Google+ for Bloggers: 5 Great Features to Take Advantage Of

When Google Plus was launched on June 2011, many users didn't openly accept it when Facebook and Twitter were continuously growing. It was only after they linked profiles with search results that they got tongues wagging, or rather, fingers typing. Today, the social network has over 500 million users of whom half are active on a monthly basis.

Connecting your blog to G+ offers many benefits and these include the integration of the +1 button and increased exposure in search. If you want to maximize your time spent in getting your site seen by users, you should take advantage of these five features.

Photo Upload

People just love visual media, and sites that use images and videos often see higher reader traffic. The Google+ platform, which integrates with Picasa Web, allows you to showcase your photos in a big way so users can see them clearly even on smaller smartphone or tablet screens. This is an especially good feature if you want to reach out to those who use a mobile to access the Web.

Communities

This enables you to create ongoing conversations about particular topics, making it easier for you to cater to certain groups. If you have one blog that focuses on cars and another on computers, you can filter your followers according to the niche they are more interested in. When used with the Ripples tool, you can even track which posts garner more traffic and which subjects are worth writing about next time.

Tagging

This allows you to link to other users in posts, where relevant. By doing this, you will increase the chances of getting your posts read and shared by people in their network. The process is relatively simple. All you have to do is type the + sign into your message, followed by the name of an individual or Page. Just take note not to overuse this feature as tagging those whom you’re not connected with might be seen as spam.

Sharing

This gets your posts promoted to people in your chosen Circles. This also permits you to share content from other users thereby expanding your coverage and building relationships with fellow bloggers. This will lead to having a wider reader network and might even cause you to have better quality link juice if you connect to top sites.

Sandbar

This can be accessed on any Google property page as long as you are signed into your account. This includes many popular services like Gmail, YouTube, and Search. It displays notifications of new activity on your page such as shares or +1s by fans so you would have less hassle on tracking the progress of your website.

Parting Note

There are many other features that you can use in Google+ but the five mentioned above are considered to be the most useful for bloggers. Take advantage of them, properly of course, and you should have no trouble boosting traffic to your site.