Keeping An Eye On Your Blogs Health: Google Analytic Dashboards

Guest Post - Our host is Marcela De Vivo, Marcela shows us how to utilize Google Analytics to keep a check on your blogs health.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

By utilizing custom dashboards, you can keep an eye on specific aspects of your blogs health. Doing this will give you a greater overall picture of how your site is performing, as well as how it may need to be improved.

The real benefit of using multiple dashboards is that you can easily segment the data, making it easier to understand and digest. Using custom dashboards, you’ll be able to see a spike or loss in traffic, whether or not your landing pages are performing well and if your social mentions have increased from a social campaign, and much more.

There are several dashboards available to use, but these five should give your site an immediate boost if you use the data they provide properly.

(Note: To use the links make sure you’re logged in to Google Analytics, or the links will appear broken!)
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The Future Of SEO And The Application Of Guest Blogging

Guest Post - Our host is Chris Gunn, Chris takes an interesting look at were SEO may be heading in the future.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

The SEO world has been very shaky lately as those who have dedicated their livelihoods on the development of websites and blogs have seen a shift in Google’s algorithms on the horizon. There is definitely a legitimate change coming, but is it truly worth all the hype? Does Google really want to eliminate all forms of link building, even the honorable, fair whitehat approaches? What about the people who want to have a successful site and truly follow the rules? There’s been too much doom and gloom on SEO, and it’s time to tame it down. Below is Matt Cutts’ most recent vlog “What should we expect in the next few months in terms of SEO for Google?

CHILL OUT

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The Changing Face Of Back Linking And Traffic

Guest Post - Our host is Daniel Vassiliou, in this post Daniel uses his experience as a professional writer and link builder to explain Back linking and traffic is an ever changing field.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

I lose track of the conversations I have with marketing agencies, looking to hire my services as a link builder, who only have one goal in mind. Build links, whatever the cost, and the more the merrier. Of course they all know about Penguins and Pandas, oh my, and are quick to add things like, “high DA”, or “PR over 4”. The trouble is I don’t think they have understood quite how dramatically the SEO scene has changed, and still is changing.
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Google+ Today For Tomorrow’s SEO

Guest Post - Our host is Samantha Priest, it's been some time since Google added social signals to their algorithm here Samantha looks at how you can use Google+ to boost your blogs SEO.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Over the last few years, the significance of social media in SEO has increased manifolds. If you are really serious about obtaining the top positions in search engine results, you should devote adequate time building your social media influence. Search engines like Google have taken several big steps to integrate social media with search engine optimization. Google’s social network Google+ (or Plus) is, therefore, one of those social networks that you can never ignore. The kind of influence you build on Google+ will play a vital role in ranking your site in SERPs.

But do you know how to boost your site’s SEO with Google+ ?

Though the roll out of Google+ has also led to a lot of debate as to whether it has the potential to last, it’s quite evident now that the social network is making its present felt quite strongly in Google search results.

One thing that you should always remember is that Google+ should not be treated in the same way as Facebook or Twitter. In order to improve the SEO of your web properties, you should treat Google+ as an indispensable web marketing tool. And it’s just the right time (as the competition is yet to build) to increase your Google+ usage and create an online presence that supports your website’s SEO.

Here are some of the best tips to follow.
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SEO Techniques To Recover From Google Penalties

Guest Post - Our host is Parveen Barak, and he has some good advice on what to do when your blog gets penalized by Goolge.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Google is a great source of vast information. In fact, all search engines are indeed most efficient and cheapest way to reach masses. So it is obvious for any business to rely on them for promoting themselves and gaining more and more traffic. But for the past few months, all those websites who were top rankers on Google are now suffering from major drops in Google ranking.

What is Google penalty- Google penalty can be defined as the manual actions which are taken by Google against various websites who seem to use such techniques which add to the violation of Google webmaster’s guidelines.
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3 Ways To NOT Build Links For Your Blog In The Penguin Era – And 3 Ways To Do It Better

Guest Post - Our host is Harvey Pearce, In this post Harvey looks at the new age of link building.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

By now if you have a blog you’ve no doubt heard all about Google’s Penguin update. If you haven’t, here’s a quick recap from an earlier post on Spice Up Your Blog, How Google Penguin Update Will Affect Your Blog ? .It’s been many months now since the hammer fell on some webmasters and it always takes a while to adjust and learn how to go forward. Of course every major update has its casualties and you rarely hear about people having Panda issues any more. Strategies change and every new update strikes even worse fear in the hearts of some webmasters. If it wasn’t clear before it’s pretty obvious now that if you want to succeed on the web, then you need to be ‘doing it right’. So without further ado I’m going to explain what strategies you shouldn’t be doing and explaining how to ‘do it right’.
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5 Tips To Avoid SEO Penalties

Guest Post - Our host is Travis Banks, In this post Travis is looking at some tips to avoid SEO penalties.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

SEO penalties can cause a lot of trouble for website owners, and can prove to be a big hindrance to marketing a website effectively.

Google has a very stringent method of checking websites, and if you wish to avoid penalties – the biggest penalty would be being blocked from Google’s search rankings entirely – there are a number of steps that you need to take. Getting a higher ranking on Google is not easy, and the rules change frequently, but there are a number of tips and tricks that will certainly be to your benefit.

Please note: If you are trying to take a shortcut or the ‘easy way out,’ your website is bound to suffer, which can have a direct and powerful negative impact on your business. Google will easily detect your actions. In the following paragraphs, you will learn about a few tips to help you avoid penalties. Read on to find out how to avoid SEO penalties today!
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SEO Content Writing: The Google Formula For Success

Guest Post - Our host is Michael 'Ace' Darko, In this post Michael has blog SEO tips for Google success.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Google threw the SEO efforts of the content writing world a huge curve ball with the implementation of the Penguin update. Many were still thanking their lucky stars after the Panda update of April 2011 only to be wiped out from utilizing too much search engine optimization within their content.

What did this mean for everyone else?

It meant taking the art of content writing back to its very roots: writing for people, not spiders. It meant that many people who had spent thousands of dollars for SEO link building services were suddenly in the dark.

Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team said it best in his latest interview,

"..People understand good content, research, unique content with value is essential to SEO... sites that have social sharing, natural sharing – instead of buying links – are generally not going to be hit. By next year, we hope marketers/ webmasters get that and natural linkbuilding [sic] becomes the norm.."

So does this mean search engine optimization is out of the question for content writers? Absolutely not! Google actually encourages good SEO to help enhance both the user experience and the quality of writing presented within the content they see. It’s the Google formula for success, and it’s the reason their users have come to trust them since their inception.

Keyword Optimization + Original Content = Relevant Traffic

Successful content writing lives and dies on proper keyword optimization. I mean think about it, how many of you can write an article on the newest pair of Nike’s and beat out Nike on the SERP’s? This means you have to choose your SEO competitors wisely, and that starts in Google’s keyword tool. For those who do not already have a high page rank on the search engines you will want to concentrate on medium competition keywords for your content, not the high or low.

I already know what you’re thinking so I’ll tell you why you don’t go for the low competition traffic with 2,000,000 monthly searches. You’ll either be up against too broad of a term to ever beat out the sites on the front of the SERP’s (I mean seriously, you’d have to have the writing skills of Steven King and the SEO skills of Aaron Wall to create that level of content), or you’ll be dealing with long tail keyword phrases like “me like a me them new Nike Zooms”. Try integrating that into your content enough times for Google to recognize that as your main keyword phrase.

Creating your Content Outline

So you’ve selected the keyword you feel confident will be the goose that lays the golden egg for you. Now what? Good SEO is synonymous with good structure. Any copy writer worth their salt will tell you just as much. Start with your main keyword for the niche you are writing the content for. Make a list of all the industry terms you can think of, both antonyms and synonyms. These will be your main keywords support. Remember what I said earlier? Good SEO relies in providing rich original content for your reader.

So by compiling these words you will have an arsenal of industry slang that users will be searching Google for. Too many people believe using the main keyword a hundred times is optimizing it for the search engines when in reality the moment Googlebot crawls their site they’re sitting 100,000 pages back in the SERP’s. Use your main keyword sparingly and your supporting keywords to help maintain your contents relevance.

Headings Can Kill Your SEO Efforts

Your content writing can easily live or die through grammatical errors such as improper heading structure. Now Google isn’t anal when it comes to grammar/ spelling errors, but skipping from a heading 1 to a heading 3 or a heading 2 to a heading 4 will set off red flags that will surely hurt your SEO efforts. Going in reverse is fine as it’s grammatically correct.

Google Loves Ordered/ Unordered List

Providing relevant original content is only half of Google’s formula for success. The other half, as previously stated, lay in providing their search base the best user experience possible for the results they provide. Here are a few reasons why you should be including bullet points in your writing:

• Both lists demonstrate structure
• Both list help pinpoint relevant content vital to their users needs
• Bullet points are now shown in search results proving the added strength ordered and unordered list lend to your SEO efforts in the eyes of Google

Gain SEO Points For Acronym Meta Tags

Copy writers who market offline don’t have the added luxury online content writers are afforded when it comes to sharing the meaning of a particular acronym to their marketing base. The acronym meta tag not only provides the better user experience Google aims to deliver its search base, but simultaneously enhances your search engine optimization efforts by delivering the acronyms proper terminology when the user hovers their mouse’s cursor over it. Here’s an example:

<acronym title=”Search Engine Optimization”>SEO</acronym> = SEO
Hint - Place your cursor over SEO to see the acronym.

Final Thoughts For Content Writing Success

Too many people have erroneously confused search engine optimization with manipulation. The sole purpose behind Google’s algorithm is to provide good solid writing that provides the user with both unique and original content. Think really hard for one second. When was the last time you searched a specific keyword or phrase and Google took you to a front page where the top websites were spam? Make no mistake, Google is one of the most artificially intelligent designs in existence. Even more so since implementing the Panda and Penguin updates. It would be better for you to write one solid and well thought out piece of literature that is rich in content, both for SEO and user success, than to write 10 weak articles that no one will want to read. At this point the user will immediately click back on their browser and go somewhere they feel actually deserves their time.

Google keeps detailed records of where searchers go even after they have entered a website. If they click your search result and are gone in 2 seconds flat your site is clearly demonstrating to Google that your content isn’t worth doo doo and perhaps you’re not actually as relevant to that search after all. It’s called your bounce rate and I’d advise everyone to read it and figure out a way to keep users moving through to at least one other page on your website to maintain its balance. If you hold true to the Google formula for success your writing assignments will become an arsenal of marketing firepower.

Bonus Tip Too Maximize Article Success Rate

Anyone who has heard of ad blindness knows it as the effect of automatically tuning out the ads after years of online exposure. Well we’ve now stepped into the age of “Social Media Blindness.” We easily tune out the social media buttons when we read an article without even thinking about it. So here’s an easy solution to remedy that problem and provide you with not only well honed SEO power for the search engines, but the greatest opportunity to gain maximum exposure for your blog post and articles. Are you ready for this?

Ask. It’s that simple. Many people will have no problems helping you out if you Simply ask your readers to click them. It’s called permission marketing. Your basically stating that you need their help and that you are dependent on them for your success. Not only that, but make sure you ask at the end of the post or they may forget. To take it one step further put it under its own heading (with a heading that is integrate to your article’s focus), figure out a way to use your keyword and a few synonyms and antonyms that are actually relevant to the content you have written and slide it right in there. “Please take a moment to share my post on your social media. It’s only takes you two seconds but would mean the world to me. Thank you so much.” Voila, instant win.

By Guest Author - My name is Michael but everyone calls me Ace. As you might be able to tell I’m definitely a Google fanatic but only because they taught me everything I know about internet marketing, SEO, graphic design, and web development over the course of many years. Come visit me over at my brand new site Ace Wordpress Themes and grab our free Wordpress website templates. I’ll be adding many more lessons on how to promote your blog (just be aware I’m only about a month old on blog post).Good luck marketing warriors and remember, happiness is in the journey, not the destination ;)

Latest Google Page Rank Update August 2012

I know you all keep a close eye on the page rank for your blogs, I have to admit I also look out for it.Google usually update toolbar page rank four times a year so around every three months.Well today we we have noticed a Major page rank update taking place.A number of my sites have seen a page rank change, at the time of writing Spice Up Your Blog is holding steady with a page rank of 5.You can quickly check the page rank of your blog to see if there was any change using our free page rank checker tool. :

Google Page Rank Tool
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Why I’m Sick Of ‘SEO Is Dying’ Posts

Guest Post - Our host is Jessica, In this post Jessica gives her opinion on why SEO is not on the way out.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Every day it appears some self-appointed ‘expert’ has declared the industry of SEO dead on its knees, this time next year we’ll all be flipping burgers, stacking shelves or asking people if they’d like a copy of The Big Issue. Whilst I don’t have the advantage of having a time machine (some guy with floppy hair wearing a bow tie stole it) I think we really do have to stop with the doom and gloom before it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Why Is SEO always about to die ?

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5 Top Tips For Optimizing Images For Google Search

Guest Post - Our host is August Drilling, August takes an in-dept look at optimizing your images for search along with tutorials for WordPress and Blogger.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

If you haven’t noticed, a new visual trend has hit the web, and Pinterest is a prime example of this image-based trend in action. High quality, engaging images receive tons of love on Pinterest, generating loads of traffic back to the originating website.

Besides Pinterest, though, even images found in the classic Google Image search provide great potential for increased site traffic. But, similar to ranking well in Google’s traditional search, your images must be optimized to win this extra traffic.

So to capitalize on the image-based trend, lets go over the top tips for optimizing your images for Google. It’s quick and easy, so let’s get started.
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Google Release New Must See SEO Videos To Help Your Blog On Google Search

You know when I started Blogging like all new Bloggers I immediately wondered how will I get my blog on Google.How can I get my Blog and posts to be displayed in search results and have visitors sent by Google.Once I started to learn about how Google works and the steps I could take to help my blogs rank on Google I somehow felt like I was in a way 'Fooling Google'.By optimizing my site I was for the want of a better word 'Tricking' Google into displaying my content in their results.

But the truth is Google want to crawl your content, Google want your content to be easy to crawl, They want your site optimized and if your content is unique and useful they want to rank it on the first page of their results for related searches.

It seems a lot of posts I have published recently especially guest posts have been on the topic of Search Engine Optimization; and many new Bloggers think SEO is somehow a shady thing.But Google through sources like webmaster tools openly promote the use of SEO and Google employees like Matt Cutts Posts on his blog through Q&A videos helps webmasters and bloggers improve their sites for search.

So in this post I have added 10 videos the Google search quality team created this week to help beginners get their sites and blogs on Google.These videos are listed in a 'Step By Step' format and I highly recommend everyone from beginners to experienced bloggers take a look.

In the final video Google Search quality team member Maile Ohye becomes your personal SEO adviser.

10 SEO Videos From Google

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Content And Blog Marketing In The Post-Penguin Era

Guest Post - Our host is Jenny Rasmussen, who looks at Blogging and SEO in the wake of the Google Penguin algorithm change.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

With the “Penguin” update that launched on April 22, Google changed the search engine optimization (or “SEO”) game more significantly than ever before. Originally announced as a means to penalize webmasters who had over-optimized their webpages and link building efforts, the Penguin filter is now here to stay and ignoring its effects could cause your blog and website to plummet in Google’s search results.

So – what is the answer? How can a blogger continue to rank highly on Google and Bing without resorting to the SEO tactics of yesteryear? Let’s take a look at content – in the form of images, videos or written pieces – and how it can greatly improve your inbound traffic and where you show up in the search results.
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How Google Penguin Update Will Affect Your Blog ?

Guest Post - Today's host is Roger Collings, who looks at the recent Google algorithm change.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

In April, Google launched the Penguin algorithm aimed to detecting and filtering out websites and blogs classified as ‘spam’ from its search results. A month later, Google released an update to the Penguin algorithm to identify and blacklist websites which violate its quality guidelines.

While implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a standard practice for websites and blogs, the Penguin update is aimed at scrutinizing over optimization and spamming. As a blog owner, if you’ve adopted over-optimization techniques, there’s a good chance that the Penguin update has already hit your blog.

Let’s try and understand what is the Google Penguin update and how does it affect you and your blog?

What is Penguin Update

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Google drive launched : Start Sharing Files

Guest Post By Jalil Rehman.Want to get involved ? See how you can become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Google has been launching many new services. A few days ago, It launched Google Code and provided an amazing service to the users. But it was not just over, Now it has launched the brand new Google Drive and gave users a new experience. Google Drive actually is online file-storage service like Microsoft's SkyDrive. But as expected, it comes with many amazing features. The main goal is that, it let's users to upload files and share them with anyone on the Internet. It gives you 5GB free online storage with many new exciting features including smart tagging, image recognition etc. Let's discuss about other features.

Setting up Google Drive

You will need a Google Account to set up with Google Drive. If you have google account, then start using Google Drive with free 5GB online storage. You will be guided step by step after logging in to Google Drive. It's very easy.
What's amazing about it?

There are many unique and latest features in the new Google Drive. Watch the official video of Google Drive below to get familiar with Google Plus in detail.


Sharing and Storage

As already mentioned google drives gives 5GB free online storage. The maximum upload file size limit is 10GB. But the users which have 5GB of total storage, can upload a file of 5GB. It's really amazing. You can upload images, documents, videos etc. and can also share your files with people which also have Google Drive Account.

You will have to install a software for Google Drive in your PC, and then it will create a folder named "Google Drive" on your Desktop. You just have to drag and drop the file you want to upload and share, in that folder and your files will start uploading on your Google Drive account. The files which are uploaded will appear on your account and you can share that. People can download, view, comment and edit your files with your permission. You can also sync your files with iPhone, Android etc.

By default, you will be provided 5GB of free storage. Maybe that's not enough for you. You can extend it at reasonable prices as given below. You can buy up to 1TB of storage.

25 GB = 2.49$ / month
100 GB = 4.99$ / month
1TB = 24.99$ / month

Integration

You can integrate your uploaded files with many products of Google e.g Google Code, Google Docs, Gmail etc. You can choose file of any format and even you can also covert your format before uploading.

Smart Tagging and Search Filter

These are one of my favourite features of Google Drive. You can filter anything from your files e.g you can find images, videos, documents etc. from a bunch of files in seconds. You can tag the images with different labels and then find them easily with one click.

Text Recognition and Offline Viewing

If you've forgotten the name of any file and you want to find it, then Google Drive can find it by matching your given text with the text in the files. Viewing your documents offline is another goal of Google Drive. You just have to install an app in Google Chrome, and then you can view your documents offline in Google Drive.

Google has always tried to provide the users with latest and unique tools and features. Google Drive has many features which other related sites don't give. I hope Google will update this Google Drive and provide more flexibility to users.

By Guest Author - Jalil loves to write about Blogging Tips and SEO Techniques. He is interested in tweaking templates and creating Blogger Widgets.

New Google +1 Button And Google+ Badge For Blogger

Blogger today added two new options to the gadget gallery, the gadget gallery is a collection of gadgets you can add to your blog via the "Add A Gadget" option on your blog layout page.The two new options are for the new Google +, Firstly a Google +1 button for readers to recommend your blog, and secondly a Google + badge for readers to follow your Google+ updates.

Imagine being able to share your blog with like-minded people across the web. Today we’ve made doing that easier with the introduction of two Google+ gadgets, the +1 button and Google+ Badge.Unlike the +1 button that can appear below a post, this gadget is specific to your blog. Displaying it on your blog will allow visitors to endorse your blog and share it with their friends.

As stated above you can add these new gadgets to your blogs sidebar, footer or anywhere that accepts gadget.Simply go to your blog layout page, click Add A Gadget and choose the gadget you want.For the +1 button you have options for the style while to add the Google Plus badge you will need your profile or page ID (A link to instructions is provided).

Have you added Spice Up Your Blog to your circles, also check out the official Blogger post here.

Drop your comments and questions below.

Fundamental Link Building Practices to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings in Google

Guest Post By Johan Hedin, See How You Can Become A Guest Author .

We hear the entire buzz about getting back links over the web, but why are links so important to gain higher search engine rankings? First of all, links allow the search engines to find and index your website in the search engine databases. Second, high quality links help drive direct traffic and give the search engines an indicator of the importance of your website. The amount, the quality (trust), and the relevance of back links, will reveal many important signals to the search engines to determine the order of ranking. Obviously, Google cares first about its users, which are their utmost priority. All their technology is based on this philosophy. The more and the better they are able to satisfy their users, the more they will increase their market share (to sell more Adwords ads). They don’t want to ruin their SERPs with useless spam. This is why links from trusted websites are so important. The more trust the more and better rankings you will get.

In order to rank higher, you have to understand how Google places value on links. Each link is counted as a vote, but not all links are created equal meaning that not every link’s value is counted the same. If a link is deemed as high quality, it will pass on more link juice and therefore help your website gain higher ranking positions (compared to lower quality links). This means that getting a few links from really established and trusted websites (a.k.a. authority websites) is worth much more than a big quantity of low quality links. This brings us to the next point.

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Latest Google Page Rank Update Underway Feburary 2012

I know all bloggers and webmasters keep an eye on their sites Google Page Rank.In short Page Rank is an indication of how Google rank your site in a scale from 1 to 10.Check out a previous post with more on Google Page Rank.We have been expecting a Page Rank update by the end of January start of February and i can confirm today that update has started.This site has seen a page rank increase from 4/10 to 5/10, i know this only happened today from a stats on our BuySellAds.

How To Check Your Blogs Page Rank

If you have the Google Toolbar Installed you will see the little green bar with the current page Page Rank.Other wise use our Free Google Page Rank Checker Tool right here on Spice Up Your Blog.

Hope you got a Page Rank Increase, Let Us Know In The Comments !

Drop Your Comments And Questions Below.

New Chrome AdSense Toolbar Shows Earnings And More

The AdSense team have just released a toolbar extension for the Chrome browser.This AdSense toolbar has two main features.Firstly you can view your earnings without having to the leave page your on to visit your AdSense dashboard.This is somewhat useful but just saves a few seconds.The second feature however seems much more useful.With the toolbar installed when you visit your site your ad units will have an overlay which displays their performance.Both the earnings tab and overlay display the earnings for the current day, yesterdays earnings and earnings for the last seven days.Both also have a link to your AdSense dashboard while the unit overlay also has a link to edit the unit.

"..When viewing your website, this feature will show you a snapshot of your AdSense account performance as a widget in the corner of your browser window. It also includes ad overlays that describe the recent performance of specific ad units, and gives you the option to access AdSense directly.."

AdSense Earnings Tab

AdSense Unit Overlay

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Google Plus - Create A Facebook Style Fan Page On Google+

Google Plus has been live online since the end of June 2011, while it started growing at the speed of a runaway train questions are being asked as to it's future.Recently however Google have added a Google Plus Pages option for Business, Bands and products.Google Plus Pages are not just like Facebook Pages they have almost the exact same format.So for us Bloggers, we can as on Facebook create a page for our blog on Google Plus.Creating the page is quick and easy and in this post i will walk you through he steps.

Create A Google Plus Fan Page For Your Blog

Step 1. Go to the Google Plus Pages : Create Google Plus Page.

Step 2. Pick a category in on the left of the page, Click "Product Or Band".

Step 3. Add your page name (The Name Of Your Blog), and blog address in the website field.

Step 4. Agree to the terms and click create, that's it.

Check out the Spice Up Your Blog Google Plus Page.

Drop your comments and questions below.