10 Tips to Increase Blog Traffic with Google+

Google+ is the fastest-growing social networking site. It's a perfect place to connect with people around the world, build relationships, and drive readers to your blog. To get you started, following are 10 tips to help you increase blog traffic with Google+ right now.

1. Create a Complete Profile or Page

If your blog can be identified as a business or brand, then create a Google+ Page for it. If not, use your personal Google+ profile to connect with your blog audience. The first step is to create a comprehensive profile or page that fully describes who you are, what expertise you bring to the table, how to find your blog, what your blog is about, and what makes it special. Follow me on Google+ here. 

2. Connect with People

Once you've created your Google+ profile or page, you need to start connecting with other Google+ members. Search for people you know first. Then look through the people they follow to find more interesting people to follow. As you spend time on blogs and other social web destinations, look for links to connect with interesting people on Google+.

3. Create Circles

Next, you should create circles to categorize your Google+ connections and then place people into appropriate circles. For example, create circles for your blog readers, your blog post sources, people who influence your target audience, people who can help you promote your blog or publicize it, and so on.

4. Send Targeted Messages

As you publish updates to Google+, you can choose which circles to share those updates with so the right audiences get the right messages. This is a great feature that ensures people don't receive the updates you don't want them to see.

5. Publish Interesting Content

Don't just publish links to your blog posts over and over. That's boring and will be viewed as excessive self-promotion. Your Google+ stream of updates should be interesting and meaningful to your audience, not spammy. Therefore, publish and share interesting updates and links that your target audience will find value in and appreciate seeing.

6. Create Sparks

Create sparks to track keywords related to your blog topic and jump into relevant conversations. Share content and updates that other people publish related to your blog topic that your audience is likely to enjoy, and look for new people to connect with on Google+ and blogs to follow outside of Google+.

7. Host Hangouts

Google+ hangouts are video chats between up to 10 Google+ members. You can host a hangout and promote it as a small virtual webinar or tuturial session. Think of how you can tie a video chat session with your blog topic and what kind of valuable information you could share in such a session. Then promote it on your blog as a special event!

8. Host Huddles

Instead of holding a tweet chat on Twitter, you can hold a Google+ huddle, which is a text chat between Google+ members. For example you can promote your Google+ huddle on your blog as a question and answer session between a small group!

9. Integrate and Cross-Promote

Use social media icons, Facebook social plugins, Twitter widgets, and so on to integrate your blog marketing efforts and cross-promote your content. Give people as many ways to find your blog and interact with you as possible.

10. Be Active

Update your Google+ stream frequently with new content, and make sure you spend time commenting on other members' updates as well. The more active you are, the more likely people are to remember who you are, recognize what your blog is about, and click through to read your posts!