Google+ was a late arrival to the social network party. Many yoga studio owners already have a Facebook and/or Twitter accounts set up for their studio and they can’t imagine having to manage yet one more account.

We recently published an article about how to use social media to drive traffic to your yoga studio website. You know Google rules the search world but you might not necessarily consider Google+ among the significant social network players.

Here are a few of the many reasons why Google+ is good for your yoga studio.

Google+ Circles

If you’re new to Google+, think of Circles as the equivalent to Facebook’s Groups. You can use Circles to segment your contacts into meaningful circles and then determine which posts might be of interest to each sub-group. Of course you still have the ability to publish content to all circles (and to the public), but this offers another degree of control. Circles allow you to take a more targeted approach and make sure that users only see what’s important to them.

The fact that content can be kept private is part of the reason people and businesses have previously stayed away from Google+. At a first glance, it may appear that there isn’t much going on, but that is because there is significant activity behind the scenes.

Google+ Hangouts

Ever thought about having a private yoga chat room? Hangouts allow you to create your own private video chat room with up to 9 participants. You may use this feature for sessions with students or even for staff meetings. Wouldn’t this make marketing meetings much simpler than trying to get everyone in one room?

This type of multi-user video conferencing is made so easy by Google+ that we are confident it has a place in your yoga studio.

Google+ for SEO

Partially due to poor user adaptation (read: no one used it), Google included some built-in benefits to it’s social platform (funny how that works). When you post content on Google+ it gets indexed and can be included in search engine result pages (SERPs). Viewers of your content can +1 it (same as a Facebook “Like”) and give Google some insight into what content is considered valuable. Google can then use this information to improve your website’s ranking.

Another major advantage is the connection between Google+ and local google search. In fact, Google Local listing is now integrated with your yoga studio’s Google+ page. If you want your studio to show up as a local result when users search for “yoga studio in your city“, you MUST have a Google+ page for your studio.

Savasana

As a Yoga studio owner, you may feel a bit overwhelmed by the thought of managing another social network account. Google+ should be integrated into any yoga studio’s web strategy. The ability to disseminate targeted content, use private video chat rooms, and most importantly boost search result ranking should convince any yoga studio owner beyond any shadow of doubt: Your yoga studio needs to be on Google+.

You’ve heard Google+ is important, you understand why, but may have no idea where to begin. If you have any questions or need help getting started, please contact us.