Google+ badges: Drive Engagement with Your Users on Google+, Right from Your Own Website

UPDATE (11/16/11): The Google+ badge is now out of preview and available to all users on all sites.


On Monday we launched Google+ Pages, to help people connect with all the things they care about -- and lots of businesses and brands have already created pages. One item you may have missed in the initial announcement was the project I worked on, the Google+ badge. The Google+ badge helps you grow your audience on Google+ and show more recommendations in Google search by letting people add you to their circles and +1 your page, all without leaving your site.

Today, we officially begin our roll out of that badge by making it available to our Google+ platform preview group. To get the badge, sign up for the group and then visit our configuration tool and choose the badge size that’s best for your site. If you’re in the group, you may also begin to encounter the badge as you browse around the web.

By using the Google+ badge to connect your website to your Google+ page, you:

• make it easy for your audience to subscribe to your posts and endorse and share your site. 
• get more personal recommendations around the web, by connecting +1’s for your website with +1’s on your Google+ page. 
• qualify for Google+ Direct Connect, which lets people type +your_site_name on Google search and automatically start following your page.

We’d love to hear any feedback, so please let us know what you think -- join us in the Google+ Developers forum and follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Todd Volkert, Technical lead, Google+ badge