Search Engine Optimization | SEO | Paul Vesely

We can call it the browser wars. There are only three big players but it is interesting to note what happens behind the scenes when you choose either Internet Explorer (IE), Mozilla’s FireFox (FF) or Chrome to do your internet surfing on (these are the big 3 browsers but there are others). Most of us have our preference when it comes to which browser we use, for some it may simply be the default for our computer – for example all computers using the Microsoft Windows operating system by default use IE, whereas all Apple computers use Safari. Since Apple computers are such as tiny percentage of the computer market, we won’t be focusing on Safari during this article.

It is little known that when FireFox (FF) was created by Mitchell Baker, its mission statement was to be an alternative to IE (which had many problems with malware, spyware etc) and be the worlds biggest open source project. Being ‘open source’ means that developers worldwide can build parts of the browser and build add-ons without the need to purchase the rights because the code is ‘open source’. FF now has over 1 billion users worldwide and has taken a serious amount of users away from its original competitor IE.

But there is something happening behind the scenes in these browser wars that you – the users should know. IE is owned by Microsoft (who own the operating system Windows and the search engine Bing). Originally, when FF was first launched, Google created a contract with Mozilla to pay millions of dollars annually to use Google as the default homepage for the FF browser as opposed to what IE uses which is by default Bing. BUT, since Google has now developed their own browser called Chrome (which of course has the default search engine set to Google), FF is a kind of a competitor for the hugely successful Chrome browser.

Recently Chrome user numbers actually overtook FF and are now closing in on the IE browser for domination. What does this mean? It is possible that Google pull their funding of FF – which accounts for 85% of all revenue FF earns causing them to bust and making the browser wars a mainly 2 horse race (excluding other smaller browsers such as Safari, Opera etc)?

I wonder if Google is becoming too powerful due to its horizontal integration into many of the online products such as mobile operating systems, online stores, videos and the list goes on….. Will the eventual downfall of other competitors of Google in other sectors caused by this online giant deciding to pull its funding from these semi-competing products also happen? Only time will tell, but competition in all environments is a healthy thing, and it would be sad if that was lost.

In a follow up article to my previous post explain the difference between a mobile app and a mobile website I will now go into the details of performing search engine optimization (SEO) on a mobile website.

Comscore have calculated that there are 2.2 billion searches on Google mobile, whereas yahoo has 0.55 billion and Bing has 0.5 billion. There are expected to be more mobile users than PC users in the year 2015. So if you are not moving with the mobile trend and your product or service is not available to a mobile audience, you are losing out on a huge market.

Mobile websites, just as any other website need SEO to successfully get people to find it using a mobile search browser. Currently Google have 99% of that market as per ComScore (October 2011 results). All phones currently search using the Google mobile search engine no matter if they are android or apple devices.

There are a total of over 3 Billion local search queries a month showing that if your business is based on selling a local service such as a restaurant to hot dog stand, locksmith to local hairdresser, it pays to be able to be found ‘locally’.

You have to remember that there are many types of mobile devices which all come in different screen sizes and all run off different operating systems. There are many variations of smart phones such as Samsung, HTC, LG etc that run an android operating system. Then there are the apple iPhone models that run an iOS operating system. Nokia runs a Symbian operating system on its phone.  Of course BlackBerry uses its own operating system called BlackBerry OS as well. Each operating system (OS) effects the functionality of the website and its display on the phone. Whenever building a mobile website, this needs to be taken into account and other factors such as device screen size, speed, etc.

Some general rules that you can stick to when developing a mobile website are:

• Remove Flash
• Keep similar colors and branding as regular online site

Of course many website platforms such as WordPress have taken developments of mobile usage into account and most WordPress sites work on all phones successfully. But many flash based sites such as wix do not work at all.

Redirect or use new domain or subdomain?

There is much discussion as to whether to create a new domain such as www.yoursite.mobi and place a mobile site there or to use a subdomain or subdirectory of the regular online site. I strongly suggest using a subdirectory of a current site meaning your regular domain www.yourdomain.com/mobile/ and using an auto redirect to direct mobile users to the subdirectory (best called /mobile/). The other option of using a subdomain such as http://m.yourdomain.com isn’t as good for utilizing page rank, but it is better than a totally new domain such as the .mobi domains. Using a subdirectory as mentioned above allows for all the SEO strength (i.e. Page Rank and Link Juice) and index page history that the regular online site has, to be translated and shared with the mobile site so it ranks highly on search engine results pages (SERP’s).

Does Google only index and list mobile sites in its mobile SERPs?

No but it does discriminate and give better results to mobile sites. This is why if you follow all of the SEO suggestions listed in this article you will successfully have your mobile website ranking highly and receiving good amount of mobile visitors because it will be optimized for mobile users.

Conclusion

There is still a need to build links, make it easy for your site to be shared on mobile devices etc but if you use the suggestions in the article above, you will have a major head start. Ensure your business is also listed in as many local directories as possible such as google maps, yelp, foursquare, facebook places etc to name the main ones and industry specific places like tripadvisor for hotels for example.

Many people are confused and are looking for clarity regarding what is the difference between a mobile app and a mobile website.

An app is short for ‘application’ and it works very similarly to user-installed software on a computer. An app allows the phone to perform specific tasks. Users may have to purchase an app for a small or it can be freely downloaded through the phones ‘app store’ by the means of a user’s app store account. A mobile website is simply a website that work and is optimized for a small screen of a smart phone.

Usually mobile websites have just key information and main pages that would be necessary to a visitor using a phone. Its functionality should work on all phones as opposed to the main website which is full of hundreds of pages of information, does not fit the phone screen, and many functions in the online website may not be compatible with a phone such as button not being clickable on, or flash banner not playing.

Mobile App:

1. Pro’s:

• Easy to get to desktop icon
• Trendy and considered ‘cool’
• Loads faster due to the app being pre downloaded which means only certain info within the app is updated during a sync
• An app works offline (meaning even when there is no internet connection – it just cant sync to get the latest data but it still works)
• On an app there is only ever need to login once and all is saved
• You can save preferences on an app

2. Con’s:

• Have to apply through an app store to get approval meaning you have to play by the app store rules
• App stores such as iStore take a huge percentage of sale price of the app which can make the selling of an online service through an app unprofitable (iStore have many strict and crippling rules blocking difference in prices in the app store and online etc)
• You need to build an app per platform – one for iOS, one for android, one for blackberry etc etc etc which gets expensive and time consuming
• All changes to an app have to go back through a submission to the app store and then get re-downloaded by the user

Mobile Website:

1. Pro’s:

• All changes and updates are instantaneous to all users
• One mobile site can be programmed to work on all platforms instead of building an app for each platform
• Mobile sites rank better in search engine allowing businesses to get organic traffic instead of just service current users/members
• Users don’t need to download App, they can simply use it
• No need for submission and wait for apps store approval
• No need to comply with Apps store requirements
• Normally mobile sites need less development time  and are quicker to launch hence are more cost effective
• Using HTML 5 websites can be built with many of the beneficial features of an app written above – such as the FT App is really just an HTML 5 website that is built very intelligently to gain the benefits of both an app and a mobile website.

2. Con’s:

• Downloadable desktop item only if the user decides to add it to their phone’s desktop
• Can not work when there is no data coverage or reception
• Can not save things like logins or preferences (although cookies do work)

In the end, when choosing between a mobile app and a mobile website it is important to be clear about what your goals are in building this app/website and what are the benefits to your current and potential visitors. Of course since this development will cost money and time, it is also important to do a cost/benefit analysis to see exactly if it is worth investing in an app or mobile website and if so, for which platforms are you going to build an app. In August 2011, Comscore calculated that in the US smartphone market 43.7% had an Android device and 27.7% had an iPhone (iOS operating system). BlackBerry numbers are lower and the BlackBerry apps store is smaller and has less downloads than android or iOS app stores.

You may have great SEO results and also good PPC campaigns sending lots of visitors to your website. Your website could be ranking highly for main keywords in search engines and you could be getting a lot of potential new clients and traffic to your website via paid campaigns as well, but it is all for nil unless you know how to optimize your main conversion pages so the highest possible percentage of visitors to your website sign up or purchase. The reason that your website exists is to make you more money and if this is your case, here is how you do that:

I suggest you use the Google Website Optimizer. It is a free tool from Google and it allows you as the webmaster to use this split testing software which provides a powerful technique to optimize the main pages in your website so as to allow the maximum number of visitors to your website, purchase, sign up, or do whatever else you want them to do so as to help you make money out of your website.

So what is Split testing and how is it used to help you make the most money out of your website?

Split testing is pretty much what it sounds like: You make a split in your website and test each option of the split on visitors to your website.

If you had two possible headlines for your web page and you couldn’t decide which to use, you could run an A/B split test. That means that half of the visitors to your website would be shown Headline 1and the other half of your visitors would be shown Headline 2. The next step would be to total which headline brought you the most orders and then use THAT headline on your web page from that day forward, knowing that you are using the best converting (“selling“) headline.

Google Website Optimizer lets you carry out tests like this and it’s a free tool! However, tests like this often take several weeks to finish as you gather all the data from different tests. Google itself suggests you get data of around 1,000 visits before making any decisions and changing your website. That could be an easy sample to attain for some websites, but other low traffic volume websites could take a few weeks to reach this threshold for a specific web page being tested.

Split testing software provides a powerful technique for increasing your website’s conversion rate (that is your website’s ability to turn website visitors into new customers).

To get the Google Website Optimizer tool you can click here.  http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer

How to get an account?

1. Sign into your Google account (or create one)
2. Ensure you have a Google Analytics account (or create one). You must have one to use the Google Website Optimizer.
3. Register on the link above to get a Google Website Optimizer account.

Now  you are ready to start split testing!

What to test?

You can test things such as:

• Text on page,
• Images,
• Prices,
• Offers,
• Call to action buttons, etc.—and even all at the same time.

Each one of your visitors will see a different combination of these elements above. After you gain enough data then Google Website Optimizer will calculate, on average, which of the elements performed the best. This can help you to put together a high performing page that converts the optimum number of visitors possible. The idea of making a visitor to your website “convert” or improving a “conversion rate”,  is increasing the percentage of your visitors that end up reaching a given goal during a specific period of time while on your website.

This type of testing is called “multivariate testing” which means that you are testing many different variables or variations of a page at the same time as opposed to A/B split testing which was discussed with the headline example at the start of this article.

What kind of split testing should you do?

Multivariate testing –Is when you test all the elements of the page at once.

A/B split tests – When you do one test for example on one image compared to another and see how that affects conversion rates.

I truly hope that this free tool and explanation has ignited your imagination of what the possibilities are with your own website. As with most Google tools, it is easy to use and very user friendly with lots of help forums supporting the software. In the end, every successful change you make, should help you in your ultimate goal to make more money out of the current traffic to your website by converting a higher percentage of visitors successfully.

Its big news that Facebook is going to do an IPO in May 2012 (although this date might change) and all personal Facebook users and companies that have business pages want to know the follow things:

1. How will it affect (if at all) my Facebook profile and my companies online social media strategy
2. It seems like a lot of money that Facebook are going to be rolling, so what are they going to do when they are all cashed up?
3. How can I personally cash into Facebook’s success too?

Facebook has not said why it is raising this money, hence it is unclear if the strategic direction and focus of the company will change away from Facebook’s social platform and refocus on buying more patents or fighting it out with the other big kids in the playground such as developing a search engine to compete with Google or go into software to compete with Microsoft or even delve into hardware to compete with Apple and Samsung. All these are possibilities which could mean that Facebook’s resources and core focus changes away from providing the best user experience on its social platform causing it to be overtaken like MySpace was by a new generation of social media platforms.

So will it affect your Facebook profile or your company business page? In the beginning, NO. Facebook has currently started making all profiles change over to the “timeline” layout. This change is in line with the many other previous changes Facebook have made to the look and feel of users profiles. But with all that extra cash, it could be that new technologies and interfaces for your profile or business page could emerge in the future. All the social media strategy advice that can be given at this point is to continue investing time getting followers on your Facebook page and make your social media strategy exciting and engaging.

For those also salivating to make the big bucks like Zuckerberg there are a few options short of coming up with an idea that changes the way people interact socially by creating the next big thing after Facebook. Note that most medium term Facebook employees have shares as part of their salary packages and on average stand to earn around $10 million each. Some will even earn more depending on how many shares they already hold. For example the COO will become a billionaire when the IPO concludes. Jeremy Ross believes Bono from U2 also has a stake in Facebook worth $1bn.

The question in your mind is – “Should I invest?”. While there is much risk in the stock exchange and company values fluctuate, Facebook is such a big player that it has the ability to mitigate risk and ride out tough financial times giving investors stability and security (so to speak). Looking at GroupOn’s IPO in late 2011 – It can be seen that investors are hungry for these kinds of stocks. In the end, the decision and the risk is all up to you the investor.

Like it or not Google+ is here to stay. The latest visitor numbers released by Google and facebook show that Google+ gets 21% of the monthly unique visitors compared to facebook. So why should you bother spending your employee’s time cultivating an SEO friendly Google+ company page or creating circles and posts if the eyes of your current and potential customers/clients are still on facebook?

The reason is because of a very recent algorithm change (minor update) in Google seems to be serving results of well optimized and SEO’d Google+ company pages as high as position 3 in the search engine results page (SERP) for certain keywords. This means that if someone has correctly optimized and continually updates their Google+ company page, and friends of a searcher have added your company page to their circles, then you have a very high chance of coming up on the first page of google’s SERP.

How do you create an optimized SEO Google+ company page?

Firstly you must have a Google+ personal profile. Then create a Google+ page.

Steps for an SEO friendly Google plus page:

1. Ensure the name of your company is optimized including the industry you are in.
2. Include in your company description as many keywords as possible.
3. Ensure you continually update your company page with posts etc daily.
4. Have a Google+ page button (reddish color) on your website so people can easily add your page to their circles.

One cool feature that differentiates Google+ from facebook pages is that the 5 top images on your company’s home page can be animated gifs (meaning they can move and don’t need to be static). See red bull’s Google plus page for how cool this looks.

Conclusion:

Like it or not, Google+ is becoming more and more necessary for your company to be on. Google are utilizing all their resources to help promote this social network so that it doesn’t fail like Orkut or Buzz. This also means to beat your competitors you need to make sure that you have the correct SEO balance on your Google+ page and you have used as many search engine optimization techniques to ensure your page ranks highly in the SERPs.

To understand how to better adapt your website, your business, and your personal internet usage you can simply learn from Google’s new “How the world searched in 2011”. This well-built interactive website allows you an insight into the way the world used the most popular English search engine out there and you will be able to see the 10 most popular searches for 2011 on Google. Once you understand the major search trends in the world for 2011, you can better understand what are the major events that cause masses of searches and traffic. Then you can tailor pieces of your online marketing strategy to skillfully relate to the masses of audience that perform these searches and relate it to your product/service/blog.

By simply writing and performing on page optimization in a SEO friendly way, related to the top search topics of:

1. Rebecca Black
2. Google+
3. Ryan Dunn
4. Casey Anthony
5. Battlefield 3
6. iPhone 5
7. Adele
8. 東京 電力
9. Steve Jobs
10. iPad2

you could attract some lucrative traffic to your website. Of course you must not only attract the traffic but also convert visitors when they have arrived on your site.

Check out the Google Zeitgeist 2001 list: http://www.googlezeitgeist.com/en

As a side note Google built this website using HTML5 which is a more interactive platform which allows for moving images without the use of flash (which is not compatible with certain devices and browsers).

I particularly think the marketing video is well done (which you can view and play below). Google have integrated how their search engine, social media network Google+, Google news, YouTube, Google world etc have allowed for the major events to unfold in the world in the year 2011. Agree or not, the website is well built, interactive and informative and the video which you can play below is a nice piece of marketing.

This blog, just as many millions of blogs and websites worldwide is running off a WordPress platform. There are actually current 69.6 million WordPress blogs/websites out there today and the number is continually growing. Now WordPress have made an update 3.3 and this blog post is where you can find all the info about the WordPress update.

For those who don’t know what WordPress is: It is a content management system (CMS) that is open source (meaning anyone with basic php and html coding knowledge can change anything they want so as to create a unique and dynamic database driven website).

So what is this upgrade?

The reason why people are so excited about this WordPress 3.3 update is that it is an update of many features (both design, UI and technical) for WordPress. And of course like everything with the WordPress platform, it is free!

How to update:

Make sure you first backup all your files on your server just for safety. Then simply click on the word update that appears at the top of your homescreen when logged into your WordPress website.

New features:

• File Upload
•  WordPress have now replaced all the upload icons with just one icon that detects what kind of file you are uploading.
•  Drag-and-Drop Media Uploader
• You can now add photos or other files by dragging the file from your desktop and dropping it into the uploader. You can add one file at a time, or many at once.
• Dashboard Design
• The dashboard navigating has been sped up and repetitive clicking has been reduced with the new flyout submenus. As you hover over each main menu item in your dashboard navigation, the submenus will magically appear, providing single-click access to any dashboard screen.
• Responsive Design
• Certain dashboard screens have been updated to look better at various sizes, including improved iPad/tablet support.
• Help Menus
• When WordPress have added new features, move navigation, or do anything else with the dashboard that might throw you off in the future, they now let you know about it with new feature pointers explaining the change.
• Post-update Changelog
• When you update WordPress, you’ll be brought to a screen and also when you click on the W logo in the corner of the toolbar you access the change log to get an overview of what’s changed.
• Other Features:
  • Better Co-Editing when there are a few people logged on and changing one post at one time
  • Tumblr Importer
  • Widget Improvements for changing themes and keeping widget settings
  • Better API editor

What are the alternatives?

The alternatives to building a blog with WordPress is of course Blogger  by Google but that doesn’t give much freedoms for style and design.

I am weary of Joomla as an alternative to WordPress simply due to the statistics that there are more worldwide users of WordPress. I tend to trust a CMS platform that has more users and is more tested.

Drupal is a dismal example of a platform that was cutting edge when it came out many years ago, but it has not been developed enough to keep up with the functionality and ease of use of WordPress and Joomla.

Lastly there are a few options for more rigid CMS’s such as Wix and Weebly which are more flash based and look more beautiful in terms of design but they offer less flexibility and no open source platform for developers to totally customize.

Whatever your desire and budget one of these options above will suit your website or blogging needs and your computer literacy abilities. Each one of the above platforms is absolutely free and most even offer free hosting. It is simply a little investment of your time and walla, you have a website or blog. But if anyone will find your website is a different story, and that’s why you need SEO.

When Google makes major changes to one of its products, it usually revolutionizes the industry the product is related to. Take for example what the android platform did for mobile phones or what streetview did for Google maps. Everyone that uses the Google product holds their breath to see how the change will affect them and if it will make life better or worse. Face it, Google touches all of our lives many times a day, so when a Google product changes, it affects us down to the core.

One of the many positive effects modern technology has on human beings is not to be apprehensive of change. Being adverse to change in business leads to competition beating you, and in your personal life it can lead to isolation or doing tasks in a more time consuming way than others.

Is the new Google Analytics good or bad?

Google have been testing this new version of analytics for the last few months and giving Google Analytics users the option to switch to the new version or revert back to the old version. Now Google have announced that this new Google Analytics version 5 is going live at the start of 2012 and the old version will be inaccessible (although all your data will of course be available in the new version format).

In a nut shell the new design looks smoother, it still has that ‘clean’ Google design look about it with no overcrowding of information. All in all it’s a good looking design. But who cares about how it looks? Lets get down to the nitty gritty of each feature and how it has changed and if that is good or bad for us as webmasters.

Navigation:

Google has used a lot more tabbed navigation to seamlessly allow the user to get the specific information they require without overloading the menu bar on the left hand side. There are sometimes 3 levels of tabs on the page which can be confusing for a new user, but once the user learns where all the options are, the tabs become a benefit for navigation and not a hindrance.

They have also allowed for a totally customizable and interactive dashboard for your homescreen which I like as well. You can arrive and see the information you want straight away once you have set this up.

Page Load Speed:

All Google speak about now a days is how important page speed is for your rankings in its search engine (plus of course content is king but let’s focus on page load speed). Information about page load speed was available, in part, in the labs area of Google Webmaster Tools, but now they have integrated this information seamlessly into the Google Analytics package. The great thing about this is that all your analytics are now in one place and the page load speed information is incredible. You’ll be licking your lips when you realize you can see page load speed broken down by country (with a super cool interactive map). You can also breakdown this information per page performance and also by browser.

Real Time Analytics:

Oh yes they have! This is one of the most fun parts of the new analytics version. It allows webmasters to actually see in real time many details about current (to the split second) number and behavior of visitors on your website. You can see details like what pages are currently being looked at, current time on site and other useful details. If you want ‘in the moment’ reporting at your fingertips, now you have it.

Mobile Analytics:

Since mobile phones are the fastest growing internet usage segment it is no surprise that Google Analytics have increased the quality of the information they give webmasters. Of course like in the old analytics you can still see what mobile device and what pages they visit (and operating system – if its iOS or android etc). Now you get a deeper breakdown of the phone exact model and there is even a funky feature to get a visual image of the phone model so you can see it next to the phone model name.

Social Media:

Another trend online is that internet users are investing more time in the social side of the internet. Hence webmasters are being fed better quality information by Google Analytics on factors such as how many people are ‘socially engaged’ in your website (they use their +1 data and other factors to define this). Unfortunately there aren’t details from facebook such as likes, or any other way to see shares via blogs and news forums. This section needs to be developed more but it is a small first step in the right direction.

AdWords Campaigns:

Keeping inline with Google Analytics desire to be the one place where a webmaster can get all information, there has been an improvement in the sharing of data from Google AdWords Campaigns to Google Analytics. The depth of the data is great. You can segment and see data based on campaign, keywords or even time in day that your ads were performing best directly clicks to your website.

Search Engine Optimization Data:

The search engine optimization data is an exact copy of what webmasters are used to getting inside the ‘your site on the web’ page inside Google Webmaster Tools. It is easy to set up but must be set-up from inside Google Webmaster Tools itself and not from inside Google Analytics. SEO experts can definitely utilize this information to their benefit for creating strategies and seeing the effect of certain SEO work performed on organic results. SEO experts can also do split testing with title meta tags and other factors to see if they get higher click throughs compared to impressions.

Site Search:

For those webmasters who use Google Site Search on their site, this feature allows all the analytics data to feed straight through to your analytics account. As said, this is another proof of Google integrating all analytics data in one place making it easier for webmasters to see all information in one place – being in Google Analytics.

Goals and Funnels:

Possibly the most visually engaging and impressive new part of Google Analytics version 5 is the funnel visualization charts. They allow the webmaster to see graphically how visitors navigate through your site. It is simply beautiful to be able to see the thickness of lines and instantly see where proportionally more or less traffic goes and comes from within your site.

Conclusion:

All in all there has been a great improvement in Google Analytics version 5. For a free tool, it reports on everything you could possibly ask for in one place combining all Google products such as Google+, Site Search, Webmaster Tool and AdWords. There are still areas such as the social tab that can be developed further, but as a whole, this new version of analytics is both visually better, easier to navigate (better UI) and gives much better and deeper analytics information to webmasters. Have a play with it today and get yourself acquainted with what’s coming in early 2012 by selecting ‘new version’ when you are logged into your Google Analytics account.

Google is moving fast to adapt its Google+ social network into something that is able to be utilized commercially as are Facebook pages. Last week the Google+ team presented the ability for businesses to now make a page on Google+.

Most early adaptors have already created their business page. Looking at examples like Zappos, it seems the basic layout, images and information available are the same as their Facebook business pages but there are a few different features.

Main differences:

• On Facebook, page owners can create an html landing page that is customized and designed they want it. Google+ has yet to allow or develop this feature.
• On Facebook there are many apps that allow youtube feeds, twitter feeds etc, yet not such thing exists on Google+
• On Facebook, pages can have a branded url for easy access yet Google+ pages do not have a branded url such as: www.facebook.com/yourbusiness

So then what have Google+ done?

• On Google+ you need to add followers to your circles to activate them seeing your status updates in their news feed.
• Google+ have also developed the ‘badge’ that page owners can put on their website and it allows visitors to the website to follow the companies Google+ page without leaving the website.
• Of course Google+ will most certainly be linked with Google organic search engine results and effect your website’s results on the search engine. Google are keeping very tight lipped about this.

Do not discount the current state of Google+ pages. Even though Google+ pages only have some of the same features as Facebook and yet they do not have many other great features of Facebook pages, Google has a lot of room to grow. For example Google+ can integrate its pages with other great Google products such as: maps for businesses, google check out, blogger, Google Apps, Google calendar etc. This will give Google the competitive edge over its social rival Facebook and leave the ball firmly in the court of the development team of Facebook to innovate new features and create greater value for businesses and individual users to stay on its social network.

How to create a page:

To create a page you must have a Google+ profile and simply click on the ‘create a Google+ page’ on the right hand side icon and start filling out all the details needed. Once all of this is done I strongly suggest using the google code for a badge and placing it on your website.

What SEO benefit is there to having a Google+ business page and badge?

Firstly, Google+ is slowly taking off and there are estimates out there that it is already 20% the size of Facebook. That means that there is still a significant audience on Google+ worth your social media time and attention even though it is not as big as Facebook. If you build a Google+ business page for branding or communicating or networking with your clints/prospective clients, there is no doubt it is best to jump in now.

All this being said, Google is not leaking SEO information about the way the pages will be displayed organically in its search engine results. Nor is Google giving any indication if it will stop showing organic results from Facebook pages.

First there was MySpace, then there was Facebook and I predict soon the giant blimp of Google will overshadow its nearest rival and Google+ will become the most used social network worldwide. My only question is when.