Add a Google+ Share Button to your WordPress site!
At the moment Google+ does not offer a social button for people to share a URL to their Google+ profile. The only option to share a URL is to copy and paste the URL, go to plus.google.com and paste it into the share section of your stream.
I found this very annoying, which led me to figure out how to do this in an unofficial way. On 9th August 2011 I wrote a post on State of Search on how I did this and how you can add it to your own site. As soon as it was published I realised the need to build a WordPress plugin for this functionality.
Installation:
- Download the plugin direct from the Plugin Page at WordPress.
- Upload the whole plugin folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
- Go to the Plugins page and activate the plugin
- Insert the shortcode!
Using the Shortcode:
You must use the Google+ Share Button as a shorrtcode only (for now). Enter the following shortcode within a page, post or text widget. Here’s an example:
[gplusbutton]
will output this:
[gplusbutton]
Options:
At the moment there’s only one custimsation, but soon there will be more:
FAQ:
Why does it look so basic?
Because this functionality isn’t official, I have had to use the mobile version of Google+ to make this plugin work. This is the only way unfortunately 
Can I enter my own Message?
Not yet, but it will be available in the next update.
How can I implement this directly into my WordPress theme?
To enter the shortcode directly into templates using PHP, enter
echo do_shortcode('[gplusbutton]');
Maintained by Alex Moss
Alex is a partner at Pleer. He has worked in SEO for over 5 years and has been messing with HTML since he was 13. Alex is known mostly for his WordPress plugins, and contributes to Econsultancy, 123Reg, State of Search and many more.
