After what was an admittedly slow start, Google+ has been gathering pace and establishing itself as a major player in the social media field. So is it time for your business to take the plunge or is Google+ just one more unnecessary endeavour?

Getting into Google+ With Google+, you’re not just looking at a social network – you’re looking at a way to integrate seamlessly with a huge number of other Google products. From Hangouts and Talk to YouTube, you can link your business’s Google+ page to a wide variety of other channels – allowing you to build brand presence and give potential customers more ways to get to know you.

Why consider signing up? Google is being smart when it comes to social integration – it offers incentives so you will sign up to as many of its products as possible. For example, the Places function on Google Maps is being replaced with a location feature that’s connected to a Google+ profile. This means that if you want to make sure your business is highlighted on all-important maps, a profile may be a necessity. Google+ is also known to be a factor when it comes to local carousel results – something that can have a huge impact on your traffic.

Source : https://support.google.com/business/answer/7035772?hl=en

Create a link that customers can click to leave a review of your business on Google. You can easily share the link with customers to encourage them to write reviews and rate your business. First though, you will need to have listed your business on Google Maps, and created a 'Google My Business' account, because it's this business information that we will be creating the review link for.

To create a review link, you’ll need to get the Place ID for your business. To get your Place ID: 

1. Go to the Google Places API. 
2. Enter your business information in the “Enter a location” field at the top of the map.
3. Click your business name in the list that appears. 
4. Your Place ID will appear on the map, beneath your business name.

Google My Business connects you directly with customers, whether they're looking for you on Search, Maps or Google+.

Give customers the right info at the right time, whether that be driving directions to your business in Maps, hours of operations in Search or a phone number they can click to call you on mobile phones. Google My Business helps you build a loyal fan base. Your customers can show their appreciation with ratings and reviews, use the +1 button to endorse your content, and re-share your Google+ posts across the web.

If you're a new business and need to show up on Google Maps, or if you're an existing business and still not showing up on Google Maps, then get registered with Google My Business today! It's free, and you will also get a Google+ page which you should update with content on a regular (weekly or fortnightly) basis.

Get on Google

The following is a very good report on why Google analytics reports for keywords are increasing showing a large percentage as "not provided". This article is a direct copy of the article written by Mike Allton at http://socialmediatoday.com/mike-allton/1209631/why-google-hiding-your-keywords .

More and more business owners have started to recognize that Google is no longer providing all of the keyword data that it used to within Google Analytics. If you monitor your website analytics regularly, you may have noticed that your Keyword report is showing more (not provided) than other keywords. This has search engine marketers and business owners more than a little concerned! Why aren't these words being provided, and what can we do about it?

What's the big deal?

A large part of Internet marketing has to do with keywords. A keyword is a word or phrase that an individual types into a search to retrieve a set of results. As businesses, we want to identify what keywords our potential clients are using to find businesses like ours, and then perform actions to increase our chances of being ranked higher for each specific keyword. This is the cornerstone of search engine optimization.

For example, one of the keyword phrases that I target is "St Louis Internet Marketing Company" as I have determined that my target customers may use that phrase to find a business like mine.

That's fine that I think that's a good keyword phrase, but is it really? Will customers actually be looking for that and visit my site? This is where the Google Analytics Keyword report is so valuable because it will show you the keywords that actually drove someone to your site. If I find a lot of visits from my target keyword then I know I chose well. If not, it may be because either my site is not ranking well enough for that phrase, or there simply aren't enough people actually searching on that phrase - either way, I have some more work to do.

Here is a great 10 minute video on how to create a business listing on Google Maps. 

Need an easy way for your clients to leave you a review? You can include the link to leave a review directly in your email signature or mailout.

How to provide a direct link to your Google+ review box:
The direct link is a very useful and simple process. Simply add ?hl=en&review=1 at the end of your Google+ page URL. This can be used with any URL that directs to your Google+ page. eg https://plus.google.com/+WebcoastAu/about?hl=en&review=1  you can add an icon to your email signature, and link the icon to your review URL, or use it any other way that you like.