Google+ Pages for Business and Brands are now available. My first impressions are not good, however I envisage the Google+ Pages will evolve from what we have at the moment, potentially into a Business Portal Haven. Its all pretty speculative at the moment but I cannot see Google sticking with the current stucture and for that reason, its probably best you Create a Google+ Page right away!
Promises…Promises!
Since July Google has been asking Businesses & Brands to hold off in creating a Google+ profile for their business whilst at the same offering a hint of hings to come such as “rich analytics” and “the ability to connect that identity to other parts of Google that businesses might use on a daily basis”.
At the moment, I dont see any anlaytics feature and I can only assume that this is to be released shortly. With regards to connecting other parts of Google to your +Page, well there is a hint of that. It has been widely specualted that the ‘Integration’ hints were in relation to Google Places Pages and Google+ Pages, however at the moment, this is not the case. Businesses will have to manage to the two seperately and hope that at some point in the future, a seamless integration process may be offered.
At present the only wothy mention for connecting your +Page elsewhere on the web seems to be in the form of a Google+ Badge which can be put on your website in order to link back to your Google+ Page. Integration with Adwords seems to be on the horizion, however Google have states this is “coming soon”, with what we can only assume will be a host of new features.
Only The Beginning
Google state “We wanted to help you get your business on Google+ as soon as possible, so we’re opening the field trial for Google+ Pages”. They go on to suggest the roll out of many features therefore keeping an eye on Google+ Your Business page will be very interesting over the coming weeks/months.
In the mean time, create your page, fill it with meaningful content and link to your website. The juicy stuff is yet to come!