How can you leverage Google+ to help you better promote your blog? This is a question I’ve been getting often and I wanted to take some time to share with you how I am using it in my blogging strategies. In this article I breakdown the 8 steps to success in leveraging Google+ to help you drive more traffic to your blog and get more followers. But first… a few of my thoughts on Google+.

Twitter + Facebook + LinkedIn = Google+

Google+ doesn’t have all the features these other 3 social powers have. It does however give you a little bit of each which in and of itself is very powerful. To me Google+ has these elements in common with Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin:

1. The social connectivity prowess of Facebook
2. The communication/broadcasting ability of Twitter
3. The business attractiveness  of LinkedIn

Add to these three the email integration of Gmail and the new “Circles” concept and you have something quite special. Bloggers all over the world, particularly the high profile ones are seeing this power Google+ has and the potential opportunity it can provide. Which is why so many of them are already active users even though Google+ was just recently launched.

So now that you can better see the power Google+ can have for bloggers, let me quickly show you specifically how I am leveraging it.

1. +1 Your Favorite Content Often

Your first step is to establish yourself as an authority on Google+ for the topic(s) you blog about. You do this by +1 all great content, not just your own. This is crazy easy to do since the +1 button is not only on sites across the web, but also throughout Google search results.

With Twitter I follow Guy Kawasaki’s strategy which is to “tweet” 10 articles from someone else’s site/blog to every 1 “tweet” of my own article. I’m using this same strategy with +1′s on Google+. The 10-1 ratio if done right can help you establish credibility and authority.

2. Get the +1 Button Up On Your Blog

This one is a must! You’ve gotta give the visitors to your blog the opportunity to +1 your content. This should be up there in priority with having a Twitter and Facebook Like button. Right now I am seeing way more Retweets than +1′s. But I’m anticipating a major change with that in the very near future. So should you!

Here is the Google Webmasters link for getting your #1 Button.

SEO note: you can almost consider a +1 as a back-link because of it’s impact on SEO. It’s literally that powerful and it does have the ability to increase your rankings. Consider this in your SEO strategies and be sure to find more creative ways to get more +1′s.

3. Build Your Circles Around Your Blogging Strategy

The common use of the “Circles” feature in Google+ is to be able to build segmented lists of friends and communicate with those circles independently of the rest of the network. But there is another opportunity here that many are overlooking.

Circles are much likes Twitter lists in that they can be used to help you connect with new people who you find “interesting” related to topics that you like to blog about. Much like Twitter, Google+ let’s you follow these people that you find interesting and if you do a good job networking they might even follow you back!

I recommend spending 15-25 minutes a day (unless you have more time of course) reaching out to new Google+ users that you find interesting and building them into your circles. Begin building the ultimate network for your industry and/or topic.

4. Publish To Your Circles Daily

As these circles begin to get built out, you can begin publishing or broadcasting to these circles on a daily basis. This is a great opportunity for you to share that new article you just published, that new ebook you just slaved over etc.

I recommend just like with +1 that you take the time to publish other valuable content from 3rd party services. If everything comes from you, you run the risk of looking like a spammer and burning relationships.

5. Publish To Your Public Profile At Least 5 Times Daily

Just publishing to your Circles would be a bad idea. Why you ask? Because a) you want to build up the search engine value of your public profile and b) you want to be able to create new relationships with new people who might want to follow you.

This public element of Google+ has the potential of being extremely valuable to you in your ability to attract new followers/friends. A feature that Facebook has never been able to provide.

6. Comment Daily

Just publishing on a social network like Google+ is like going on a date with someone and doing all the talking. Those who just talk never listen. And nobody likes a friend who doesn’t listen to what they have to say.

Social Networking is the totally the same way. If you just publish and never take the time to read and respond to other people’s comments, articles etc. than you never reap the benefits of what a social network like Google+ has to offer. So as a general rule… leave at least 1 comment per day in response to someone else’s post. And make that comment worth it!

7. Get the Android Google+ Mobile App

Hopefully you have an Android OS operated phone so that you can take advantage of this. The official Google+ mobile app has one of the cleanest, most easy to use interfaces for a phone app that you will ever see. Using this will help you to accomplish #’s 1-5 mentioned here even while you are out of the office.

This will be an important part of your strategy, since most of us spend a majority of our day outside of our actual office and away from our work station.

8. Be Consistent & Be A Real Helpful Person.

This may go without saying… but I want to cover this just as a friendly reminder. All 7 of these tactics above will work extremely well for you in further promoting your blog. Assuming of course that you are consistent in your efforts (daily) and that your true intentions and the results of your intentions are truly to help other people.

Whether that be to educate, inform, entertain etc. The people  you connect with on Google+ must see that value in you. Otherwise you are spamming. And nobody likes a spammer!

Oh And Don’t Forget To Track Your Success (Social Analytics)

Both Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Central have integrated +1 data into their interfaces. Both can now tell you how many #1′s you are getting while Analytics can you provide you with more traffic statistics and Webmaster Central can provide you with  data regarding the “search impact” of those #1′s.