Have you ever wondered what does it take to get your social media information inside Google? You know, that neat-looking set of social media icons that go just below your business information, allowing people to directly navigate to your ‘social side’…

Let’s face it – most people think that Google is great for showing online users results about businesses, services, products and other general information. And as much as this is completely true, there is one other side of the story about Google.

The side which not only helps us see information but actually leads us to it.

And that is why Google are equally important for the success of businesses nowadays – and why they should do everything to get on Google. They are after all able to point potential customers to businesses and eventually help them become a long-time, loyal customers of the brand.

But this is only one of the many reasons why Google Maps is nowadays essential to every business and its online success.

Now, if you thought that its’ easy to get on Google because the site automatically indexes every place out there and makes it virtually present on Google, you are wrong. Getting your social media information inside Google is a process – one which we are listing in steps today. So…

How To Put Your Social Media Information Inside Google (In 3 Simple Steps)

If you want to learn how to get on Google using your social media information only, you can do that in four simple steps – listed below.

Step 1: Create Your Line Of Code
(Called Structured Markup)

You may feel like a developer while doing this, and that’s totally cool. This is actually a process where you create your unique list of information that Google will be able to find when it comes to your website and use it accordingly.

Here is the line of code – you only need to replace the bolded links with your social media profile links for every channel accordingly.

<script type=”application/ld+json”>
{ “@context” : “http://schema.org”,
“@type” : “Organization”,
“name” : “Your Organization Name“,
“url” : “http://www.your-site.com“,
“sameAs” : [ “http://www.facebook.com/your-profile“,
“http://www.twitter.com/yourProfile“,
“http://plus.google.com/your_profile“] }
</script>

Once you do this, you are halfway done with getting your social media information inside Google.

Step 2: Upload Your Structured Data

Now that you have replaced the code above with your social media links, you need to add it to your website so that Google crawls it successfully. For most of us, that means the homepage.

The best way to put the code to your homepage is right before the closing </head> tag in the header section of your website. And in case you don’t know what this represents, just email this article to your webmaster and they will know what to do.

Step 3: Check Out If It Works

Once your code is added, it should work. But in order to make sure that it works, visit the Google Testing Tool, click on ‘Fetch URL’ and type in your website’s address. The tool will automatically copy the same structured data showing up in the testing tool – and light up green (with an ‘All good’ message and a tick) if the entire process is successful.

In case you did not succeed in the entire process, don’t stress.

The next time the robots crawl your website, they will successfully put your social media information inside Google – and you will easily get on Google with all of your social icons.

Speaking of social media….Have you ever wondered how your social media posts score when it comes to OpenGraph?

‘Open-what?’ – is probably what you are thinking right now..

 

Social Profiles Google Supports

Currently, Google only allows specific social networks to their knowledge panels. They encourage you to add others (like Pinterest!), but the profiles they support include:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google+ (shocking, I know)
• Instagram
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Myspace (Really, Google? MySpace…)

According to Google, the Google algorithm processes the social networks you have identified and shows the most relevant results.

How To Use Open Graph – And What’s It All About

The best way to explain what Open Graph is all about is to describe it as the standard that all social media posts should adhere to. Basically, learning how to use Open Graph will help you make most of all your posts – and make them appear better to your readers.

Basically, Open Graph simulates that box that automatically pops up below on Facebook, Twitter and any other social media network whenever you share a link. In order to learn how to use it.

Now…

Open Graph is a language that uses three different code lines:

• og:title – simulating the title of the post

1. <meta property=”og:title” content=”Your eye-catching title here” />

• og:url – simulating the canonical URL for the page you are sharing

1. <meta property=”og:url” content=”http://www.yourdomain.com” />

• og:type – simulating the kind of object you are sharing, whether it’s a blog post, video or a picture

1. <meta property=”og:type” content=”website” />

Once you hit ‘Inspect Element’ in your browser and locate these codes, you will be able to edit the information in the boxes that automatically appear below the links you are sharing.

Who thought that is possible, right?

A Final Word

So today, we learned two valuable things. How to put your social media information inside Google and how to use Open Graph to change what you post on your social networks.

We hope that getting your social media profiles listed on Google Maps will help your business on a daily basis to improve your website’s brand awareness and visibility!