Harry Potter Lied

#harrypotter #harrypotterjokes

Me and Google are so close...

(Shared by +Cyrus Shepard at Inbound.org)

Praying Mantis on a Fern Bike

One of the favorite science photos of 2012 from ScienceAlert on Facebook. I originally had this titled as "Grasshopper on a Fern Bike" until alert reader +Sergey Andri +Sergey +Sergey Andrianov e science site on Facebook had it captioned as a grasshopper. If I'd looked more carefully (and maybe if I hadn't been doing Tiny Guinness shots at midnight last night) I would've recognized that this, of course, is a praying mantis.

#science #nature #sciencephotography #naturephotography

If the Beatles Had Written Stairway to Heaven

Love this performance of Stairway to Heaven in the style of the Ed Sullivan Show era Beatles, by the Australian Beatles tribute band The Beatnix.

Has Eric Scmidt Just Confirmed Author Rank?

It's been some time since we've had any public statement from a Google employee on Google Authorship becoming a major ranking factor in search results.

Until now.

In his upcoming book The Digital Age, according to +TechCrunch, Schmidt says the following:

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”

This is the clearest affirmation of author rank I have heard since +Othar Hansson's answer to +Matt Cutts' question in the introductory video on Authorship back in 2011.

Yet Another "Google+ Is Dying" MSM Article

Oh God. I think I'm going to be sick.

I'm so tempted to rant at journalists like +Amir Efrati for perpetuating this stupid myth that Google+ is a ghost town. If you're one of the thousands in my circles, you're one of millions who know that's not true.

But today I'm not going to rant at pile-on tech writers like +Amir Efrati. I'm going to turn my anger at Google.

Hello +Vic Gundotra +Louis Gray +Bradley Horowitz - why why why do you allow Google's marketing team to keep marketing Google+ as "Facebook just maybe slightly better"? Why why why do you not see what millions of us who use it and love it understand: Google+'s secret weapon is that it is not just "another social network." STOP trying to get people to bring their same friends they have on Facebook over here. IT'S NOT WORKING.

Please please please start marketing Google+ as what it is: the world's most incredible discovery engine. The great power of Google+ is not yet another way to follow celebrities and keep up with Aunt Susie. The power here is in the ability to discover and engage with thousands of new people from all over the world who are interested in what you're interested in.

Google: You're killing Google+ with your useless "suggested user list" that directs people to people they'll never get to engage with. Use what you're good at! Trust the algorithms! Connect new people with hundreds of people in their interest graph who are actually using Google+ and engaging every day.

Google+ users: If you agree, please share this. Copy it to as many influential people in Google as you can, or write your own message. If Google won't save Google+, maybe we can.

EDIT: And you must read "Getting More People to Use Google+" a brilliant piece by +Ryan Crowe https://plus.google.com/u/0/115516333681138986628/posts/9SieYGfgB7b

Social Media Marketing Is Not a Big Money Maker

And this is why my agency (+Virante Search Marketing) killed our Social Media Marketing department to replace it with a broader-missioned Digital Outreach Department (which I lead). We realized that SMM alone does not add much value for clients. SM needs to be part of a much larger and well-integrated brand strategy for online marketing. This is the maturation of SMM: when it stops being its own silo and people stop doing SMM for SMM's sake or because everyone else is.

"Nuff said

My Most Important Blog Post Ever

And I don't say that lightly. I've written a ton of content over the years, but I honestly think this is my magnum opus so far. I have never felt more strongly about something I've written for business or marketing.

Since my first day here (Google+ Day 3), I've been saying that there is so much more under the hood of what Google has created with Google+ than most people--even most "social media experts"--understand.

You are reading this on the most powerful networking and influence-spreading tool in the history of the world. I truly do not believe I am exaggerating in the slightest.

Read the article: http://windmillnetworking.com/2013/01/30/your-google-plus-network-is-more-powerful-than-you-know/

Let me know what you think. And if you really like it and appreciate the effort I put into it, you could "tip" me by upvoting it at Inbound.org: http://goo.gl/OrwEi (just need a Twitter account to log in).

Google Plus Guides: My Complete List

Been a while since I updated this, and I have a lot of new followers now (welcome!).

This is the master index to all the guides to using Google+ more effectively I've written over the last year-and-a-half.

Also don't miss the link to my +Windmill Networking monthly columns, where even more helpful tips reside for business uses!

Confirmed: Google Authorship for Slideshare Profiles

A couple of months ago I had remarked that I'd seen an Authorship rich snippet for one of my Slideshare.net decks for a few days in Google SERPs. At the time I thought it was just an experiment by Google, as it didn't verify in the Structured Data Testing Tool. 

But today not only do I see the Authorship snippet, but it also verifies in the SDTT as having Authorship markup! Here's what you need to qualify:

1. Make your Google+ profile URL (with ?rel=author appended immediately to the end, no space) the visible website for your Slideshare.net profile.

2. Link back to your Slideshare.net profile in the Contributor To section of your Google+ profile.

That's it! (As with all rich snippet results, remember Google decides according to its own algorithm when they show and for whom. Just having a verified linkage does not guarantee a rich snippet will show at any given time.)

What's your favorite lazy day activity? (Lazy day defined as a day you wake up and realize you have nowhere to be and nothing you have to do).

Me? If its nice out, find a park or someplace outdoors to read a book, or a new place to walk. You?

TED on Google+

A bunch of us are trying to get +TED to pay attention to Google+ and realize that this is a good place for them to be. Yesterday we got their circled count to go from the 300s to over 1600. If you love +TED but haven't circled them yet, please do, and re-share!

Google+ SEO: Beyond Talk to Making It Work

Everyone talks about "the SEO power of Google+." People and businesses reluctantly drag themselves here because they've heard vague statements that "you have to be on G+ to rank in Google" (not true by the way). But just showing up and starting a page does little for them.

A little over a year ago, I started noticing that certain profiles (mine among them) had an unusual power to get posts ranked high in Google search. Many of you have seen me write about how often when I've reshared a "What's Hot" post by a very popular person or celebrity, my share will be the one G+ post showing up high in Google. The only insight we had (other than suspicions) was this ranking power had little or nothing to do with number of followers.

But the +Joshua Berg made a discovery that confirmed what I'd suspected: When it comes to SEO, Google treats profiles, Pages, and I think Communities too, just like "regular" web pages. In this post I reveal that discovery, what it means, and how you build a page or profile that has strong influence in Google search.

(If you benefited from this post, would you please upvote it at http://www.inbound.org/articles/view/google-plus-seo-everybody-039-s-talks-about-it-how-do-you-do-it ? Thanks!)
#seo  

Are You a Google+ X-Person?

Calling all Google+ Mutants! +Yifat Cohen and I are issuing a challenge: we're looking for those rare Google+ users who, like us, have an uncanny ability to outrank almost anyone for their own G+ posts in Google Search when resharing those posts.

We have far more than bragging rights in mind. We want to assemble a group of people with powerful G+ profiles to help us test what the characteristics of such profiles might be. What gives a Google+ profile strong authority in Search?

You don't have to necessarily have a huge following to qualify. In fact, we've found that counts very little. Read the post to see what we're up to and find out how to test whether you are a Google+ X-Person, and how to join our test group.

(If you participate, tag your test posts with #googleplusmutants  )

Please Reshare this so we can find our X-Persons. Thanks!

UPDATE: Check the bottom of the post below for a test I ran with my own profile last night!

#googleplusxpersons     #googleplusmutants  

Little Bird Is Author Rank for Twitter

Well, sort of ;-) It's an intriguing new way of evaluating who's influential in a certain topic on Twitter in terms of how many other top influentials in that topic relate to that person. It rates not by popularity (how many followers, how many RTs in general), but by topical, contextual popularity. Heard about it from +Wil Reynolds and signed up for the beta today.

We believe that in-group validation is the best metric.  It’s made even more valuable because it cannot be gamed, or cheated.  There’s no way you’re going to win the attention of a whole bunch of neuroscience leaders without being pretty darned interesting.  Thus, working backwards, seeing who has won the attention of a bunch of neuroscientists is a good way to find out who neuroscientists find interesting.

RESHARE:
Author Rank Confirmed by Google Chairman?

This may be the biggest news I've broken on Google+ in a long time. Read my post below from the Google Authorship and Author Rank community. And ignore the Tech Crunch linkbait headline in their article. As I discuss, they bury the real headline with no comprehension of the magnitude of what Schmidt has said.

#authorship #authorrank #Googleauthorship #googleauthorrank

Reshared text:
Has Eric Scmidt Just Confirmed Author Rank?

It's been some time since we've had any public statement from a Google employee on Google Authorship becoming a major ranking factor in search results.

Until now.

In his upcoming book The Digital Age, according to +TechCrunch, Schmidt says the following:

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”

This is the clearest affirmation of author rank I have heard since +Othar Hansson's answer to +Matt Cutts' question in the introductory video on Authorship back in 2011.

Why I'm Long Term Invested in Google Plus

Over the past few days I've been having a very interesting and at times passionate (ok, heated) debate with someone in a LinkedIn group about Google Plus. He was proclaiming it a total waste of time for businesses, and expressed his frustrations with what he sees as huge inadequacies in the platform that make it too difficult for businesses to use effectively.

This is my latest reply (edited only to add headers for easier reading here), written after he agreed to give Google+ another try (see our complete exchange at the link below):

Charles, thanks for that feedback. Indeed, I'm probably as passionate about G+ as you are cynical toward it, and because of that we clashed in this thread more than was probably necessary. But I think we're now coming to a useful meeting place.

You've stepped up sincerely from your pace of skepticism to sign up again and give it a go. So I'll make a good faith gesture to step down from my high and mighty cloud ;-) and try to engage in some realism.

Yes, I'm gung ho about Google+, but I'll admit that to some extent that is about what I see as it's great potential rather than present reality. That's not to say that I and others aren't already getting big benefit out of it (we are), but it is to agree with you that a lot needs to happen yet for G+ to be a "no brainer" for many in the way some other social networks are.

Google+ As a Long Term Investment
I'm a believer that Google is committed to G+ and has a brilliant (if sometimes frustrating) "long game" plan for it (see http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/05/why-the-google-long-game-is-brilliant/). This is typical modern-day Google. They have the resources and patience to walk out a long term strategy and to build slowly and carefully (as opposed to Zuckerberg's "rush it out the door even if it doesn't quite work yet" mentality). Google takes the luxury of carefully testing new features and rolling them out slowly, letting the users uncover what works and what's broken, and then adjusting and fixing in response. On Google+ many of us regularly find Google engineers and execs interacting in our threads, getting our feedback and letting us know what they're working on. That never happens on Facebook or Twitter.

And so bit by bit we see Google regularly rolling out changes and updates, and almost always they are real useful improvements that make it a truly better, more user- or business-friendly place, as opposed to Facebook's too-often shot-in-the-dark catastrophes, like local check in and other ventures they roll out only to have to pull them a month or two later.

Long Term Investments Are Hard
But I understand that to a busy business person, that Google pace can be maddening. And I need to have more empathy for someone like you. You don't have a lot of time to be a beta tester, to keep plugging away at an "under construction" network when you already have other networks up and running and working for you. I get that.

But Oh, The Payoff When They Hit...
But here's the trade off (and why I am "wasting time" on G+): the payoff for the early adopter in a network that eventually goes big time. Of course, just like a stock investor, it's tough to know which newcomer to hitch your wagon too. We can all think of companies that we wish we'd bought stock in when it was a few dollars a share.

So why am I buying early into Google+? Because when it launched a year and a half ago, I think I saw where Google was going with this. My field is search marketing, and Google remains the by-far biggest search marketplace. Especially in these days of Panda and Penguin clampdowns on what used to be easy pickings in SEO, when Google points at something and pretty much says, "This is how you get our attention in a way we approve," I pay attention. I had been reading statements by Eric Schmidt and Larry Page during the year before they launched G+ about how "if we do a social network again," it would be very different from Buzz or Wave, how it would not be an add-on to Google, but actually BE Google. Google 2.0.

So while I and some of my clients are experiencing already some benefits from using G+, I'm really in it as a long term investor. And because I got in early, I have an opportunity I never had on Twitter or Facebook, which I joined after they were already "the big thing." I have a powerful network of over 28K followers, among them very influential people who actually pay attention to me. As I said earlier, this network has opened up professional opportunities for me like nothing I've ever used before.

The Early Investor Payoff
Because I'm an early adopter and poured myself into it, I've been able to establish a reputation as one of the prime experts on Google+, and that's led to all sorts of great opportunities. And if Google+ becomes all that I expect it to, and because of the search benefits its already bringing me, my company, and our clients, I believe that G+ will propel me to some great heights in the future.

But, of course, I could be very wrong about all that. But I've seen enough of how Google is unfolding G+ to believe that I am not wrong. And that's enabled me, like a long term stock investor, to hold on and be very patient.

Finally: Could I Ask a Favor?
(I've never done this before on a G+ post, but I feel strongly enough about the value of this one to ask you that, if you like this post, you would take a moment to upvote it at Inbound.org: http://www.inbound.org/articles/view/why-i-m-long-term-invested-in-google-plus - you just need a Twitter account to sign in and vote. Thanks!)

#evang +   #gplusbusiness   #gplusforbusiness   #googleplusbusiness   #googleplusforbusiness   #googleplus   #gplus  

Letter to A Young Spammer

Over the past few days I've had an interesting exchange with a young man who has sent me several unsolicited commercial messages via Google+ notifications. I had responded once before with a brief message informing him this was spam and that I was going to report it as such to Google+. Later that day I got a phone call from his boss, apologizing and telling me that it was the young man's lack of experience and done without his permission. So I forgave and forgot.

And then the same guy did it again, notifying me with a Community invitation to a Community in which I couldn't possibly have any interest. I replied again with my warning that he would be blocked and reported. This time he replied in an angry private message, proclaiming me arrogant and mean, and saying that I had probably cost him his job.

After a few more exchanges in which he only became angrier at me, as if his spamming me was my fault, and sending me he phone number so we could "have this out man to man," I sent the following final reply (edited slightly for privacy). I publish it here as I hope it will be instructive for other young marketers:

Calm down ____.

I was never as upset over this as you make me out to be. Nor was my comment back to you angry or vindictive, as you choose to portray it. Most people who get an unasked for solicitation in their inbox a second time from the same source after they had already asked not to be notified would have just blocked and reported you and moved on. I took the time to try to inform you of what you were doing so that perhaps you could learn. But sadly, from your comments in this latest reply, it is quite clear that you are the type of person who would rather be offended and revert to self-defense rather than learn something. My advice to you is that you learn to get over that, stop assuming people with more experience than you (like me) are just arrogant and dismiss them, and start learning things that will help you in your career.

No, I am not going to call you, as I don't need a phone conversation with a hot head. But I will go ahead and type out what I would teach you if you were willing to learn. I may be wasting my time since you already think you have me figured out, but here goes.

Yes, Google+ really is a giant contact system, much like email, but obviously more sophisticated. But marketing in the modern world, effective marketing that is, has to move beyond the old paradigm of ramming a random message down as many throats as possible in the hope that a few people out there will "bite." Not only is that rude and annoying, it's increasingly ineffective.

Because Google set up G+ to run very much like a social network tied to an email system, you have to treat your messages like email. So if you put me in a circle, send a random post to that circle, and check the box to send that circle email, you have just sent out a bunch of emails exactly as if you were using an email program.

When an email from some unknown person or company, with a commercial message that I never signed up to receive, lands in my inbox, that's spam, not only by common definition, but by the governments definition. The only difference is that Gmail is pretty good about catching regular email spam, but with G+ notifications, I get every single one in my inbox. Because I'm followed by 30,000 people, I get a ton of notifications every day. Opening all of them has become a major task. So the more spammy ones I get, the more annoying it is.

Now I actually don't mind getting the occassional unsolicited notification post from a stranger if it is obvious that stranger has sent it to me because he follows me and knows what interests me and honestly thinks the subject would be of interest to me and if he takes the time to comment to me why he's sent it. I've discovered a lot of cool stuff that way actually. But "___ Businesses" or whatever yours was, with no explanation of why it is being sent to me, and worse so obviously outside my areas of interest (I live in North Carolina, why would I be interested in a ____ Business Community?)...that's just spam by anyone's definition.

Google+ is an incredible marketing tool. I and my clients use it very effectively every day. But it works because you can build powerful and meaningful relationships with people relevant to your business. You can prove to them through what you share and how you interact with them that you are an authority in your field who is worthy of trust. When you're doing that, when you're really helping people, people will spread your message for you. I get tons of business out of Google+ and I never once have sent a single spam message the way you do.

Now do I invite people to my Communities? You bet I do, but I do my homework first. I go out and find people who are likely to have an interest in what my Community is about and engage with them. I show them that I am interested in their topic and know something about it. And then, when the time is right, when they already know me as a trusted authority and helpful person in their topic of interest, I invite them to my community or to follow my page or whatever.

And that's hard work. Real marketing is hard work. It is a science, a profession, and a worthy one, but one that takes study, patience, and the willingness to learn from those that are doing it right.

You mentioned that you might get fired. I truly hope that doesn't happen. I don't wish any ill on you or on any individual. But you can tell your boss that I said if anyone should get fired, it should be him, for not training you properly. If he has given you the responsibility of representing your company online, but hasn't gotten you the training to do it properly, then he should fire himself. Or he should hire a real marketing company to help him and you learn.

Again, I wish you no harm, and I am not angry at you. All of us start somewhere in our profession, and in my early days I made a lot of mistakes too. And I pissed some people off. But I learned a wise way: if the person I pissed off is willing to teach me something that will make me better at my profession, then I sat at their feet and listened. Or I could have dismissed them as "arrogant," and today I'd be asking people if they wanted fries with their Big Macs.

What Does 'Off the Record' Mean in Gchat?

If you use Gchat, Google's text chat service that works in Gmail and Google+, you may have been alarmed to see a message alerting you that the chat is now "of the record." Does this mean your chat just went public?

No. It's a poorly worded alert from Google that simply means your chat is no longer being "recorded" into your Gmail. When a chat is "recorded," there will be a transcript of it in the Gmail inboxes of the recipients. It is as private as both or your inboxes, and only the chat participants can see it.

The feature is really quite handy. I've used it to find phone numbers or links or other info that was shared with me in a past chat. Just search the name of the person you chatted with in you Gmail and you should find an "email" with the subject "Chat with ___" and there will be your transcript.

#gchat  

Yes, There Will Be Google+ Page Analytics

One of the things holding back some businesses and brands from building and investing time in a Google+ Business Page is the lack of certain features. Chief among those MIA features is certainly analytics: tools to provide insight into who is interacting with your Page and how they are doing so.

Facebook has been at the forefront of providing in-situ analytics. It's Insights feature goes above an beyond in breaking down the various interactions that fans can have with a page's content.

While I've always believed that the makers of the incredible Google Analytics product would not leave Google+ bereft of its own metrical tools, I just stumbled upon proof from the horse's mouth that it's coming.

Buried within the content in the Google+ Your Business site (http://www.google.com/+/business/) is this:

Data trumps guessing every time. That’s why in the coming weeks we will be launching tools to give you access to as much data as possible about your Google+ Page and +1 activity: who’s interacting with your page and how; your users’ demographics; and info about their social activities like +1's, shares and comments -- all to help you learn how social campaigns affect your bottom line.

I don't know how long that has been up, so I don't know what to make of "in the coming weeks," but at least it's good to know that Page analytics are in the plans, and not far off!

The horror!

PowerPoint Pinterest InstructoGraphics

My friend and former +Virante Search Marketing colleague +Colby Almond invented the InstructoGraph, and this post shows how those of us who are Photoshop-challenged (I see those hands) can make them using tools we understand.

What is an instructograph? It's an instructional infograph. Most infographs provide data in a visual display. An instructograph is a visual presentation of anything that can be broken down into steps. For example: "How to Fold a Shirt," where you would read down the instructograph in numbered steps, each one with a photo of drawing of the fold made at that step.

What Colby discovered was that instructographs dramatically increase click-thrus on Pinterest. Why? Because if you size it correctly, only your enticing title shows in the Pinterest display. The interested viewer must click the Pinterest thumbnail to get the rest of the instructions, bringing them to your site. Brilliant? Yes!

And as this post by +Andrew Johnson shows, all you need to make one of these is Microsoft Paint and PowerPoint, two tools you probably already know how to use.

Hey....even I could make one!

40,000 Day

Just realized that at some point last night I passed 40,000 followers on Google+.

To each and every one of you, my sincerest thanks for making this the ride of my life. I am deeply moved for your trust in me and what I write here, and it is my mission to always honor that trust: to bring you the most accurate and reliable information I can on the things I write about.

But more than that, I deeply value the dear, very real, friends I have made here. I wouldn't even want to start trying to mention them because of how many I'd leave out, but I do want to give a shout out to my original "posse" here on Google+, who were the first real friends I made here who have become FIRL (Friends In Real Life0 even though I still have not met some of them IRL: +Jesse Wojdylo +Ronnie Bincer +Eli Fennell and +Brian Gundersen.

Also my thanks and appreciation to all at Google+ who made this platform the wonder that it is, but especially to +Vic Gundotra, +gopi Kallayil, +Brian Glick, +Yonatan Zunger (and to my first Googler friend +Louis Gray)

Understanding the Changes to Google Plus Notifications

My comprehensive guide to all of the changes now rolling out to how notification work in Google+. Confusion is rampant on this, so this is my attempt to bring together everything we know from a long night of head scratching and testing by many users.

I rarely ask this, but please share this post, as there is not much good or accurate information out there on the full implications of these changes. Thanks!

#gplusupdates   #googleplusupdate   #notifications  

30K This Is Your Day

Just realized that sometime last night I passed 30,000 followers here on G+. Just wanted to stop and say thank you to you all.

I have been active on the web ever since regular people could be active on the web. Bulletin boards, forums, blogs, and now social networks....and nothing I have ever done online has brought me as much joy, intensive learning, valuable relationships, and fun as Google+ and my Google+ community.

Moreover, being here since day 3 has literally changed my life. It has opened up opportunities I never would have dreamed to have a year and a half ago. I now get asked to speak at national conferences. I get regular interactions, both here and privately, from some of the top people in my industry. I'm writing a book that's going to have a preface by one of the most influential people in social media. All of that has happened because of Google+.

I am reluctant to start any individual thank-yous, because I will inevitably leave out many people who deserve thanks. But I must recognize +Denis Labelle and +Linda Lawrey, both of whom were not only great examples to follow in the early days of Plus, but also helped boost my audience greatly by resharing my content and recommending me to their followers. I'm trying to do my best to pay it forward to other great "upstarts" I find here now.

I also want to thank a few people who have gone from being just little square (or round) faces on my screen to people I consider real friends (and here's where I know I'm going to leave people out!). That list would include +Jesse Wojdylo, +Ronnie Bincer, +Brian Gundersen, +Eli Fennell, +Domingo Rogers, +Nikol Murphy, +Thomas Morffew, +David Amerland, +AJ Kohn, +Neal Schaffer, +J.C. Kendall and +su ann lim  and a number of others.

Thanks also to my wonderful team at +Virante Search Marketing who have given me the freedom to fly here, especially my direct team +Matthew Zaffina and +Emily Clement and my networking mentor +Phil Buckley 

Thanks to ALL of you who make this such an interesting and rewarding place to be!

Photo from http://www.abacafilms.com/eng/

RESHARE:
Google+ Comments for Sites: A Review

A very detailed list of observations by +Gideon Rosenblatt of his implementation of Google+ Comments on a non-blogger web site. I'm posting this to my Authorship community because of #7: Authorship linkage being used as an authenticator for the site owners' comments. This is a big stepping up of the Authorship function, speaks well for its continued future as a Google+ project, and moves us closer toward a functionality we saw in the Agent Rank patents, where authors (agents) could be tracked and scored by their commenting as well as their content production.

Reshared text:
Google+ Comments: My Initial Observations

Throwing caution to the wind, I installed Google+ Comments on my WordPress site today. I love it and decided to share some quick observations. 

First, if you haven't seen Google+ Comments in a website, it helps if you actually look at an example in order to understand what I'm explaining below. Here it is implemented on the announcement post for my blog: http://www.the-vital-edge.com/happy-birthday-vital-edge/

Thoughts: 
1) Caution: I used a WordPress plugin from: http://www.cloudhero.net/gplus-comments and the installation process couldn't have been more straightforward. Google is not officially supporting 3rd party usage of Google+ Comments right now, however, so use this at your own risk. Seriously.

I took the risk because I'm pretty sure Google will eventually support this functionality officially. There are just too many business reasons for supporting this feature. Because all these comments are in Google+, even in the worst case scenario of the plugin absolutely failing, the comments will not go away. And I'm betting on a relatively safe bet that I will be able to get them back by simply installing an official version of some later code down the road.  

2) Unified Commentary - Less Fragmented Conversation: People have complained for some time that commenting here on Google+ fragments the conversation. As you can see, with Google+ Comments, everything is aggregated in one place now (at least for comments on external  pages - not for comments inside Google+). That gives a nice consolidation of the overall conversation. And it's very useful. A huge plus. 

3) Intuitive Engagement Dashboard: Google+ Comments now replaces Ripples for me (again, for tracking sharing of external URLs) because every time anyone shares a page on my site, it shows up in the comment stream on that same web page. I released my new website last Thursday and in the flurry of activity, I missed thanking a number of people who had shared my site here on G+. Today, after installing Comments, I was able to simply scroll down the comments on my page, see all the people who had shared it and quickly and easily thank each and every one of them. No fuss, no muss. Another big plus. 

4) Stimulates Sharing: When you comment on a page, it automatically shares that page with your comment with that article into your stream on Google+. You have the option not to share it into your stream, of course, but my guess is that many people will just get into the habit of sharing this way. It's a nice way to easily share your thoughts on various articles around the web and post quality content into your stream. Yep. Plus.

5) Amazing Respect for Privacy: When you're looking at comments and posts about a page using Google+ Comments on your website, you still only see what you would be able to see on Google+. The below image is an example. The underlying image is visiting the-vital-edge.com while I was logged in as +Gideon Rosenblatt; the one overlaid on top is using another profile that I have here (which I don't use). You can see that in the first one, I have access to 127 comments, while the second one only gives me permission to see 99 of those comments. This is a very different experience when it comes to commenting on blogs - it's Google+ Circles bleeding out into the web. The Social Spine of Google+, if you will. And it'll take some getting used to for many people. 

6) Authorship: Google+ Comments requires that you implement Google Authorship to tie your Google+ profile to your website. That way, the commenting system knows who you are, so it can, in effect, allow your website to impersonate you. Google+ Comments is acting as a sort of de facto authentication system for the Google+ social spine in this mode. It may take some getting used to to think of it this way, but when you do, you start to see just how awesome the social spine will end up being over time.

These are just some quick, off-the-cuff, thoughts about my experience with Google+ Comments after just one day using it.

As a commenting system, it's not going to be right for everyone. Many will prefer a more agnostic approach that allows logins from multiple providers such as Twitter and Facebook (like Disqus and others). For me, the advantages outlined above outweigh all of that. Why? Because I, like many of you here, have invested heavily in Google+. I get a fair amount of engagement here and this new functionality allows that engagement to easily bleed into my website with no real work on my part. That's really, really nice. And I think it will be attractive to a number of people here. But certainly not everyone. 

Matt Cutts Questions with One Line Answers

This may be one of the most brilliant pieces of content I've seen in a long time. The folks at +Click Consult watched every +Matt Cutts Webmaster Q&A video and then posted the essential answer in just one line. Amusing and amazingly useful!

#seo  

My Google Plus Top 100

These are the 100 people who are most influential to me on Google+. 

I started with the Relevancy filter for people in my circles, and then did some editing and curating of my own. Removed anyone who is only there because they are a close Gmail contact. Added in a few who I think belong here.

Even though this is a personal list (these are people most relevant to me), here's why I'm sharing it. If you follow me, and like what I do on Google+, there's a good chance you'll like a great man of the people in this circle.

Give them a whirl. I issue my unconditional guarantee: if you don't like someone in here, you can uncircle them and I'll never know. ;-)

(Inspired by a similar share by +Max Huijgen)

#circleshare 

The Complete Guide to SEO Using Google Plus

Here it is! +martin shervington has produced a mammoth but easy-to-use guide to how Google+ works in conjunction with Google Search to build your search presence and influence.

He carefully indexed hours of video material collected from his interviews with me and +Joshua Berg  and created a series of brief, highly-focused videos around every sub topic we discussed. This is one to bookmark, reference, and share!

(Please help more people to be aware of this resource by upvoting it at Inbound.org. Thanks! http://www.inbound.org/articles/view/the-complete-guide-to-seo-through-google/1)

Using Google Plus Circles as A Marketing Tool

More brilliant thinking from +martin shervington. A savvy marketer knows she needs to be able to identify where prospects are in the sales funnel. Martin shows how to use circles as a strategic tool to keep them moving in the direction you want them to go.

Transfer All Your Instagram Photos to Google+ FREE

Recently I decided to stop using +Instagram  in favor of +Snapseed, partly because the latter shares easily to Google+. But I have over 600 photos on Instagram that I wish I had here. 

Enter Instagrab, a simple to use free web app that with a few clicks transfers all of your Instagram photos into an album in your G+/Picassa. You just click each of the blue buttons shown in the photo below, which ask you to give limited access to your two accounts. Then click a third button and Instagrab copies all your Instagram photos into an album on Google+. It even emails you when it's finished, if you want.

Access Instagrab at http://instagrab.in/. It's developer is the creator of Fotostat (http://fotost.at/), a service that helps photographers keep track of social shares of their photos online.

#instagrab   #instagram   #photography  

Confirmed: SlideShare Post Can Have Authorship

In his SMX West presentation and again in his Author Rank post today, +AJ Kohn mentioned that he had seen a Slideshare post by +Jonathon Colman show up in the extra authorship results you get when you go to an author's content and then after several minutes go back to the SERPs.

Today when I did a search for my SMX West slide deck posted on Slideshare, incognito, there was my authorship!

This is significant as there is no way for me to "properly" set up Authorship for Slideshare. This is more evidence of Google experimenting with attributing Authorship even where there is no markup.

This is my granddaughter.

If you ever see me complain about any #firstworldproblems here, just show me this picture and I'll shut up.

GOOGLE+ TO GET VANITY URLS!

I've never before written an all caps headline, but what I said above is the buried lead in this +The Next Web post (which breaks news about a coming Google blog commenting product - also awesome!). TNW seems to have run across inside info that Google is on the verge of introducing vanity URLs for Google+ users. This would answer one of the biggest complaints from regular users who want to share their G+ identity on business cards, printed material, and web profiles.

UPDATE! 13 August 2012 - Google+ has just announced they are rolling out vanity URLs to selected verified Pages and profiles, with wider distribution to come later. See https://plus.google.com/107022061436866576067/posts/4CHG8GVJemP

#googleplusupdates #googleplusupdate #gplusupdates #gplusupdate

There Will Be No Paid Ads on Google Plus

How can I make such a bold claim? I've been saying that since my first month on Google+ in July of 2011.

Actually, back then I was saying I did not believe there ever needed to be ads on Google+. Today I'm ready to stick my neck out and say There will not be paid ads on your Google+ stream.

Why? Because they don't need them. Google+ is already monetized.

Read my post to find out why I can say this. Hint: It came straight out of the mouths of +Vic Gundotra and +Bradley Horowitz.

+Mike Elgan +Linda Lawrey +Guy Kawasaki +Carter Gibson 

I want this to go to What's Hot, because I know it will mean SO much to my dear, dear friend +Eli Fennell 

Please help.

Did you know Disney is putting out a new Oz movie? This time the story is told from the wizard's perspective.

RESHARE:
*Is Yelp the Big Bully of Review Sites?*

Just got this from my go-to Google+ restaurant marketer, +Matthew Zaffina. What do you think? Is Yelp unfair to businesses? Do they kill too many positive reviews?

(Shared using #DoShare)

Reshared text:
SF Restaurant Calls For Yelp Boycott: 'Stop the Bully' http://eater.com/archives/2013/04/22/-photo-allie-pape.php

Does an Author Photo in SERPs Increase CTR?

+Matt McGee in a post today asked if there were any "definitive studies" demonstrating the oft-repeated alleged benefit of the Authorship rich snippet. +Max Minzer and +AJ Kohn responded with links to three they of which they were aware. I thought it would be useful to share them here:

"How Optimizing My Ugly Google+ Photo Increased Free Traffic 35% (by +Cyrus Shepard) http://goo.gl/8jQbX

"What Makes for a Good Author Photo in the Local Search Results?" (by +Mike Blumenthal) http://goo.gl/t66iW - this one isn't really a CTR study, but rather uses survey data to gauge how uses react to different faces in a search for a lawyer.

"Click Through Rate Increased 38% with Rel Author" (by +Russell Jensen)  http://goo.gl/x5A6y

"How Rich Snippets Can Improve Your CTR" (by +Catalyst) http://goo.gl/xPXaW

My Top 10 Posts Attributed to My Google Authorship

I'm winding down for the holiday, so was just tooling around in my author stats (at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/labs-author-stats-1), and thought I'd post here my top 10 current most-clicked posts that are linked to my Google Authorship. Based on stats since 23 August, which is as far back as the analytics go right now. (I skipped Google+ posts that were just linking one of the other posts in this list.)

1. Claiming Your Google Plus Name on YouTube (and Why You Should) http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/08/28/claiming-your-google-plus-name-on-youtube-and-why-you-should/ (this is far and away my most popular author-linked post ever).

2. Major Changes to Google Plus Notifications http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/08/23/major-change-to-google-plus-notifications/

3. Google Plus Local Places Page FAQ http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/08/21/google-plus-local-places-page-faq/

4. Three Ways to Use a Personal Google+ Profile to Build Your Business http://windmillnetworking.com/2012/03/27/three-ways-to-use-a-personal-google-profile-to-build-your-business/

5. What Is the Difference Between Google Authorship and Author Rank? http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/08/30/what-is-the-difference-between-google-authorship-and-author-rank/

6. How to Show Your Author Photo in Google Search Results http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/01/08/how-to-show-your-author-photo-in-google-search-results/

7. Google Plus Verified Pages: Of What Value Is the Verification? http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/09/07/google-plus-verified-pages-of-what-benefit-is-the-verification/

8. How to Build Search Engine Ranking Power with a Google Plus Business Page http://windmillnetworking.com/2012/06/27/how-to-build-search-engine-ranking-power-with-a-google-plus-brand-page/

9. Google Authorship: Does It Affect Search Rankings? A Google Speaks Out http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/07/18/google-authorship-does-it-affect-search-rankings-google-official-speaks-out/

10. How to Own the First Page of Google http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/06/07/how-to-own-the-first-page-of-google/

How to See Facebook Friends' Birthdays in Google Calendar
Just found out you can do this! Here are the steps:

1. In Facebook, go to https://www.facebook.com/events/birthdays/
2. Scroll to bottom & click "Export Birthdays"
3. Copy the URL that starts "webcal:" in the popup.
4. In your Google Calendar, click the down arrow after "Other Calendars"
5. Select "Add by URL" and paste in the URL you copied in step 3.
That's it!

Google+ Tip: How to Get More Info in Your Hovercard

Hover your mouse over any Google+ user's name. You'll see a little popover box with their avatar, their name, a link to add them to circles (or show what circles you have them in already), and in most cases, a subtitle (usually showing the person's place of employment). This is known as a hovercard.

Think of your hovercard as your business card on Google+. Most of the time, it is the only chance you'll get to introduce and "sell" yourself as someone worth following. The only customizable part of your hovercard (aside from your avatar), is the subtitle. What most people don't realize is you can customize what shows in that byline.

Hover over my name for an example. You'll see that in addition to my employer, I have a list of keyword phrases that give you a quick synopsis of what I'm about, what you'll mostly get from me on Google+.

How to Customize Your Hovercard Subtitle
Adding that custom text is easy!

1. Go to your Profile page and click the Edit Profile button.
2. Scroll down to Employment and click on that section to edit it.
3. Click in the first box at upper left (your current employer).
4. After the name of your employer, add any text you want to have show in your hovercard.
5. Make sure "current employer" is checked on that row.
6. Click "save" and "done editing." That's it!

Whatever you entered in that box will now show beneath your name when people hover your name link on Google+. I recommend keeping it short and sweet: emphasize the main value someone will get out of adding you to their circles.

If you found this tip helpful, please reshare this post with others. Thanks!

(Thanks to +Linda Lawrey who taught me this little hack back in the early days of Google+!)

#google+ #google+tips #tips #hovercard

Google Plus Posts in Search: How to Steal Someone Else's Post

Back in June of 2011 I wrote a blog post "Google+ Posts in Google Search: Powerful but Flawed Search Results" (http://bit.ly/LPLSiS). In that post I pointed to several examples where someone resharing someone else's Google+ content outranked the original poster in Google search.

I even had the chance at the time to point this out to a few highly-place Google+ staffers, who said it was indeed a problem and something they'd probably be looking into. Today one of my followers here brought that post back up and asked me if I thought the issue had been resolved. So I found several examples of posts by fairly influential users that had been reshared by other users, and searched their titles in incognito Google search.

Six months later, same issue still occurs.

Case in point, see the screen cap attached to this post. Result #1 is +Paul Simbeck-Hampson's reshare of a post by +Ronnie Bincer. Ronnie's original post is the #2 result. Might seem like I'm niggling here, but SEO experts tell us there is a significant difference in clicks between postions 1 and 2 in the SERPs.

How Does a Reshare Outrank the Original Post?
So what? Maybe Paul deserves to outrank Ronnie. After all, if say, +Mashable or +The Huffington Post republished some piece of my content on their sites (with my permission, I would hope!), I wouldn't at all be surprised if their version outranked mine. They are two powerhouse web sites with lots of "karma" with Google. So maybe Paul is just a Google+ juggernaut and poor Ronnie never stood a chance. Let's look.

Does Paul have more followers?
Paul is in 5,332 cicles
Ronnie is in 13,781

Maybe Paul's reshare had way more engagement.
Paul's post: 1 +1, 1 comment, 0 reshares
Ronnie's OP: 29 +1's, 14 comments, 20 reshares

Was Paul's post "first"?
YES. This is the only thing I can see in which Paul's post "wins" over Ronnies. According to the SERPs, Paul's is from 1 day ago, while Ronnie's is from just 14 hours ago.

But wait a minute. How can a reshare be older than the post it's sharing? Good question. What happened here is that for whatever reason, Paul's reshare was indexed by Google before Ronnie's original post was.

In fact, it appears that Ronnie's post didn't trigger the Google bot for indexing until 12:41 this morning, when Ronnie edited his post.

Google Loves First
We know that being first counts big with Google. That's one reason why I like to live blog conferences. By getting a post up about a session while it's going on, I often grab the authority for it and can outrank the session's speaker and/or the conference organizers when they put up their posts later.

So it appears the same happens with Google+ posts. A post that gets indexed first for a particular keyword grabs more authority than a later indexed post, enough to overcome other factors that we might think should affect ranking. So in this sense, Google is considering Paul to have been the original source of the content!

So it appears that the Google search bot is at times inefficient and lags. Even though Ronnie is a well-followed, regular poster, the bot missed his post the first time around, and didn't pick it up until after Paul had already shared it....and claimed the #1 spot for it in Google SERPS.

Google: Your Accomplice in Theft
I subtitled this post "How to Steal Someone Else's Post." That was meant to get your attention, and isn't really fair to Paul, who did nothing intentionally. But in the end result, Google effectively declared the content mostly his, as rewarded by the coveted #1 spot.

Time banditing isn't the only way to steal someone's rankings with G+ posts. For example, a logged out search right now for "google+ influence scoring" shows only one G+ post in the top results: mine. But that post is a reshare of +Bill Gassett's post by that title. Yet his OP is nowhere to be seen. It did get indexed (you can find it if you add his name to the title), but I dug down a number of pages and still didn't see it. And even with his name added, my reshare still outranks his OP by one position!

I share this not to gotcha Google so much as to point out the issue, and challenge Google search engineers to come up with a better way of crediting who gets credit for G+ content, since more than one G+ post can rank for the same content.

UPDATE: As of early Monday morning a reshare I did of Ronnie's post has replaced Paul's reshare in an incognito search for this query. For my take on that, see my comments from early Monday below.

What think ye, SEO geeks?

#gplusseo #seo #googleplusseo

Authorship | Author Rank | Social SEO Hangout On Air Video

Here's the video version of the whirlwind HOA session today I did with +martin shervington in which he worked hard to wring from me every bit of knowledge I might have about the topics above!

His post includes an extensive list of links mentioned in the Hangout, as well as other related links, compiled by +Timothy Coxon . Martin told me he will do more formatting tomorrow (including I'm sure making more of the URLS actual links), but it's getting late over in the UK ;-)

Google+ and Your Google Network: Your Most Valuable Web Connectors

My lastest column for the +Windmill Networking blog of +Neal Schaffer. In this one I lay out the case for the genius of Google+ + Google Search Plus Your World + Knowledge Graph as the most powerful personal networking and influence tool every created.

I also do a head-to-head comparison with Facebook Graph Search ;-)

If you like this, please share it. I don't ask that often so directly, but I really think this is one of the most important posts I've ever written. Seriously.

And one more thing...if you have a Twitter account would you give this an upvote at Inbound.org? Only if you really like it, ok? Here's the link: http://windmillnetworking.com/2013/01/30/your-google-plus-network-is-more-powerful-than-you-know/

SEO Value of Google+ Communities

Just noticed this morning that in an "incognito" Google search for "Google author rank" the top two results are for my Google Authorship and Author Rank Community here on Google+. 

This means that Google has decided that an active,well-optimized Google+ community has high value to anyone searching for information on a topic.

#googleauthorship   #communities  

Is Author Rank Live?

+Matt Cutts finally gives the answer we've been waiting for in this video.

HT: +Max Minzer 

#authorrank   #authorship   #seo  

Create Google+ Posts that Get Read, +1ed and Reshared

Google+ provides many tools to make your posts more attractive. Knowing that the average web reader takes less than 3 seconds to decide whether to read or skip a post, you will want to make sure your posts are formatted to grab and keep attention.

1. Make use of Google+ formatting codes
Create bold headlines and sub-headings by putting asterisks on either end of text. Put underscores around text you want italicized. Bold subheadings allow the reader to quickly scan your main points to decide if the post is worth reading. +Denis Labelle is a master at this.

2. Add an image or video to every post
Google+ displays images and videos very attractively. If you're sharing a link, Google+ will grab suggested images from the original content. If not, take a moment to create and add your own. Even a small screen capture from the original content can help grab attention.

3. Use person tags and hashtags
Not only does tagging an influential person (as I did in point 1 above) get their eyes on your post, it allows you to "name drop" prominently, as the blue linked name stands out in the post. Use this sparingly and appropriately! Only name tag a person if you truly think they will be interested in your post. In a similar fashion, #hashtags not only help you get found in search, they stand out in your posts.

TAGS: #googleplustips #gplustips Google+ tips and tricks

How to Claim Your Your Google Plus Name on YouTube

...and why you should.

Thanks to +Ronnie Bincer for tipping me off on the ability to do this. The post below is my step-by-step guide to how to change your existing YouTube channel to your "real name" (as Google terms it - the name on your Google+ profile) and thereby link your YouTube channel with your G+ profile.

This has several SEO and personal branding benefits, which I cover in the post as well.

UPDATE: Just found this on the YouTube help page for this feature: "Note: We're gradually rolling this out to our users. When it's ready, you’ll see this option in your settings, or when you upload or comment on YouTube."

So it appears that if you don't see the option, you'll just have to wait until it is activated for you. The good news is that you'll be alerted that you have the option the first time you try to comment or upload to YouTube after it's activated for you.

#seo   #youtube   #youtubetips   #authorrank   #authorship  

Ultimate Social Media Image Sizing Chart

Find the optimal image sizes for profiles on all the major SM networks, including Google+.

My Guides to Google+

For my new followers, here are my best guides to using some of the most powerful features of Google+. Though the title below says "Business Pages," many of them are useful for personal use as well.

Tags: #googleplustips #googleplustutorials google+ tips tricks tutorials

NEW: Subscribe to Notifications by Circles in Google Plus

UPDATE: The location and functions of the slider shown below have changed! See my post "Google Plus Circle Subscriptions" for the changes: http://www.virante.org/blog/2013/03/30/google-plus-circle-subscriptions-how-to-adjust-the-volume/

And if you follow a lot of people, this may mean some massive circle reorganization ahead for you.

Among several changes being rolled out now to the way notifications work, you will see (or soon see) a new fifth position in the slider above each of your circle streams. Until now the slider enabled you to adjust how much of a circle's posts you wanted to see in your main stream view. The new position causes you to have everything from that circle in your main stream plus get notified of every post in that stream.

That's right, it's an all or nothing notification.

So you might have a circle of really close friends about whose posts you wouldn't mind getting notified. But what if there are one or two people in there who are a bit excessive in their posting? You won't want to keep them in their any more if you want to take advantage of the new notify option.

So will you have now two circles: Regular Friends and Chatty Friends?

There are other big changes, but I'll leave those for another post. What do you think about this? Is it a workable feature for you? Will it cause you to reorganize your circles?

Here's the recording of the Hangout I did yesterday with +martin shervington. We get into understanding Google Authorship (what does it do, how does it work, how do you get it?) and then some of the recent discoveries we've been making about how Google+ affects Google search way beyond just personalized search.

The page also has a large number of related resources liste.

Google+ Posts Outranking Blog Posts: Another Example

Some of you have been following along my explorations of how certain powerful Google+ profiles can often outrank (in non-logged-in Google search) the original post, even if the original is very popular.

But sometimes, Google+ posts even outrank the original blog post they are sharing for their main keyword. See the example below, captured this evening.

+Bill Slawski posted the news about the Google Viral Score patent 7 days ago. Bill's blog is widely read and has a PR of 5 (very good for a personal blog). Yet two Google+ posts resharing his blog post now outrank his original blog post for the main title keyword.

THIS SEARCH WAS DONE INCOGNITO* WITH NO QUOTATION MARKS
(I need to put that in caps because everytime I do one of these posts it gets dismissed as "personalized results")
*incognito search = logged out of Google with cache, cookies, and history cleared.

UPDATE THURSDAY MORNING: Though last night reports were mixed (some seeing the same result as me, others see Bill's post on top), this morning Bill's post is back at #1 for me as well. See my reply to +Thomas Morffew in comments from this morning below for more about that.

#seo

My comment replying to the post below at Forbes (which surprise, surprise doesn't have a Google+ Page) was just "called out" by the editors. That means they think it was a significant and noteworthy reply. Here's what I wrote there:

Likes are a HORRIBLE indicator of true preference. People don’t necessarily Like on Facebook for the same reasons they say then “like” something in real life. How is there any value to me if my friends seem to recommend a certain restaurant, when unbeknownst to me they all “Liked” it because doing so entered them in a contest (a very common way to get Likes)?

And then your “For years and years, people have been saying that there must be more to search than key words and page links. And now there will be. For the first time, a person’s relationship to a piece of information is going to help determine how relevant that information is—and this relationship will be transparent to everyone.”

Hello? Google+? Google Search Plus Your World???

For at least a year now my active use of Google+ and the valuable network I’ve built there of experts in fields I care about have been affecting my search results in very positive ways. Now when I search logged in to Google to learn more about “content marketing,” I get high in my results posts from experts like AJ Kohn and the editors of CopyBlogger. Facebook is once again behind the innovation curve, not in front of it.

#facebook   #facebookgraphsearch   #graphsearch  

Storm Thorgerson, designer of Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd album cover, died last week. That album will be my #GTD soundtrack today.

And while I was recording a lively HOA with +Yifat Cohen today, this happened (see image).

Way too many people to thank for what has happened to me here on G+. If you got notified of this post, you are among the people who have made it especially special, who have encouraged me, challenged me, and helped me out when I was a newbie.

I wish I could give all 20,024 of you a hug one at a time!

Google Plus Pages Get Ability to Engage Non-Followers

This news broke late last night from the +Talking Moose Media page of +Nikol Murphy.

It appears that the ability to comment on, +1, and re-share the public posts of people who do not yet follow a brand page by a brand page is now rolling out to US Pages.

#gplusupdates   #googleplusupdates   #gplusupdate   #googleplusupdate   #brandpages   #pages  

Google+ SEO: PageRank Post Links Cheat Sheet

Last week many of you saw the +Ronnie Bincer-hosted Hangout On Air I did with +Joshua Berg on the topic of how various Google+ entities (profiles, pages, & communities) have Google PageRank just like "regular" web sites. PageRank is Google's primary means of determining the relative authority of sites and thus determining how they should rank in Search. (Here's the complete HOA video: http://goo.gl/MkRXM)

We also discussed how the various links within Google+ do or do not pass on PageRank authority to whatever they link to.

Now +Lyndon NA has created a very clear infographic cheat sheet that shows you exactly what links in a Google+ post are DoFolllow (pass PR) versus NoFollow (do not pass PR). I imagine he'll go on to show us the same for profiles, pages, and communities.

HT: +Ben Boykin 

First good thing I found via Facebook Graph Search...

...I have smart friends on Facebook ;-)

Matt Cutts: Just Because Google Has a Patent Don't Assume We're Using It

In today's Webmaster Video Google's anti-spam czar +Matt Cutts finally backs some of us up on a recurring issue that relates to the ongoing "legend" of Author Rank: Google having a patent on something does not necessitate that they currently are or ever will actually use the patented idea or mechanism.

One of the arguments we hear from time to time from those who insist that "Author Rank" is a present reality in the Google Search algorithm is that because Google has the various Agent Rank patents, they must be using them.This is an unwarranted assumption, and reflects a misunderstanding of what patents are for. Inventors or companies sometimes patent an idea they come up with just to protect it from competition (and keep it in their "war chest"), even if they don't intend to immediately (or perhaps ever) actually use it.

cc: +Bill Slawski 

Why Google+ Is Great for Creatives

Love love love this post by +Mark McGuinness showing how Google+ is an ideal home for anyone who thrives on creating.

Advanced Google+ Networking Strategies

My latest column for Windmill Networking. Building on last month's "Your Google Plus Network Is More Powerful than You Know" (My most read and re-shared blog post ever http://windmillnetworking.com/2013/01/30/your-google-plus-network-is-more-powerful-than-you-know/), I share more tips on how to create a Google+ network that works for you.

One request for blog trivia help: Windmill Networking put an image of Tom Hanks with my post. Can anyone figure out what the association is?

RESHARE:
BREAKING!!! Google Plus Pages Can Interact With ANY Profile

Great news for brand Page owners from +Nikol Murphy and +Ronnie Bincer

#gplusupdate #googleplusupdate

Reshared text:
Google+ Pages are able to interact with personal profiles that have NOT circled them!

Yes! A page can now +1, share, comment and plus mention personal profiles that have not circled them.
   
Yesterday, I saw a test post by +Denis Labelle, wondering if pages could interact with personal profiles that have not circled that page. I was able to comment on that post from my page and continued to poke around with the idea later that day and into today.

+Ronnie Bincer  and I tested it out last night and the functionality did not work. I (my page) could see the comment on his public post, but +Ronnie Bincer could not. 

As you can see, tonight my page +Talking Moose Media was able to comment on +Ronnie Bincer's post and plus mention +Eli Fennell.

This is an exciting new feature for small to medium business owners like myself. I am hopeful that page owners will handle this new feature with care and respect.

#googlepluspages   #googlepluspagestips   #talkingmoosemedia  

SEO New Year's Resolutions

I'm seeing a lot of SEO or online marketing resolutions posts, of course, but this is by far the best one I've read so far. Great work +Brandon Hassler. It's worth reading his fleshing out of each of these, but in brief, his five resolutions are:

1. Take a break from guest posting (it's being overdone)
2. No more one night stands (partnering with someone for a link and then forgetting about them)
3. Start forming content partnerships.
4. Don't obsess over anchor texts.
5. Never stop learning.

#seo   #onlinemarketing   #inboundmarketing   #socialmediamarketing  

Google+ Tip: Grab a Link to Your Google+ Post

Did you know you can link directly to any of your public posts on Google+, and anyone can see the linked post, even if they aren't signed in to Google?

It's very easy to do, and there are two ways to do it:

1. Right click the time stamp just after the poster's name and copy the link.
2. Click the arrow in a circle to the right of the poster's name and select "link to this post."

You can then use that link anywhere else on the web (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to link back to that post!

Obi Wan Teaches Luke about The Google+

"Google+ is what gives Google its power. Its' an energy field created by all active users. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the Google together."

Google+ Communities Indexed in Google Search

Not only can individual posts in public Google+ Communities be indexed by Google search, but the Communities and even categories inside Communities can be indexed as well.

The result below was #3 (after news results) for an incognito search for "vine videos community". It links to the Discussion category of my "Vine Videos - A 6 Second Video Community" here on G+. If I search for "vine videos discussion," it comes up #1. 

#seo  

Broad Topics are Creating Bad Google Plus Communities

I'm starting to see a growing number of people in discussions about Google+ Communities saying that they are leaving communities because they are "out of control" or "full of spam" or "generating too many posts."

My observation has been that the most common denominator in these situations of dissatisfaction is community topics that are way too broad. The day communities came out, it seemed like everyone who owned a camera phone wanted to start "the" Photography Community, and anyone who'd ever adjusted a meta tag on their site wanted to have "the" SEO Community.

First, it's absurd (unless maybe you're +Thomas Hawk or +Rand Fishkin to think that you should have "the" Community for such broad topics. Your putting yourself in a position where the competition for members is going to be huge, and your chances of being "the" community for that topic are very small.

Second, if your community does succeed, the discussions are going to be all over the map, and many members will become annoyed at the noise generated and quit.

I think there is much more value in creating more highly-focused topical communities. Your success will be even greater if you already have relationships with some key thought leaders in that topic whom you can invite into the community.

For example, the only community I've created so far (though I moderate a few more) is the Google Authorship & Author Rank Community ( http://goo.gl/O2k4A). Because I already am known for that topic, and I've built good relationships with other influentials on Authorship such as +AJ Kohn and +Bill Slawski, they were happy to not only join, but be co-moderators, lending the community instant credibility.

What do you think? Are more focused community topics the way to go? Would love to hear from +Jesse Wojdylo +Ronnie Bincer +J.C. Kendall +David Amerland and others.

HT to +Jens Graikowski for stimulating thought toward this post.

#community   #communitymanagement   #communitytips  

Effective Link Building That Won't Get You in Google Trouble

Wow. I had the privilege of hearing +Rhea Drysdale of +Outspoken Media speak at +Search Marketing Expo (SMX) West last month and I was really impressed. But this post for +SEOmoz knocks it out of the park. 

I'm adding it to required reading for my Digital Outreach team at +Virante Search Marketing 

Change to Google Authorship Links Line

Over in the Google Authorship Community (http://goo.gl/EBtbE) +Terry Simmonds spotted that the appearance of Google Authorship Rich Snippet results in Google Search have changed.

1) The byline ("by Mark Traphagen") used to go to the author's Google+ profile. It now just goes to a search for the name of the author, but not limited to the author's Authorship posts, necessarily.

It does retain relevance to the originally-searched keyword, however, as that keyword continues to be bolded in the name-search serps. So it is the equivalent of searching the name in quotation marks along with the keyword.

2) "in xxxx Google+ circles" is now clickable and is the link to the Author's Google+ profile.

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Google AuthorRank and Google+ Post SEO

My most important post on the subject so far!

TAGS: #googleplustips #seo google+ seo #socialseo social seo

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Is AuthorRank Most Important for High Ranking Google+ Posts?

or How I Outranked +Mari Smith for Her Own Post
by +Mark Traphagen

This may be my most important post on Google+ and SEO yet. Find out how I was able to outrank in regular Google search one of the most followed and respected experts in social media.

(By the way, I intend absolutely no disrespect to the great +Mari Smith! I admire her greatly and think she does fantastic work. I'm just pointing out that my web presence has on little thing hers doesn't---but could!--that makes a world of difference in search.)

NEW: The End of Notifying a Circle in a Post (Except by Email)?

Here's the other big Notifications change rolling out today. It used to be that when you were posting you could hover over a circle you were adding to the post and check a box for that circle to be notified of the post. 

That appears to be gone now (see illustration below).

Instead, it now appears that the only option is to notify the circle by email. But how many people want email notifications? Most users I know have turned them off or severely limited them. Why lose the ability to notify small groups via the notifications box especially when members of those circles have requested us to update them there!

+Natalie Villalobos +Vic Gundotra +Louis Gray - this is the first time I've ever complained about a change to G+. What were you thinking? I don't get how this is an improvement?

UPDATE: It now appears that even though the new option only says "Send email to [circles you added to the post]," in reality it also creates a red box notification for those circles. Great, so why doesn't the checkbox say "Notify and send email to..."? Very confusing!

Google+ Tips for Bloggers

Wow. +Amy Lynn Andrews has compiled a blockbuster listing of Google+ tips geared toward regular bloggers, including links out to many other fine resources on various sub topics. This is a bookmarkable reference. 

#gplustips   #gplustipsandtricks   #googleplustips   #googleplustipsandtricks  

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Now heading toward 500 +1's.

Thank you my dear Plus friends for "getting" why I am so passionate about this post, and for sharing it so generously. I can never say enough how much my community here means to me, and you inspire me to keep pushing myself to contribute some small value to you for all you give to me each day.

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My Most Important Blog Post Ever

And I don't say that lightly. I've written a ton of content over the years, but I honestly think this is my magnum opus so far. I have never felt more strongly about something I've written for business or marketing.

Since my first day here (Google+ Day 3), I've been saying that there is so much more under the hood of what Google has created with Google+ than most people--even most "social media experts"--understand.

You are reading this on the most powerful networking and influence-spreading tool in the history of the world. I truly do not believe I am exaggerating in the slightest.

Read the article: http://windmillnetworking.com/2013/01/30/your-google-plus-network-is-more-powerful-than-you-know/

Let me know what you think. And if you really like it and appreciate the effort I put into it, you could "tip" me by upvoting it at Inbound.org: http://goo.gl/OrwEi (just need a Twitter account to log in).

Social Media Is Not About the Conversation

...even though that's what you usually see in Tweets from social media experts.

"What social media is really about is persuasion, it’s about communicating a message that gets you to do stuff."

Too much social media marketing advice makes "conversation" and "engagement" sound like they should be ends in themselves. 

#marketing   #socialmedia   #socialmediamarketing  

Woah. I'm sort of in +Mashable today!

This Mashable post shares 10 recommended topical Google+ Shared Circles. I'm in the "101 Social Media Experts" and "Professionals Focused on Engagement Marketing" circles created by +Gabriel Vasile and featured in the article!

"Gonna buy five copies for my mother...."
(Anyone here old enough to recognize what that line is from?)

HT: +Dallas J. Moore for alerting me to this

Jesus was here.

HT: Mike Kear on Facebook.

Do You Have Verified Author Status with Google?

If you regularly create content online, and you care about that content being found when people search in Google, then pay attention to this.

Google has set up a process whereby you can link all your online content to your Google+ profile, and thereby verify to Google that it should be associated with your name. This gives you at least three things:

1. Eligibility for your author photo, byline, and link to more of you content to show up in search results for your content (see image). This makes your results stand out more and be more likely to get clicked.

2. Helps Google prefer and rank your original content over stolen copies.

3. Most important of all, you begin to build AuthorRank for your content, which can result in higher search rankings.

I'm still amazed by the number of well-known online writers who haven't taken advantage of this. But that's all the more benefit for us little people! I know this from experience. AuthorRank has been causing my traffic to soar as I see my stuff ranking dramatically better in search.

The wonderful thing is that anyone with a Google account can set up this verification. Want to know how? Read my instructions at http://www.virante.com/blog/2012/01/08/how-to-show-your-author-photo-in-google-search-results/

#googleplustips #googleplusseo #seo google+ tips and tricks

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Hashtag Analysis

This is fascinating stuff. +Saul Fleischman has come up with a tool ( +RiteTag ) that not only tracks hashtags on multiple social networks (including Google+), but turns it into a content optimization tool. Think sophisticated keyword research tool, but for hashtags. 

I'm going to be digging into this more soon, and may be interviewing Saul to find out what he's discovering about the hidden value of hashtags and what they might be telling us as content creators and marketers. Stay tuned!

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Here's what you get with a query of 'leanstartup' for Googleplus, not Twitter hashtags, in RiteTag: hashtags used together with 'leanstartup,' whether as a word or tag, ranked by estimated reach, and with analysis on who is using those tags, how many times each, and both real-time G+ updates and also instances of those tags together with the query (leanstartup).  

#hashtagsongoogleplus  optimized with #ritetag  
#sso   #ritetagreports  

Most Tech Bloggers Not Using Google Authorship

Amazing. This Conductor study explained by +Barry Schwartz on +Search Engine Land uncovers that less than 1 of 10 tech blogs have rel=author Google Authorship properly implemented for their writers.

No wonder so many of them don't get Google+ either ;-)

If you are a content producer on the web, this means that you still have a "ground floor" opportunity to let Google help you outpace most others and become one of the top authorities on the web in whatever you write about. 

Confused about what Authorship even is? Read http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/08/30/what-is-the-difference-between-google-authorship-and-author-rank/

Want to implement Authorship today? Read http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/01/08/how-to-show-your-author-photo-in-google-search-results/

All my blog posts about Google Authorship in one search http://www.virante.org/blog/category/authorship-author-rank/

#authorship   #authorrank   #googleauthorship   #googleauthorrank   #seo  

"I'm from Microsoft, ok? I work in Seattle...or Bellevue, OK?"

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Google+ Tips & Help

Great compilation from many experts by Ann Liu

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Google Plus: The Extensive List of Database, Resources and Helpful Tips -  http://goo.gl/bPGxZ

Finally I got this mega list up, worth to bookmark! Check out to see whether you are on the list or not, if you didn't see your name there but you have good tips to share, post your link below so that I can add you to the list .. http://goo.gl/bPGxZ

Special thanks goes to +martin shervington +Mark Traphagen +Timothy Coxon +Denis Labelle +Ronnie Bincer +Jaana Nyström (google plus helper) +Joshua Berg and many more 

#googleplustips   #googleplushelpfulresources   #googleplusforbusiness   #googleplusforbrands   #glpus  

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Truth

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The way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers http://virg.in/gcJMy

Social Network Effect on Google Search

Still don't think building powerful social networks has much effect on search? Do an incognito Google search right now for "author rank facts."

9 of the top 10 results relate to two Google+ HOA's I did about Author Rank, one with +Max Minzer and the other with +martin shervington. This displays the multi-channel effect you can have on search these days. Through a mix of posts on influential blogs and by powerful Google+ and Twitter accounts, I currently own this keyword. 

#seo   #socialseo  

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HT: +Martin Lüdicke 

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Google+ Cheat Sheets

When asked recently about formating text in Google+ a nice cheat sheet occured to me I've seen somewhere here on Google+. I searched 'google+ cheat sheet' on Google+ and got some great results. Here I've collected some of them.

Basics
[1] General formating and posting https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JaanaNystr%C3%B6m/posts/A9FSvWJP2h1
[2] Shortcuts and tips http://www.inquisitr.com/295183/google-cheat-sheet-learn-some-simple-yet-effective-navigation-tips-infographic/
[3] Shortcuts https://plus.google.com/u/0/109164280656499025716/posts/fXmei5LmFQy
[4] Complete cheat sheet for everyday use http://www.bitrebels.com/social/the-complete-google-cheatsheet-infographic/

As even the complete cheat sheet leaves some questions open, here we have some
Specials
[5] Design: Size of photos and thumbnails http://visual.ly/google-plus-design-cheat-sheet-2013
[6] Who can see your post? https://plus.google.com/u/0/107377619012588572527/posts/XUUftcsFsk4
[7] Links from Google+ posts that pass PageRank http://googlepluspagerank.blogspot.ch/2013/04/googleplus-post-link-cheat-sheet.html

Last, not least
[8] Cheat sheet for people afraid of Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/115630079405940076652/posts/WSUv5aBxrHG

Please keep in mind: Google+ is still evolving, so changes may happen. The same applies to the cheat sheets listed above.

If you want to explore more Google+ cheat sheets, try this search stream:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/google%2B%20cheat%20sheet

[1] via +Jaana Nyström and +Jens Graikowski (please also read Jaana's great post https://plus.google.com/u/0/107742059751171695340/posts/eznBHgyJTBK)
[2] via +Ronnie Bincer, +Google+ Helper 
[3] via +Google+ Helper 
[4] via +Seth Goldstein 
[5] via +Jaana Nyström 
[6] via +Philipp Steuer 
[7] via +Ronnie Bincer, +Mark Traphagen  (see also https://plus.google.com/u/0/108210288375340023376/posts/gGQQzof1qkM with some additional links)
[8] +Demian Farnworth, via +John Kellden 

#googleplus     #ghosttown     #googleplustips   #googlepluspagerank   #googlepluscheatsheet   #googleplusphotos   #googleplustipsandtricks  

Do Share: Write, Format, & Pre-Schedule Google+ Posts

Do Share is an extension for the Chrome web browser that makes it easy to create draft Google+ posts to finish later, or even schedule posts to auto-post at a designated time.

In addition to those features, Do Share simulates a rich text editor, by providing toolbar buttons that implement the simple formatting allowed in Google+ posts (bold, italic, and strikethrough) without remembering or having to type the symbols that generate those. Also, anything typed in the "title" bar is automatically bolded.

What Does Do Share Do and Not Do?
Do Share does support +mentioning (with the familiar drop down of your friends' names), and adding circles to which you want to share the post works just like it does in Google+. Do Share does not support adding images or videos, however.

One further caveat: because this is a browser extension, drafted or prescheduled posts are only present on the computer on which they were created (i.e., there is no synching to your other computers) and pre-sheduled posts will only post if the browser is open and logged in to Google+ at the scheduled time.

By the way, this post was written and pre-scheduled using Do Share.

Find Do Share on the Chrome Web Store at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oglhhmnmdocfhmhlekfdecokagmbchnf/

HT: +Daniel Stoddart for posting about Do Share.

TAGS: #DoShare #googleplustips #gplustips google+ tips and tricks

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Anti Google+ Bloggers to Plussers: Protest Us, Please!

+Chris Lang makes a good point here. The most popular G+ bashing articles come from for-profit "news" sites like +Mashable They don't care how they get traffic as long as they get traffic. And if they're paying attention to their metrics, they must know that whenever they publish a "Google+ is a ghost town" article, they can count on thousands of visits and high share numbers driven by high visibility Plussers sharing their post in order to refute it. I'm certainly guilty of doing that.

Ever see my favorite XKCD cartoon? It shows a guy who can't turn off his computer and go to bed because "someone is wrong on the Internet!" (http://xkcd.com/386/). When I see an easily refuted anti-G+ article or flawed study, my impulse is I need to share it and demonstrate my ability to refute it. But when I do that, as Chris says, I'm just rewarding the very person I'm trying to refute.

The best refutation any of us can do toward the tech press bashers is to continue to work toward the success of this community. "Success is the best revenge." enter in to the stated spirit of +Guy Kawasaki's #EvanG+ project. The next time you see a G+-bashing article, instead of sharing it, make up your mind that you will write or share three G+-positive posts in his place. And share them not only here but on your other networks as well.

What do you think? Should we stop sharing the bashers' link baity posts?

+Vic Gundotra +Louis Gray +Natalie Villalobos +Mike Elgan

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STOP Being +Mashable and +Pete Cashmore 's BITCH and Quit Sharing Posts Bashing Google+ #boycottmashable  

Keep doing what you are doing +Amanda Blain +John Blossom and +Guy Kawasaki and they will keep doing what they are doing.

Here is what Mashable got from Google+ this week, and you all helped them do it, you just keep give the child candy when he cries. Again and again...

837 Likes  | 3000 Tweets (more via RTs) | 561 LI shares | 465 Pins | 1K+ of + 1s

Yes, you all did that guys, you continually share bashing G+ posts, and give them mega traffic and sharing in return.

Then they rank even higher in the search engines, and get even more traffic. You might notice that +Mashable makes money off advertising. Mashable does not care if you come to the post hating on them. Over 100,000 visitors viewed that post. How many clicked an ad to leave it and how much money did you make Mashable this week?

+Shira Gal and I spent hours crafting a great video / webinar on how to use Events sharing.

http://www.internetmarketingduru.com/mother-of-all-events-training-use-events-in-your-marketing/

Tons of other marketers like +Ronnie Bincer and +Mark Traphagen have done the same. But do you share that? NO! You continually share the bashers instead of the real evangelists that spend their time helping business users get more out of G+.

I fell for that BS for the last time when I led a flame campaign against an SEO  guy 5 months ago who bashed G+. Days later he had 500 comments on the blog and looked like a GOD! No one reads comments, they just look at the numbers and then BELIEVE what the headline says.

LAST time for me and the last time for you to guys. Learn your lesson this time and quit being Mashable's BIATCH!

Who's in Your Google+ Alphabet?

In the Google+ search box, type each letter of the alphabet and record who comes up first. These are the people who in some way G+ thinks are most relevant to you (or the person in your network ranking highest by some measure with that letter as an initial). Haven't played this in many months! Remeber, the match might be for first or last name, which is why a few people took more than one spot.

My list:

+AJ Kohn 
+Ronnie Bincer 
+Colby Almond 
+Denis Labelle 
+Eli Fennell 
+Eli Fennell 
+Brian Gundersen 
+Johan Horak 
+Ivan Dimitrijević 
+Jesse Wojdylo 
+Karyn Traphagen 
+Denis Labelle 
+Thomas Morffew 
+Neil Ferree 
+Michael O'Reilly 
+Clayton Pritchard 
+Thomas Quintana 
+Ronnie Bincer 
+Neal Schaffer 
+Karyn Traphagen 
+Matt Uebel 
+Vic Gundotra 
+Jesse Wojdylo 
+Binoy Xavier Joy 
+Yifat Cohen 
+Matthew Zaffina 

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Earlier this evening teaching Google+ to a sold out group gathered by +Christine Alexander

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No Caption Needed
+Mark Traphagen

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SEO Value of Google+ Communities

Just noticed this morning that in an "incognito" Google search for "Google author rank" the top two results are for my Google Authorship and Author Rank Community here on Google+. 

This means that Google has decided that an active,well-optimized Google+ community has high value to anyone searching for information on a topic.

#googleauthorship   #communities  

Minority Report Ads Are Here

Remember the movie Minority Report with Tom Cruise? One of the most talked about depictions of the future in that film was the real world advertisements everywhere that changed their content as they recognized the passerby viewing them.

The world took a closer step toward that now with these new British bus stop ads that change content based on the perceived gender of the viewer.

Get Over Yourself and Get on Google+

+Brian Clark of +Copyblogger has written one of the best, concise summaries of the reasons anyone ignores Google+ at their peril (if conducting business or spreading influence socially is their goal)

SEO Difference Between Underscores & Dashes

Here's a little on-site SEO tidbit a lot of people probably don't know. As +Matt Cutts says in the video, probably most important for a new "fresh" site trying to get ranked. 

The basic idea is that Google was set up to see dashes between words as separate words, but underscores between words as joining those words together. So Google sees matt-cutts as "matt cutts," but matt_cutts as "mattcutts." 

Where does that make a difference? Well in your URLs for one thing. The words in the URL of a page or post are one of the clues Google uses to parse out what a page is about. People like to put spaces between the words to make them more readable (because URLs show up in places like search results too), but URLs can't have spaces. So you're left with inserting either dashes or underscores.

So if you want to give yourself the best chance to rank a page for "clown shoes," use http://www.mysite.com/clown-shoes in the URL (not "clown_shoes"). This also applies to other things search engines index, like the title and alt attributes of images.

#seo  

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From what I've been seeing in What's Hot recently, this needs to be repeated.

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Thanks.

#circlesharing