (Matt Cutts) responding, saying that Google +1’s do NOT directly affect rankings.

I personally believe that Google +1’s do not directly affect search engine rankings, just like the Google rep says. But that isn’t really the point. The point is, Google Plus (the Social Network) is good for SEO, period.

What We DO Know About SEO & Google Plus

Although we may still be discussing some aspects of Google Plus for SEO, there are a few details. And here are only a few reasons why Google Plus is SEO ‘s strongest Social Media Network …

Content is crawled and passes SEO valueM
The Google Plus material is just like every other web page. That is different from Facebook and Twitter. Google Plus posts get crawled and indexed, I might add very easily, and the pages have (and pass) Page Level. In other words, your content will appear in the search engines and the valuable SEO link juice will move through your posts and pages by linking.

Author images increase click through rates
By adding your authorship information to your Google Plus profile, you can have an image appear in the search results, which will increase the click through rate of your results. That may not increase your rankings (although it may…), but it’s still good SEO.

Author Rank can increase search engine rankings
Holding this Authorship in mind is all linked to Google Plus and your profile-your Authorship will affect rankings! Google uses something that is called Author Rank to assess the quality of the content you create over the Internet. Having a higher Author Rank will boost the search engine rankings for all of your contenders. Did I mention that Google Plus is all tied in?

The bottom line is, if you’re not currently on Google Plus, do it today , particularly if you’re looking to complement your Social Media SEO strategy and don’t have the time to handle all 7,883,297 Social Media Platforms.

Once you set up your profile, make sure you take the time to optimize it. And for further reading, here is another Moz article about taking advantage of Google Plus for SEO.