SMO, or social media marketing has evolved as a new way for getting backlinks and higher traffic for a website. People post a lot of links to social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ to increase traffic to their website. But is the investment worthwhile for deriving any traffic from these sources?

Current Google+ scenario

Posting to Google+ might or might not give you the results you want, depending on how you are using Google+. Most often people simply ‘+1’ their post or add their URL in a Google+ post and think this would increase their website traffic. Actually, it does not. Posting to Google+ require you to know the exact places and methods from where you can get a ‘do-follow’ link to your website.

Adding Links to the Body of Google+ posts do not help

When you add a link to the body of a post in Google+, it gets you a ‘no-follow’ link from Google. Adding a link to the following places on Google+ would give you a ‘no-follow’ link:

• In the ‘Other Profiles’ section of your Google+ profile
• A link to your profile when you comment
• A link posted directly in a post or comment
• When you or someone else simple clicks the ‘share’ or  ‘+1’ button

A ‘no-follow’ link simply means that it does not give you any benefit in the search engine rankings and does not follow the link to your website.

What really helps?

We have discussed how sharing with a ‘no-follow’ tag on Google+ drives little benefit. Now, let us have a look on how to get some real benefit from this powerful social network. To ensure that your link does get followed and obtain higher SERP rankings, below are a few places on Google+ that you can post a link on.

• When others share your link with your name – When sharing your link on Google+ in a post’s body or comments, it would get a ‘do-follow’ link only if they +mention you in the post/comment.

• Sharing high PageRank – The traffic gained from someone’s +mention depends directly on the Google PageRank of that person. And if such a high ranking entity mentions your link, you too will derive the benefit of SEO

• Add a URL – If you add a valid URL using the ‘add a link’ button, it would in turn improve your SEO efforts.

Now when you know how to get real traffic from Google+, go and use your new found knowledge and share your views with us!