Many are questioning whether they should take the leap to Google Plus. Beyond the unique features the platform offers for socializing, it is an excellent tool for increasing your online visibility. The following five reasons are only the tip of Plus’ emerging importance.

1. It Isn’t Going Away – Google has made it clear that Google Plus will not be going away anytime soon. With the amount of pure authority Google has on these matters, they are now in a place where they can freely choose how important Plus will become. When the number one most visited web page has a Google Plus Share button next to every result, what they are trying to tell you is clear.
2. Author Rank – Google is doing everything they can to weed out poor quality websites that rely on black hat SEO techniques to get a high page rank. With Google Authorship, you can visibly claim content as your own. Search results display with a head shot and a link to more information about the author. If your writers are reputable and your content high-quality, this helps to associate your brand with those things and increases visibility.
3. It Improves Your Search Ranking – It comes as no surprise that integration with Google Plus will help to increase your ranking in Google searches. Your Plus profile and business page among other things will show up in searches for your business. Whereas Facebook and Twitter do not allow Google full access to their information, Google Plus pages are seeing high visibility in search results.



4. Google Plus Communities – The Communities feature on Google Plus is powerful. It allow for an easy way to connect with and interact with users. Just a few of the benefits include:
1. The Circles feature allow you to group users based on things such as their relationship to your brand or product preference.
2. Google indexes Communities set to public, including all of the comments.
3. Communities are seen by users as a great place to get in touch with industry experts if they have questions.
5. +1s Are Easy To Monitor – Unlike Facebook’s like, which only allows you to like things that are on Facebook, usrs can +1 websites and search results among other things. Additionally, with Google Plus Ripples you can see who is sharing your content, and how long of a chain of sharing is created. In other words, you can directly observe how viral your content is. While +1s do not have a direct impact on search rank right now, it would not come as a surprise if they eventually did.

The truth is, there should be no question on why Google Plus should be adopted by anyone looking to expand their online presence. When a company as large as Google releases a social media platform this wide-reaching, the first thought should be to put energy behind it.