How to Leverage Google+ Posts in Google News

No matter how hard we try, Google+ will not be denied. We’ve all seen it: the integration of Google+ into even the smallest facets of search results — from recently added hashtags in people’s posts to the addition of Google+ posts into the Knowledge Graph of the SERP.

And we all know the story about establishing authorship through your profiles and the trust signal an image provides to your result, but this blog post isn’t about that. Though, if you haven’t done so, I highly encourage you to exercise authorship on your site. This post is about Google+ becoming the news. What if I told you there was a way to show up in Google News just by posting on your Google+ profile something related to an article topic?

It would seem that based on topic relation, Google is now placing links to and snippets of Google+ posts under some news articles, without regard for your reputation as a news source. Sure, there are the usual suspects, AP, Fox News, CNN, Huffington Post, but regular Google+ users (perhaps with mild influence) and their posts are appearing alongside actual news articles.

Of the results I spot checked, all the Google+ posts that appeared had content-relevant hashtags and links to an article related to those listed in Google News. The implications here are big and Google+ is becoming less and less of an island. With the integration we’ve seen to date, it’s best to put into practice concerted efforts on Google+ as marketing platform.

What does this mean for online and social media marketing going forward? Here are three simple things to keep in mind given the new developments in Google News.

3 Google+ Optimizations

Engage with your audience and in your industry – Create timely posts about current events and share them with the people in your circles. It’s like content freshness but for Google+. Invite engagement, brand awareness and subject matter expertise at the same time.

Tag your posts, share links to articles – In each and every post you create, do yourself a favor; use relevant hashtags and incorporate a link to an article. You never know when you’re going to be in the news, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Never discount how Google uses its assets – We saw this with authorship and other structured data. There are obvious incentives to using Google+, and having your posts appear in association with news articles is an added bonus.

Update: I changed the title of the article to more accurately reflect the constructive feedback I received from Matt McGee and Aaron Bradley. Looks like Google+ posts in conjunction with articles on Google News have been around for quite some time (May 2012). See Jennifer Beese’s article on the initial Google+ and Google News integration. Regardless of the timing of the feature, the point remains the same. Google+ is affording marketers different platforms to engage in, and it just so happens that Google News is one of them, and possibly a robust one at that. Thanks again.

I'm Matthew Young, senior SEO specialist at Adobe, which I joined in 2014 after working for Bruce Clay Inc. for three years as an SEO analyst. At Adobe, clients are my business. I work to ensure the highest levels of digital marketing success in all forms and maintain exceptional working relationships with them all. My opinions are my own and not those of Adobe Systems Inc.

See Matthew's author page for links to connect on social media.