Top 5 Google Features that are Being Taken Advantage Of

Taking advantage of Google Features

As part of good SEO practice, participating in Google+ is a better strategy to build your network and your brand. There are new reports that come in constantly about user growth.

Let’s say you have a profile and are using it, but are you actively engaging yourself in Google+? Did you know that you may have missed some important features, which you can use to your advantage? For the basic user, it is understandable why you may have missed certain features as there are a lot of features to try in Google+. As for SEO Specialist and Marketers, it is important that you are able to use some of these important features to your advantage.

1. Helper Extension for Chrome

For those that is already using Chrome as their default browser, it will be easy for them to download free extensions that will make their Google+ more easy to manage. Here are the benefits with using the Helper for Google+ extension:

• An easy “one-click” tool to share your content in Google+ to Twitter and Facebook
• Receives desktop notifications for every new posts
• A bookmarking tool available for any post in Google+ in case one wants to read later

To download this extension is easy. Just go to Google Chrome’s web store, locate that extension and download. Then after that, just follow the installation directions and then you are done.

2. Built-in Formatting Codes

The good thing about Google+ is that this feature will allow you to change the style of the text you post using several short codes that you might be unaware of.

• BOLD – Just add an asterisk at the beginning and end of the word(s) that you want to specify in bold letters. [i.e. *word 1* = word 1]
• ITALICS – When you want to italicize the word, use an underscore sign before the word(s) and a plus at the end as the closing symbol.[i.e. _word 2+ = word 2]
• STRIKETHROUGH – Just add a dash before and after the word(s) that you want to use a strikethrough. [i.e. –word 3- = word 3]

3. Google+ Ripples

This feature would allow you to view the responses in a Google+ post in a clearer and visually focused way. Just simply go to the top right-hand corner in your post and you see a downward arrow – click that, and you will see an option where it says “View Ripples”.

Once you click that feature, Google + will then take you to a chart that will show how your content has spread and you’ll also be able to see which users have shared or liked it.

4. Google+ Brand Page Audit

There is a feature called Steady Demand where it will show you a clearer information on how well your Google+ page is doing. With this tool, it will allow you to add your brand page’s URL and then a free report will be available regarding what has been done right and which ones were done wrong. This tool also checks to make sure that you are properly linking to your website from your profile. To understand it more clearly based on the resulting metrics, you will have a more clear view on how to improve your page.

5. Turned-Off Google+ Emails

A new Google+ tool which was recently launched will allow anyone that is connected on Google+ to be able to email you direct via Gmail (by default). Although some users may view this as a convenience, but others consider this to be a big privacy breach.  The good news with this tool is that you are able to disable others from auto-emailing you.

Here is how you will be able to use this tool:

Within your Gmail account, find the wheel that is located at the top right-hand corner on your screen which is just above your inbox.

You’ll find the “Settings” option and from there it will take you to the “Settings dashboard”. Scroll the page down and find the area where it’s marked “Email via Google+” and then modify its dropdown settings from “Anyone on Google+” to your desired choice – extended circles, circles or no one.

Knowing all these top 5 Google+ settings, have you utilized one of them lately? For more Google+ features just go to https://www.google.com/+/learnmore/features.html.