It requires a lot of tools and a great deal of attention to keep track of every single metric that signals a website’s health. To properly optimize a page, you’ll need to monitor bounce rates, click-throughs and backlinks. Yet sometimes, you’re just looking for a quick snapshot of your progress over the past month. Fortunately, Google’s latest addition to Google+ will make that task just a little bit easier.
The black sheep social network gets +1
People might not be flocking to Google+ the way they did to Facebook, but the site is steadily growing. Perhaps more importantly, businesses are joining en masse to gain access to better SEO capabilities, such as improved map search results. Google understands how important the platform is for companies, which is why it’s added a Pages Dashboard to all business Google+ pages.
The Dashboard is simple: It provides three KPIs that users can intuitively understand and use to keep better track of important metrics, including new visits, unique visitors and overall pageviews from the past 30 days. The search giant wants to encourage companies that are currently interested in content analytics to embrace their social service, and this is a great way for marketers to begin keeping track of some essential metrics if they aren’t already. Even experts should embrace the dashboard, as they can become even more familiar with their traffic figures every time they check their G+ profile.
Google+ connects the web with the real world
People who expected Google+ to become a rival to Facebook didn’t understand what Google was trying to accomplish. As Brafton has discussed, the social network isn’t yet popular for personal sharing. For now, it’s more of a home for brands and their communities. The Pages Dashboard is just another example of Google’s attempts to lure brands and it might pay off, because in this case, when more companies join, everybody wins.
