Optimizing Your Google+ Circles

I’ve been using Google+ a lot lately. 


Of all the social media platforms, this is the one I focus on the most, and for the following reasons:

• It’s more beneficial to my website than other social media;
  


• The people are more relevant to me than those on other networks;
  


• In regard to SEO, Google is the best, and that’s where I want to spend my time.
  

So what things can you do to make Google+ better, and work for you more? Optimize your Circles.

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Google+ Circles and Your Social Connections

Google+ Circles are nothing more that groups of people with something in common. I have Circles for authors, designers, and content marketers to name just a few.

If you look over at the top of my blog’s sidebar you’ll see my Google+ profile. A few days ago I had 100 followers. Now I have 170 or so. I’m sure in another week I’ll have more.

So what’s the secret?

Sharing content that people find relevant. Yep, that’s how I get more people in my Circles. That and large Circles I can add and then organize later.

Yep it’s all about how you add to and then organize your Circles. Today we’ll focus on your Google+ Circles and how they can get you more benefits long-term.

To do that, let’s take a look at the following pictures, but first, let’s tell you how to get into Google+ Circles and manage your Google+ Circles account.

Finding Your Current Google+ Circles

So let’s get you onto the main Google screen, and as you can see in this picture, you’ll want to click that Google+ notifications button (it looks like a bell) up in the upper right-hand corner by your profile picture.

To find your Google+ Circles, start on the main Google screen.

Clicking on that will bring down your Google+ notifications window pane, which looks like this. After that, just click on the “Google+ Notifications,” here:

Click the bell icon to open up your notifications pane. Click on "Google+ notifications"

So that brings up the following screen, which shows you the recent activity on your account. We’ll want to click over on that “Notifications” button on the far left-hand side of the screen, here:

On this screen click the "Notifications" button to open the drop-down menu

That will then open up the larger pane, and it looks like this:

Click on "People" to open up your Google+ Circles page

Simply click onto “People” and it will take you to the main Google+ Circles page. Simply click on "Your Circles" to get to where you need to be. 

The main Google+ Circles screen. Click "Your Circles" to get to your specific people.

Also, this is a great screen to find people you're interested in, or who have similar interests. After all, it's all about growing those Circles, right?

Organizing Your Google+ Circles Screen

Here you can see my main Google+ Circles page. Now, I have quite a few Circles, mainly because I know I’ll be adding a lot of people. See, I don’t want generic and random Circles like “Authors” or “Following.” I even got rid of “Friends” because, let’s face it, I have none.

Your Google+ Circles page has people in the Cirlces on top and your various Circles below. You can resize those panes.

What I do have are lots of random internet acquaintances and other add-ons that I’ve accumulated. As you can see, I mainly stick these folks into my Circle called “Circle Adds.”

Large unruly Circles like this help no one. Get those people into their appropriate Circles.

These are people that I primarily get from large Circles or groups, and today you can see I’ve got 1,032 people there. I’ll just add the whole group, and then later I’ll come back and put those people into their appropriate Circles.

Today I’ll clean some of that up, moving perhaps 100 people into more appropriate Circles. If you do a little each day like that then pretty soon you’ll be quite organized.

Hightlight a person and figure out their likes, services, or job. Put them in the appropriate Circle, or a "holding Circle" to easily organize later.

Let’s take a look at this “Circle Adds” Circle. As you can see, there are many people, and one of them is this “Your Internet Marketers” person.

Alright, they seem like an SEO service firm or content marketing firm or social media services. I don’t know – it’s pretty hard to tell.

To get an idea of who this person is I’ll simply highlight them by moving my mouse over them. Here you’ll usually get a short description. 

This obviously looks like SEO or content marketing, so that's the circle I'll put them in.

What I think I’ll do is move them into my “Social Media Marketing” Circle. To do that I simple click and drag, moving them down like this:

Drag them down to that circle, and then delete them from your "holding Circle." (You don't want them in 2 Circles, do you)?

Now they’re in both the “Circle Adds” Circle and the “Social Media Marketing” Circle. Since I don’t want them in two Circles I’ll go ahead and delete them from the “Circle Adds” by clicking on the little “x” by their name.

Now all I’ve got to do is move those other 1,031 people!

So as you can see, this is one way for you to easily manage your Google+ Circles so you can increase your social media footprint, increase your online business, or perhaps sell more eBooks.

Below are some helpful links to Google+ guides. Trust me, you want to get started on this in case you haven’t already. And if you were like me, really slow to get going on this after you started, now would be the time to get going.

Why not start by adding me to your Circles? After all, I’m obviously in the mood to move people around today.


And if you want more secrets on how to Increase Your Social Media Presence, check out this post, and sign-up for my mailing list for a free guide.

Good Google+ Links

Google+ Community Pages

Scott Buehler’s Excellent Google+ Beginner’s Guide

Mashable Google+ Beginner’s Guide

Articles on Google+ for Business Branding

Database with Hundreds of Google+ Circles Based on Interests/Niche