While Google+ isn’t as popular as Facebook or Twitter, Google’s social media platform has continued to gain ground and attract attention. And to further convince more people to sign up for Plus, the tech giant has made another improvement on its Google+ user interface, which is expected to help users get higher click through rates and more follows.
According to Google Plus Daily, Google+ made link posts stand out in the stream with bold titles and extra large images. The update was very similar to how Facebook deals with link-based posts. With the latest update, link posts on Google+ are now more visually stimulating as compared to the old design, which featured just a small, square thumbnail and a headline. They now feature a large thumbnail image that span the entire post, a small snippet of text, and a link to the source’s Google+ page (in case the original author has one).
Some online marketing experts believe that the latest changes on Plus’s user interface can definitely be a huge help to those who use Google’s social media platform to create brand awareness or attract more customers. Since the link posts on Google+ now feature larger images, observers said they stand out more, which in turn, helps drive up their CTR and encourage more people to follow those who posted them. The latest update also helps minimise the need for Google+ users to upload their own image into a post to make it more clickable.
However, the latest update is not without its problems. According to Google Plus Daily, the change had been reversed and re-implemented for several times over the weekend. This caused some users to believe that it won’t be permanent. On the brighter side, however, many are still confident that Google+ won’t take down its much lovelier user interface.
Matt Southern of Search Engine Journal also noticed some inconsistencies with the update. He said it didn’t work perfectly all the time and he had to try a few different links before getting Google+ to display the new thumbnails. “From my experience, I discovered these new thumbnails work best when the post has a ‘Featured Image,’ which can be defined if you use WordPress or a similar CMS as your publishing platform,” Matt wrote in his article.
While the update may not be that significant, Matt believes it is still worth checking out. If and when the tech giant makes the appropriate adjustments to its latest Google+ update and make it more user-friendly, he said he sees a lot of potential, especially when it comes to using Google+ to drive traffic to your site.
Authored by: Kristy Smith
