Say what you want about Google+ and whether or not it’s worth it to maintain for your organization, Google still uses content within to aid in search results. Claiming your brand’s presence within the Google+ business directory doesn’t cost anything and makes sense to do.
My experience with Google is a love hate relationship of excellent tools but terrible UI and clumsy instruction. For instance, back in the day you could easily set up a Google+ business page and tie it to whatever other social media account you have for your organization. Well then they rolled out Google Local and it got confusing. Having a Google Local page that’s tied to not only your business but also to Google Maps and any local reviews (think Yelp) is great but none of the information you already had and maintain on the original Google+ Business page was there.
Now there’s a way to merge the two pages within Google+ so that you have all the verified benefits of the Google+ Local page and Google+ Business page. To initiate this merge follow these steps:
- Login to your Google+ account, select Pages from the navigation on the left, choose your local page (make sure your local page has the little “verified” badge), then click Manage this page.
- Click Settings and scroll until you see Connect to another page. Click that link and then select the Google+ Business page you want to merge with the Local page.
- Clicking through the verification prompts (make sure to read everything Google says will happen with your two pages) and you should be all set.
- The old Google+ Business page will now be called “Back up of [business name]” and you should have all your local and brand information in a single Google+ page.
I recently followed these steps for my SIX15 Business and Local pages and had no issues. Good luck!