Nearly nobody I know in the business world uses Google Plus. And that’s because it drives very little web traffic. For many businesses, this is more than enough of a reason to avoid a social media network.

Anyone who tells you differently is either ignorant or lying. Here’s why.

I wanted to believe differently myself.

I invested much time on Google Plus. I have been circled thousands of times. I spent time engaging with others. I built hundreds of communities, some of which have 100,000 members. I post things which go viral often.

The facts

I have a following of German Shepherd owners. You never know who you will meet in the GSD world. Cops, judges, military, disabled grandmothers; people from all walks of life have shepherds. It is nothing new for me to post something GSD related. Anyways, today was the perfect example. I posted a picture of a dog named Luna who needed to be rescued, and shared it around with the hashtag #SaveLuna.

#SaveLuna

#SaveLuna

My post on Google+ went viral (aka what’s hot). I also boosted the post on Facebook to my dog’s 3,600 fans (she’s kind of a big deal) and their friends.

Here’s what happened:

  • Google Plus:
    Views: 4,452
    +1’s: 212
  • Facebook:
    Reached: 1,847
    Likes: 14

Wow, impressive for Google+, right? Wrong.

Actual traffic to my website:
Facebook = 28
Google+ = 1

One! 4,452 people saw my post, and 1 clicked through.

It is safe to say that about 1/5,000 people will click through.

You could say “Len, people have lives, kids, and cats, they don’t want a dirty rescue dog!” but, I have seen this many times over the years. I don’t care if you are posting about cats, dogs, or cupcakes, the traffic just isn’t there.

Google Plus is good for many things, but traffic is not one of them.

Where DO you get traffic?

Sure, some content does better than others. Maybe there is a niche I have yet to discover on Google+ such as adult themed content which does drive traffic.

For the most part, traffic comes from writing unique content, end of story.

On any given day blogs I operate receive hits. Lots of hits. Thousands of hits. My content is read well over 1 million times each year. If I switched subjects there is no doubt in my mind that I could very easily obtain 10 – 20 million hits a year.

If I relied on social media for traffic, I’d cry.

Len
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On August 11, 2015   /   Social Media   /   Leave a comment

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