SEO (search engine optimization) on Google Plus is an absolute must. Since they announced they are indexing everything posted, this is huge opportunity to boost your SEO. But what do you do if you don’t know how to optimize for SEO? Google Plus is making it easy.

Your Name

Make sure that your name is actually your name. Think of this as your personal branding. You want people to know who you are. The nice thing is that if you use a nickname, they give you the option of adding it without it replacing your name.

• To add a nickname, click edit on your profile. Then click your name. Then click “more options”. You will see a box to add your nickname.

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Just a little word of caution. Just like Facebook, Plus does not like you to change your name to frequently. So make sure you know what you want before you change it.

Your name, whether it be on your profile or you page is important. When people are searching for you on the network or on search engines, they will be using this name to find you. Make sure it is the name you want representing your brand.

Search Signals

Search signals are the things that search engines are looking for when you do a search. Google Plus has made this part easy. The search terms that you want to be found for are the ones that you need to put in your profile.

The most important areas to load keywords are you introduction, employment, education and places.

If you place your keywords in these sections you will be more likely to turn up for search results for that key term. Places is an important one in case people are looking for someone from, or living in, a specific town. Make sure to include places you previously lived to make it easier for people to find you.

What about the tagline? Good question. It does not seem to be heavily weighted, if all. So put whatever you want in the tagline. Occupation and bragging rights are also not weighted.

In a search for your query, after your key word the number of people in your circles, profile verification, and engagement are all weighted and in that order from heaviest to lightest.

Currently Plus seems to be giving profiles more weight than pages, which makes it even more important to SEO optimize your pages!

Certain search fields are more important for internal searching on Google Plus vs. searching on Google the search engine. Places you lived is one of those fields, it seems only relevant for people searching for you within the social network.

There are ways to spam with keyword loading and people are doing it. But Google is smart and will catch on to this kind of SEO practice. So it is best that you do not blatantly keyword load. Keep your descriptive writing relevant and good quality. It will be better for you in the long run.