Have you received an email from Google informing you that your Google+ page is going to be deleted in 30 days? You might be wondering ‘should I keep it active?’, ‘will deleting Google+ affect my business presence on Google?’ or ‘wait, I have a Google+ page?’?!
We’ve had clients who utilise our SEO services ask us questions like these, so we thought we’d put together an article answering popular questions to help small businesses or others afoot in the digital marketing landscape.
Should I keep my Google+ page active?
From our research (and common sense…) Google+ has been declining for a few years, and it will likely shutdown eventually. If your Google+ page isn’t active; doesn’t have much – if any – engagement, and has a very low following, your page isn’t worth keeping. If you are very active and you have a large following then it is worth leaving it live for now, but it doesn’t look like Google attributes much weight to them. Their ranking algorithm appears to have stopped ranking Google+ pages; they have mostly vanished from organic search results.
If I delete Google+ will it affect SEO?
In some discussions we’ve read, it’s been suggested that having and using Google + to post links helps SEO as these posts get indexed and show as a search snippet. However, if you have a Google My Business and you post on here, although these posts aren’t indexed, they are shown in snippets, so you don’t need to worry about your local SEO being impacted.
Ultimately, if Google is emailing you to say it should be deleted to “simplify your Google My Business listing”, it’s worth having it removed.
Enter, Google My Business!
If your Google+ page gets deleted this won’t affect your Google My Business listing, reviews or map listings as it’s separate. For local SEO, we recommend focusing on setting up and optimising your Google My Business as much as possible – as this is a big factor toward helping you to rank in local listings.
Would you like your local SEO optimised to ensure you rank in search engines? Or help for how to add your business to Google maps? Get in touch today on 01202 798 820 or pop us an email at hello@upperdog.co.uk.