The platform wasn’t popular with the public, but it isn’t the reason why they are shutting the door. In fact, the reason they are closing the platform is that the platform suffered a data leak that potentially affected up to 500,000 accounts.
As with any big update that Google makes, it’s important to look at your local business operations and adjust as necessary. While its closure shouldn’t technically affect your local SEO, Google+ did connect with many services, so I’d recommend looking at the below.
What should local businesses do now that Google+ is closing?
Don’t worry: this won’t affect your local SEO
Although there once was a time when Google Places (now Google My Business) was integrated heavily with Google+, six long years ago, the relevance of Google+ on local SEO in recent years has been pretty much nil. So take heart in the fact that this is one Google update you won’t have to tear your hair out over.
Delete your account
Google will eventually remove your account when the time comes, but you can go in and delete your account now to tidy things up. Especially since the platform is getting closed down for data leaks, it might make sense to take that data out of their hands sooner rather than later.
As for your Google+ personal and business profiles, I’d recommend downloading or saving everything you’d like to keep before the platform closes its doors for good.
Ditch the social sharing buttons from your site
You’ve probably had minimal interactions with your G+ sharing buttons compared to others and will celebrate the fact that you can now remove them from your website.
Make sure you look for all the places Google+ is linked to throughout your site and beyond, such as:
- Social Sharing Buttons
- Icon Links to Social Networks in your Website Header and Footer
- Company and Personal Email Signatures
- “Write a G+ review” Links
- Offline Material, brochures and flyers etc.
Put more effort into Google My Business Posts.
Google+ may be going, but Google My Business Posts is just getting started. It may not be a social network, but it does present a great opportunity to use the kind of content you might have been posting to Google+ in a way that captures people’s attention right there in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), as part of your GMB profile.
With a 1,500 character limit per GMB Post, there are big opportunities for a variety of announcements and content types here.