Google+ +1 Button – It IS a Big Deal

This is the 7th installment of Google+ For Creative Bloggers. Here are the first six posts:

Part 1 – What is Google Plus?

Part 2 – The Pros and Cons of Google+

Part 3 – Setting Up Your Profile

Part 4 – Google+ Circles

Part 5 – Creative Ways To use Circles

Part 6 – Google+ Cheatsheet

Using Google products is really simple, but understanding what they do and why is another story altogether. The Google +1 button has been around for quite a while now. If you’re like me, it’s been a bit of a mystery, and reading Google’s explanations just deepened my confusion.

I thought it was similar to Facebook’s “Like” button, but it’s not. If you ‘+1’ a blog it doesn’t add that blog’s posts to your Google+ stream, which Facebook’s “Like” button does. So what does it do?

Honestly? I can’t begin to explain it. So I’ll offer a quote from Hubspot, one of the giants in internet marketing, who highly recommend being on Google+ -

Add the Google +1 button to your website and blog so that people can easily share your blog posts and landing pages with their friends, and help your pages rank better at the same time. You'll also benefit from increased traffic, as our research shows that websites using the +1 button generate 3.5x the Google+ visits than sites without the button.

 

Did you catch that last line?

“Websites using the +1 button generate 3.5 times the Google+ visits”

Yeah. That’s a big deal. Combine that with the fact that +1’s help your page ranking on Google Search and you might agree with me that the +1 button is a big deal. That is, if you want to increase your blog’s pageviews and ranking on Google. #justsayin’

So, obviously you’ll want to start +1ing your own posts, right? The quickest way is to just hit the +1 button on your blog post. (If you don’t have a +1 button on your blog, I’ll give you a couple ways to install it later this week.)

If you want your thumbnail for the associated post to show up, just cut ‘n paste your post url on to Google+ and you’ll be able to choose which pic you want. Then just +1 it there.

There’s a lot more to cover about the +1 button like, how to put it on your blog, how to get others to +1 you, and so on. But, for now, I just wanted to tell you how important it is and to start clicking the button for your own posts!

So, how are you doing with Google+? Are you confused? Are you using circles? Let me know, either in a comment here or on Google+.