Here are five basic tips that are easy to implement to help make your G+ Profile or Business Page more search engine-friendly.
1 . Use keywords
Keywords are king when it comes to SEO. You’ll need to identify or decide what yours are: think about what keywords a potential client would use to search for you and find you. An SEO-friendly profile is filled with your keywords (translator/interpreter/localizer, languages, specialty, etc.). Basically, the more you repeat a keyword, the higher your search engine ranking. Remember that the goal is to be found in a Google search, that is to say, being listed at least on page 1 of the search, preferably among the top three results, so be sure to enter all your keywords in your Google+ profile. So, what are your keywords? Well, first of all, everything that sets you apart from the competition is one. Each translator is unique – you are not just a “freelance translator”: your languages, background, field of expertise, specialty, etc. define you and are keywords. Clients rarely do a Google Search “freelance translator”, but they search “English to Italian legal translator”, for example. The language pair and the specialty are already two keywords. Then of course, any concept, type of document, etc. linked to your specialty field should be in there as well. Let’s stick with the previous example. Let’s say the same client may actually need the translation of a text on labor rights (which is exactly one of your top domains) and refine his search by entering “English to Italian translator specialized in labor rights”. How will he ever find you if haven’t entered anywhere in your online profiles and pages that you actually specialize in labor rights and laws? So, take the time to imagine as many potential Google searches as possible that should lead to you and that can be performed; these are your keywords.
2. Make sure your Profile/Page is public
Obvious, right? If you want to use Google+ to help boost your Google ranking, then your page needs to be public, otherwise it won’t work. You can check and edit this setting under “Profile discovery”.
3. Use meta description fields
These are your best friends when it comes to boosting your SEO, so use them! Enter your main keywords (ex. “translator”, “interpreter” language pairs, specialty fields). Again, think about which keywords a potential client would type into a Google Search to find you and use these keywords.
4. Use as many links as possible
Each link directing visitors to your website (or ProZ.com profile for example) is a so-called backlink. These are little helpers for optimizing your website’s ranking. To simplify to the extreme: the more backlinks a given page or website has, the better it is. The “Introduction” field in the Google+ profile updater is prime real estate for both keywords and backlinks, so do not hesitate to integrate links in your text (for example : “Click here to see clients’ feedback” and integrate a link to your website’s clients referrals page, and so on) . Within your “Introduction” field, you can put as many links to different pages of your website as you want – backlinks.
5. Make (relevant) posts public
Google+ has an awesome feature: Circles. They allow you to mix it up completely in terms of contacts in your one account (business, personal and complete strangers) and choose precisely and extremely easily who sees what, plus the option of making posts “Public” – public posts being indexed by Google, obviously, which is not the case with “Limited” posts (that is, any other posts visible to only one or more of your Circles – if you make a post visible to your G+ business contacts Circle, only people in that Circle can see it and the post is marked as “Limited” and is by no means public and thus not indexed by Google). This means that you have to pay attention to the visibility audience of each new piece of content you’re posting, and if material destined for public consumption, make sure to mark it as “Public”. By “public material”, I mean any content that you can use for marketing and online reputation purposes: if you’re a financial translator and have written an article for a financial magazine for example, this is definitely something you’d want potential clients to see. The same applies to content you’re sharing. If you’re specialized in, for example, automotive, any piece of news from the automotive industry that you share on your G+ should be public: a Google search will associate your name with these contents, which is precisely what you want – to come across as an expert in your specialty field.
The video replay of my last webinar “Social Media marketing 2012 for translators – a must or a should?” conducted with ProZ.com is now available!
