Do you have to have a Google+ profile page for a person before you can build a Google+ brand page?
-
There was some debate at MozCon 2012 about this issue. I have my personal Google+ page which I didn't want attached to the brand of one of the sites I manage. I saw no other way to create a new Google+ page for this brand except to create a new profile under a different gmail account. The problem is, I had to put in my personal name to create the profile (you can't put in a business name, Google won't accept it), so now I have two "Dana Tan" author pages in Google+, the second one is where I built the page for this separate business "Celebrate Communion." Unfortunately, this has muddied the waters because people are following me in both places (it's fragmented my circles). I would like to add customers who are already on Google+ to my business pages circles, but the business page won't do it.
Is it possible to build a Google+ business page without all of this brand confusion? If so, can you send me directions? I have found nothing online that says you don't need a profile to do a brand page.
Also, once the page is built, what is the best way for me to reach out to customers with google accounts? I don't see a good way to do that on businesses pages either. On my profile page I can load all the emails into my contacts list, but then those contacts can only be added to my profile page and not the brand page.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Dana
-
How does one "associate" a personal profile with a company profile? As a contributor to that site? What about the Betty Crocker approach, a company persona Google+ account that is run by whoever is currently staffed to do so?
-
Hi Danny,
I just watched an interview posted by Chris Goward (Wider Funnel) with Janet Driscoll Miller (Search Mojo) about how to best set up Google+ businesses pages without having the issues I mention above. I included a transcript where Janet describes in detail how best to achieve the separation between brand and personal pages. I also included my own "summary" of how to do it in three steps (see the very bottom post in this thread). Did I get it right? Thanks so much for your help,
Dana
-
Aha! I believe I have found the answer to this question. Thanks goes to Chris Goward of Wider Funnel Marketing. He interviewed Janet Driscoll Miller at SMX West after her presentation on Google+ and SEO
Here is the excerpt that answered my question about Google+, personal Gmail accounts, Google+ pages for businesses and branding:
"The administration of those pages can be tricky, because it's not exactly like Facebook pages. People expect it to be like Facebook and it's not. You can have multiple administrators but there's still one owner. So, for instance, if you're the business owner, you should go in and do it, so it's under your email address and you always have the ultimate control. So make sure that the person you're giving it to, that either it's an email address that multiple people can get to or that the owner of the company could. The other challenge is that most people use their Gmail account to sign up. Well, the problem is, if I'm the social adminstrator and I leave the company and I used my Gmail address to set up the page, I can never transfer that Gmail, necessarily. So you want to try...you can set up unique profiles, with your own domain name. So I like to recommend that, just because I feel like it's safer for companies."
So here's the best way to set up a Google+ page for business:
1. Have a business owner create the account using a Gmail username related to the business or brand, something like this:
2. Don't use a gmail account as the email address in the sign up process. Use an email account that is a general email address at your company that multiple people could have access to if necessary., something like this
GooglePlusPage@MyBrandName.com
3. Have your social adminstrator or social media manager and team members associate their Google+ profiles with the core Google+ page set up by the owner. That way, if they change positions or leave the company, they can be disassociated with the business page, but maintain their personal profile as they move on to something else.
-
Hi Keri,
I have reached out to Google for an answer to this question. I asked that the post something both in the Google forums and also here. We'll see how far I get
Dana
-
If you can figure out how to get an answer from Google, especially on an SEOmoz forum, we would love to know.
-
I still haven't received a truly complete, detailed answer to this question. I would really like to hear from Google. Anyone have additional info?
-
Thanks very much Danny. Yes, I understand that I didn't necessarily need to create a separate Google account for the brand page, but to keep my personal brand separate from the Celebrate Communion site's brand was my goal.
So it sounds like I really am stuck having two Google+ accounts, both under my name, but attached to different brands.
My concern is that I manage multiple sites.Our main site, CCI Solutions needs a Google+ page. I don't want to open a third "Dana Tan" Google profile just so I can create their Google+ page. How do agencies set up Google+ pages for their clients? Whose Google account do they attach the business page to?
-
You have to have a Google+ personal account to make a brand page, but brand pages don't have to have their own account.
Start here:
http://www.google.com/+/business/After you've made the page, there's no way to transfer over people from other personal pages that I know of. But you can point people there to follow you at the new location.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Really, what are the benefits of creating a Google Brand page for an e-commerce site?
We have a jewellery store client who already have a Google My Business page set up for its store front business. Should we also create a Google Brand page for its e-commerce site (which has a different business name to the jewellery store)? This client already has a pretty robust Facebook profile. Is it worth it maintaining a Brand page then - since it targets Google plus users?
Branding | | Gavo
And what are the chances of a Brand page appearing on search results when you're not a Nike or a Calvin Klein? Thanks heaps in anticipation of your response.0 -
Optimizing for a person with two variations of their first name.
Hello, I am wondering if there is best practices or ideas when doing SEO work for someone's personal name and that name has two variations. So for instance, if someone's formal first name is "James" but they go by "Jim" or "Richard" and "Rick." I thought it might be easy as choosing one and going for it, but this person has a lot of info about them indexed and google and for the most part it is two completely different set of SERP's depending on which variation of the named is searched.
Branding | | kevgrand0 -
How to market a brand when the brand name is constantly changing?
I work in an industry where companies are often being bought up by other larger companies. When this happens, there is often a change in the company name to incorporate the parent company name as well. My company is a distributor of these products and I'm wondering if there are best practices for marketing both the original brand name and the new brand name for the same product? We're trying to avoid any duplicate product detail pages, so dynamically generating the same page for two different names is not ideal. Anyone have any tips? Thanks!
Branding | | GalcoIndustrial0 -
How to troubleshoot google authorship?
Before anyone makes the suggestion, I have already read many of the articles online how to create authorship. I believe I have gone through every step correctly. Google plus is properly connected to my blog, name is same on blog as it is in google plus profile. It even appears that the rich snippets tool is reading my mark up appropriately. It's been about a month and I'm not seeing my image with my blog posts. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is there a way to trouble shoot this? My image shows for my google plus page, just not my blog posts. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks. Regards, Dino
Branding | | Dino640 -
On the "new" YouTube" layout how can I select the correct Facebook page to connect to when my Facebook account has multiple business pages attached to it?
On the "new" YouTube" layout how can I select the correct Facebook page to connect to when my Facebook account has multiple business pages attached to it? My Facebook account has three business pages and the "base" user profile. I am trying to connect one of the business pages to a YouTube channel but each time I attempt to do this YouTube selects the "base" user profile and I cannot determine how to switch it to the correct business page. I attempted to connect while signed in "as the page" but it would not allow that. Thanks for any help!
Branding | | KentuckyOne0 -
How to "Cause" a google alert
Hello Everyone, I'm just wondering, is there a quick and good way to actually cause a google alert for a keyword? I'm thinking of a press release, but there must be several other ways as well. I look forward to your response. Thanks!
Branding | | dmac
David0 -
BRAND STACKING!!!1!11! (angry fist)
I have been noticing a pattern with my highest ROI keywords. The company I work for sells a ton of different brands. Over the last month one by one my ranks are droping down by about three to the parent companys brand stack. Now I know that Google favors brands but it seems in the last month they have become much more aggressive with brand stacking. Has anyone else noticed this problem or has there been some action on the part of Google to make this happen?
Branding | | Brother220 -
Signals to trigger Google Shopping Results?
I am in the process of setting up a shopping cart for a customer. We will probably use osCommerce. Are there established best practices and guidelines to make one's cart trigger results in the Google "Shopping" category? For instance, using microdata and the semantic markup from Schema.org? Any experience here is welcome.
Branding | | networkelites0