Last week I received my invitation to join Google’s new social network Google+, and over the weekend I sent out over 300 invitations first to my family, friends and Internet Marketing team and then to members of our SEO community.

Using Google+ now over the last four days, here are some tips I would recommend in setting up your Google+ account:

Set-Up Your Google Plus Profile:

To set up your Google Profile click on the profile tab

On the next screen you will see the various posts that you have submitted and on the top right you will see a button “Edit Profile”, click on this button.

The introduction area is perhaps one of the most important areas in your profile where you have an opportunity to tell the world a little bit about yourself.

Also If you have a personal and/or business website that you want to promote be sure to include anchor text keywords and link it to your site in this area.

In the Links area you have another opportunity to add other links to your other social circles and to other websites that are of interest.

After your done editing your profile simply press the “Done Editing” button.

Next you would want to check your profile to make sure how it appears to others, to do this click on the “View profile as..” button and press the button “Anyone on the Web”

Create Your Google Plus Vanity URL:

Google does not yet allow you to create a vanity URL inside Google+ and there are several vanity URL shortening websites like Gplus.to, however I would not recommend using them.

Gplus is a service that is hiding their Whois info and based in Turkey.

By using their service to 301 your Gplus domain they could in effect hijack it.

Instead consider doing a 301 on your own site, something that you have control of.

Invite Your Friends to Google Plus

Google+ wouldn’t be any fun to use without having friends to interact with and here is the easiest way to add them

Add all the email addresses you would like to invite using your Gmail or Yahoo account.
If you also want to invite your Facebook friends you will first have to export them into your Yahoo mail account.

Then go to your Google+ account and click on the “Circles” link and create a new circle. If you’re importing your Facebook friends consider naming the circle “Facebook”

Create Google Plus Circles

One of the coolest features in Google+ is “Circles” which provides you the ability to segment your contacts into different circles.

However don’t make the same mistake I first did in creating too many as they become very difficult to manage and Interact with, right now I’m down to 8.

Make your Circles simple and easy to understand such as friends, family, clients, co-workers, etc.

A contact can be added to multiple circles at one time, but one thing to understand, just because you created a circle for your friend Joe, doesn’t mean that he had added you to their circle of friends.

Google Plus Content Delivery to Your Contacts:

The methods of control you have in distributing your content to the various circles of friends that you have are incredible and somewhat overwhelming until you understand the different options

• Public: When you post a comment that is public it will be distributed to everyone who has included you in one of their circles AND anyone that has viewed your profile, even though they may have not included you into any of their circles.
• Your Circles: Everyone that is in at least one of your circles
• Extended Circles: Everyone who is in a circle of someone that is in one of your circles.
• Specific Circles: You can select specific circles of contacts, lets say family members who you want to send out a message too.
• Specific Contacts: By mentioning someone by name using the @ symbol with their username or email address, you can send out a personal message.

Turn OFF Google Plus email Notification:

You will be flooded with email notifications from Google+ if you do not set your delivery options up properly.

To do this first click on the gear icon to the right of your name in the top right corner.

Then set-up your preferences for email notification.

Edit Your Google + Privacy Settings

You may want to edit your privacy settings in Google +, to do so click on the gear icon again next to your user name and click on Google + settings.

Next go to the left navigation menu and press the Profile and privacy link.

Here you can manage your circle of contacts, edit your network visibility, who can share your posts and more…

Do you have any Google Plus tips that you would like to share with our community or would you like a Google Plus invite?

If so add your tips to the comment area below and if you are requesting a Google Plus invite, please include your full name so I can send the invite to Google Plus.