Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Claiming your blog's Google+ page

A Google+ page for your blog can be a (nearly) freestanding identity. It is your blog's own Google account.

If you want your blog to have a presence on Google+ but don't want it linked to a personal profile with your name on it, that page is made for you.

Assuming you know that you want one and why, here's how to set one up.

1) You need a Google+ profile
Google+ pages are nearly full-blown Google accounts, but unlike regular accounts they do not stand entirely on their own. Pages must be managed by at least one Google+ profile.

So if you want a page for your blog, you must set it up with a Google+ profile, and you must, at least temporarily, make that profile an administrator of your blog.

You need not use this profile for any other purpose if you do not want to, and you can hide its connection to your blog if you like. But you do need a G+ account to play.

2) Use the profile to set up a page
Once the profile is an administrator of your blog, setting up a G+ page for the blog is straightforward. Google's help page has step-by-step instructions.

If you've remembered to make the profile account a blog administrator, confirmation that Google recognizes the connection between your blog and your page should come swiftly. (Otherwise, you may have to link the two manually.)

Once the page is so linked to your blog you may remove the profile as blog administrator if you like.

3) Make the page a full-featured Google identity
Giving your new page its own password will both (1) let you log in to the page separately from your profile and (2) give your page access to the full range of Google-account powers.

A G+ page so activated can be made a Blog administrator, among other things. So if you like it can become an administrator, even the sole administrator, of your blog.

If you've weighed the benefits and disadvantages of switching to Google+ Comments on your blog and decided to try them out, your page may be the best identity for responding to comments. It's a G+ account that speaks with the name of your page, which is the name of your blog, rather than with your name.

4) Log into your page to avoid confusion
You'd normally access the page from your Google+ profile, in effect being signed in to both accounts at once.

However, logging out of all accounts and then logging in only as your page will avoid any confusion about who is speaking if you use the page to write blog posts, leave comments, or share to Google+.

5) Fine tune your page
Consult Google's help pages to learn how to configure and use your new page. (There's even more about Google+ in general here.)

You can even give that page its own Gmail address. This can be handy if you have not already created a Gmail account for your blog.

6) Know what you are doing—and why
In a previous post, I sketched what a Google+ page can do in relation to a blog. In this one I explain how to set one up.

But what you should do with it? That's up to you, and there's no one-size-fits-all answer.

What's your goal? What's your strategy? I hope you will give it some thought before you start.

9 comments:

  1. Can you please tell me if the automated Google Plus rel me and rel publisher links which blogger adds in the head of the template are a problem in getting authorship and if they can be removed.
    How can hcard error for static blogger page be resolved.
    Thanks, looking at your content, I think you know a thing or 2 about Blogging.

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    1. @anon Sorry to say your questions are beyond my experience. I suggest bringing them to Blogger's help forum.

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  2. Hey there. I used your suggestion in a google+ forum and made my page's google+ account to set up a password and gave it permission to post on my blog. One problem I'm still facing is this
    There is an option of switching your blogger profile to google+ profile so that when people visit you, they see your google+ page instead of blogger page. I want people to see my google+ blog page and not personal page. How do I do that?

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Make that page a blog administrator, log in as page, and then link the blog to the page.

      You might need to revert back to a blogger profile first. I've never been in your position exactly so am not sure.

      Also make sure Google recognizes the connection as in step (2) above.

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  3. Hi Adam,

    I tried to do step number 2 in order to link my Blogger account to my Google+ business page, not my Google+ personal page but couldn't make. I would appreciate if you could give so more clarification on that.

    Thanks in advance for your attention.

    Kind regards,

    Matt
    Alpha Medical Solutions

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Hi Matt, I'll do my best. Follow the links.

      You say you have a Google+ page already, so #2 is not really relevant to you.

      Still, you can link a blog (not your "blogging account") to multiple accounts. Have you managed that? Is your Google+ page a blog administrator?

      You also need to follow #3 before you can really use the page as a blogging account.

      If you do that, you can even make the page account into the only account linked to the blog by deleting other accounts from the blog.

      I hope that helps a little!

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  4. I am having the same difficulties and most of these replies. But when I go to the permissions and admins, my page is already in there to be an "admin". This is so silly that it is this difficult to do this. There really needs to be an option for an already existing account. Everywhere you click for help always addresses creating a new google+. AUGH!

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    1. @Eclectic: If your page account is really listed as an admin, you are almost there! You just need to log out of your regular account and log in as the page, per step no. 4 above.

      If you haven't given your page its own password yet, you need to follow the instructions in no. 3. But I think you have.

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  5. Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you!!! I have been looking all over trying to figure out how to post comments with my blog page instead of my personal profile. You made my day :)

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