Google Plus Guides

Like most sites, Google Plus has it’s own set of keycodes for performing different tasks faster than you would normally, or creating special changes and commands.  Regular Google product users may already be familiar with some of these codes, while others may be new.

Commenting

Enter – Begin a comment.

Tab followed by Enter – Submit your comment.

Screen Movement

Space Bar – Scroll down through your stream, one fold at a time.

Shift + Space Bar – Scroll up through the stream, one fold at a time.

Q – Moves the page up to the part where your chat friends list is displayed.

K – Go up one post.

J – Go down one post.

Font Formatting

_red_ becomes red

-red- becomes red

*red* becomes red

By visiting a friend’s profile you can see the option directly beneath their profile photo to send them an email – but sometimes you may not want to send them an email, and instead send them a message directly in Google plus. It’s not as easy as simply visiting their page and writing a message on their wall – but there is another way.

1. Create the message you wish to send to the person as if you’re writing a normal post.
2. In the area to select what circles to share with, remove all current selections and instead, type the friend’s name.
3. Publish the post and then using the drop down menu from the grey button at top right, disable resharing. This way, your post will go no further than the friend it was intended for.

Google plus profile URLs are clunky and full of numbers – not really an easy address to memorize or give to your friends. But, if you own your own website, there is an easy solution!

Note: This will require FTP access to your websites folders.

Steps:

1. Login to FTP as normal.
2. Navigate through to the folder for the site you wish to link your profile from.
3. In the website’s folder, there will be a file called .htaccess
4. Right click on the file and open for editing, or download it for editing (in a text file such as notepad).
5. At the bottom of the file add this exact code:

The big and bulky profile address on Google Plus isn’t exactly something you can say off the top of your head – but there is a solution.

Although Google says they’re working on a simple solution to shortening profile URLs while still maintaining security, there are a few other ways to make an easy to use Google Plus profile URL.

1. Use Gplus.to – an easy to setup and use application site that allows you to create a simple URL such as gplus.to/yourname
2. Point a registered domain name (such as your blog) to your G+ Profile or stream. Full instructions on how to do that here.

Just like Facebook and Twitter, Google Plus allows users to tag other users in their posts. So how do you do this?

Luckily it’s fairly simple – you just use hit the @ sign and start typing the name of the person you wish to tag in your post.

Of course, Google has added a twist to their post tagging – you can also use the + sign to tag people, as of course is appropriate in a product named Google +.

Oh there’s one other thing we forgot to mention. You can tag absolutely anyone who uses the Google plus network.

That’s right – start typing and you’ll get a whole list of people whose names start with those particular letters.

As of yet there is no way to turn off this tagging function for people who are not in your circles.

With the advent of Google Plus, the main thing that new users have found to be different and better than Facebook is the use of groups so you can choose exactly who sees your content. Groups allow you to post relevant content to specific people without worrying that your grandmother is going to see what you were doing last night out on the town.

But another tool that Google Plus groups can be used for hasn’t been mentioned yet, except in a few small SEO circles – List building.

And with the recent introduction of a way to easily upload emails via csv you can be sure marketers will soon realize that this is the new way to list build and get targeted groups seeing their posts and products. It’s simple:

1. Visit your circles section.
2. Click on the heading that says Find and Invite.
3. Click on Upload Address Book.
4. Upload the addresses of those you want listed in a particular circle.

Sparks are going to be the next big “in thing” for getting traffic to your latest content. However exactly what sparks are and where they come from is still open to controversy. Here’s a quick look at some of the current rumours and myths making the rounds:

Rumours:

Myths:

• You can only get ranked in Sparks if you’re content is a news site.
• You can only get ranked by Sparks if your site has authority and good ranking.
• You need to have lots of traffic, likes or +1s to get ranked in sparks.

Sparks are the easy way to see what’s happening in the world right now – based on any topic you wish. You can go as broad as “Summer” or be more specific with a term like “Texas Pizza Shops”.

Of course sparks are a great way to find out what’s happening, but they’re also another great promotion tool for people who want more exposure for their new (and therefore not highly ranked) content.

So how do you get your content in Google sparks? Well despite the hype, it’s not that hard.

Google Sparks grabs content based on two main things:

1. Age – The more recent the item is, the closer to the top of the page it will appear.
2. Relevance – How relevant is the new item to the subject the spark page is about?

With the recent launch of Google Plus, the new social networking site said to be the bastard child of Twitter and Facebook, everyone is lining up to sign up. The only problem is – it’s invitation only.

Here are some quick ways to get your own personal invite:

1. Ask a friend – the more online friends you have, the more chance of getting an invite from someone already on the site.
2. Ask Google – visit this link and input your name and email and you may just get your own personal invite.
3. Join a group – many Facebook groups and various sites are offering Google Plus invites in exchange for simply clicking like, posting or subscribing.
4. Buy one – Google plus invites are for sale on sites like eBay for as little as $5.