Is Anybody Outside of SEO Industry Getting ROI from Google+ ?? Tell the truth!

[EGOL]

I have been watching Google+ and see lots of SEOs sharing ideas and enjoying their circles.   However, I have not seen anything outside of the webmaster community that I would hold up as an example of business engagement - and certainly nothing that seems to be producing a good ROI for a business.

It seems to me that everyone outside of the webmaster community is on FaceBook and doesn't give a hoot about Google+.  And, since FaceBook  has the massive amount of people why should I open an outpost in the poorly populated Google+?

I am not looking for Google+ evangelist answers.  Just looking to hear if anybody anywhere has found Google+ to be a better use of their time than  FaceBook and working on your website.

I do believe that using Google+ as an author verification platform is a good use of your time if you have valuable content - mainly because it helps your visibility in the SERPs.  Beyond that I am looking for validation.

Anybody want to point to something good happening or telling a success story?

Thanks!

[Mcarle]

Photographers and artists are all over Google+

Sharing images ideas and communicating with like minded people.

I use Facebook as a place to (advertise) to my client base.

I use Google + as a place to connect with artists and photographers and read up on new gear & such.

I use Tumblr to see that the kids like 5 minutes ago, the style if imaginary that is at the cutting edge of popular amongst teens today will be earning cash in 5+ years...

I also know that Google+ does help with rankings and author tags, in my field of work not a lot of people are very SEO savvy, so that tiny bio image advantage I have over the hundreds of studios in 50 miles, I got it, they don't....

So Google + helps me a lot & I don't sell my self as an SEO expert.

(Although the thought has crossed my mind)

[Boodreaux]

Eating popcorn in anticipation with this one.

[EGOL]

Thanks, it sounds like you are making some connections there.

If you were paying a photographer employee to do this would her effort bring back more value in revenue and ideas than her hourly rate plus overhead?

[Mcarle]

Yes and no,

I would pay a non photographer assistant type person, ie a marketing person.

In a perfect world if I wanted to grow the business I would hire:

Online marketing person:

• Write good content, upload new web pages, tackle SEO, update google+ with relevant content, facebok tumblr. Guest posts on invited blogs...

Office assistant:

-Framing, printing, trimming prints, albums, cleaning, help with set design styling & lighting.

Right now my office assistant does some online marketing but no SEO or content writing & no web updates.

I have looked into hiring SEO people in the past but been not happy with what they have presented me with. The proposals I get are 5 years out of date or they promise me something I have already done on my own.

My current office assistant is great though, but for now for her to take the time to learn what I know about SEO and such would not be good ROI, she sticks to her specialties, Facebook tumblr and office work.

If I could outsource the online web stuff I could do a LOT more networking in person.

[MarieHaynes]

In my niche there is no one I can find to follow on Google+.  I use it to post announcements about my latest articles, because I do believe that it helps my position in the SERPS.

So far anyone who has added me is more of an SEO contact than someone in my actual niche.  And, I have all of my Google+ contact info on my site.

I'm still going to hang around there because it doesn't hurt, but for making connections I spend much more time on Facebook and Twitter.

[Mcarle]

What is your niche?

[Anthony_NorthSEO]

I have to agree with you on this one, I've barely heard a soul mention it outside of Digital Marketing circles.

There's actually a short promo spot on a popular radio station here in Atlanta that goes something like this:

Generic deep male radio promo voiceover with delay effects and heavy guitars

**"Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter, and add us on Google Plus (whatever the hell that is)!" **

The Hangout feature can be a good tool if you're collaborating on a project remotely, but that withstanding I use Google+  SOLELY to boost SERP rankings for myself and my clients.

[EGOL]

Thanks.  There are very few in my niche and most of them simply have a google+ presence to claim authorship.

[EGOL]

(whatever the hell that is)

ha ha... that's great.  I wish I would have thought of a line like that!

[Anthony_NorthSEO]

I'll try to find a clip of it online somewhere and post a link to it here... I laughed so hard I almost crashed into the median the first time I heard it. But on a serious note, I think an advertisement like that sheds a lot of light on how the general public perceives Google+.

[EGOL]

Yes, I can imagine that guy with the million dollar voice saying that line.

[loopyal]

We started reasonably early on plus, and promote a lot of our stories there every day. From the very start, I thought the idea sucked, and I still do.

Our readership is generally older. Most have no idea what g+ is and they don't care. They also want to know why the hell I've put the g+ button at the top, above Facebook and twitter which A) get more than 10 times the attention B) seem to bring in 10 times the readers

I'm expecting google to limp along with g+ until they finally work out it is a waste of time. We have 250,000 readers per month. Since we added the g+ buttons, we've had maybe 2 million visitors, yet only 600 unique visitors have clicked the g+ buttons.

Google WMT says we have too little engagement to show stats So either this means our site is worthless and the 250,000 readers hate what we're doing, or g+ is only for geeks like Robert Scoble.

I have connected with some good people there, but getting interaction is hard. If you go look at what other people are posting, their g+ area is a wasteland, even if they have some god stuff. I do go and read and interact with others.

I'm not giving up on it yet, but then I didn't give up on gbuzz and they canned that.

I was really expecting to add 20-50% to our readership, so 0.0001% doesnt cut it.

The upside of google+ is the profile. I definitely think the rel author has value.

Google is definitely trying hard and putting big resources into g+ but it looks like a miserable failure to me, and that makes me happy, because if they can't get social working, with all of their money and resources, it tells me a couple of things. A) google really don't understand social B) the people who are making a success of social really do understand it C) people who have tried social and failed are no worse than google - it isn't easy D) when I said google doesn't understand my business yet they are telling me what to do, maybe I was right E) PhDs often have no common sense, no matter how brilliant they are in other areas

[Daylan]

Just going to echo Mcarle as far as photographers go.

A friend of mine is a great photogrpher but it's not since interacting with other photgraphers - sharing, commenting and being shared amongst influential circles has work really started to come his way.

Majority of the 'Hot on Google' posts i see in my feed are photography based posts too. The exposure is massive, but just like search you need to have the good content to make a dent. I love that there is little to no posts with 'instagram' type photos and the ones that do float to the surface are outstanding.

[EGOL]

Thank you for sharing your experience in such detail.  It sounds like you have a great site.  Congratulations!

[EGOL]

Thank you!  

[OptimizeSmart]

How you can get ROI from Google+ when the target audience is not there? I work in the fashion and medical industry and no one is on Google+, at least not in that numbers where i can think of running a social media marketing campaign. Google+ is predominantly occupied by the tech industry. Period.

[SEOSHARK]

Hey guys/gals, my experience, is to often look, listen, learn, before I get invested. Yes even with Google.

Like facebook,. I have NEVER received a single lead or for that measure a client form social "ANYTHING"..

G+ works great for picking up ideas as does FB and twitter, but to actually bring on business..... Not here, and would never PAY for such an environment.

I get more from network blogs like this than G+

Tom

[Anthony_NorthSEO]

Great point Tom, and great handle.

While I've gotten a few leads from Facebook and Twitter, the true reason for my investing any time at all in those outlets is that potential customers often check these places to validate the popularity, or even the success of a business. If a fan page on Facebook has 4 likes, or a Twitter account has 17 followers, it's not a good signal to a potential customer, especially one researching web marketing providers.

The fact that Google now incorporates social metrics into their ranking algorithm also had some bearing on the energy and resources I've allocated to increase my company's presence on FB and Twitter.

The problem with Google+...

Nobody looks. Nobody cares. That's my experience.

I've invested a very little bit of time and money to add a few +1s to my website in order to increase the rankings, but that's it. I did see an improvement in rankings, and there wasn't much work involved at all, so I consider it a win.

The problem, in my opinion, is Google's almost Narcissistic approach to Google+. It's a Google product, so it matters. Why? Because Google says so.

I can't remember a platform that has had such little impact in the lives of real world users, yet such an effect on website rankings. Could be a good strategy on the part of Google, could fade away... we'll have to wait and see.

[SEOSHARK]

Thanks Anthony,

HEY,  "ANYBODY GOT A SOCIAL BUTTERFLY" they want to sell???? 

I get it that Google is "PROUD OF THEMSELVES" with G+, and really do get good stuff from a few GURU's. For example, Cutts cleared up his comment about targeting over optimized sites by saying "what I was trying to say was" we are going after spam.... well, hasn't he always gone after different levels of spam....

I had a social butterfly working for me for about 5 months, traffic went way up, conversions went down..

end thought........  I do agree that people do look at your social status before doing business with you....

As a thought, it is likely a GREAT idea to target your social content around the actual BUYER, Become and actually be an authority on your site and social..

Be yourself.... That's who the client is looking for..

Good stuff guys.

Any good feeds on what Google is up to NOW..??

Tom