How to Create a Google+ Business Page: Pictures

Google+ has opened its doors to business pages. Many people tried to create pages for brands and businesses early, but Google had been hunting them down and deactivating them. Now, business pages have received Google’s official sanction, and it’s time to get one set up for your business.

Once I was logged into my Google+ account, I found the ‘Create a Google+ page’ button by going to an existing page that had just appeared in my stream. You may also see a ‘Create a Google+ page’ button on the sidebar of your main page.

Clicking ‘Create a Google+ page’ will take you to a page where you must choose a category for your page. I chose ‘Arts, Entertainment or Sports’, added the website, and labeled it a “Music Band.”

Once you’ve selected your category, Google+ will take you to the admin page to set up a tagline and choose a profile photo.

I pulled the photo off my trio’s existing website and uploaded it to Google+. You may have to crop your photo to attain a relatively square aspect ratio, but I managed to keep everyone in the shot.

Click Continue, and you’ll go to a page where you can announce your new business page through your personal profile to all of your followers.

After you make your announcements, Google+ takes you to the finished page. You’ll see a little drop-down menu where you can choose between your personal page and your new business page. Your Google+ stream provides lots of handy advice.

From there, I decided to post an update with a link to our Web page, so that new visitors would know where to go for more information. Adding an update for your new Google+ business page is just like adding one to your personal page: You paste in a link, add a description, choose who you want to share it with, and then click Share.

After you click Share, Google+ provides some handy posting advice, including editing options and the option to restrict who can see your update.

After posting that update, I decided to flesh out the profile a bit. The profile button is in the same place as it is on personal pages. You can add an introduction, contact information, and a link to your website. You can also post new photos and videos.

The default Circles for business pages differ from those for personal pages. The four business-page defaults are ‘Following’, ‘Customers’, ‘VIPs’, and ‘Team members’.

And there you have it–the page took me less than 10 minutes to set up, from beginning to end. Now to find some people and pages to add to my circles.